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Jim watched the stars streak by en route to Vulcan, unable to shake the conviction that something was very wrong. Not just Spock's illness -- if pon farr could be called an illness -- but something new, waiting to make a bad situation worse.
Uhura stepped down next to him and handed him a PADD.
"Report, sir," she said. He looked down at the PADD -- blank, and flicked his eyes up to her questioningly. She murmured, very low, "Is Mr. Spock all right?" He shook his head, quick and tiny, and she bit her lip. He raised his eyebrows a touch, and she drew herself up and said, still very quietly, "A private transmitter on Vulcan sent a message for Mr. Spock. He took it from his quarters, and afterward, sent two transmissions to other transmitters, one private, one the governmental transmitter for the High Council. The private one was rejected; the other he spoke to for some time." His stomach gave a sick lurch, and he had no idea what his face looked like, but she squeezed his arm, and took the PADD back. "Whatever's going on, I want to help." She raised her voice to a normal volume. "Thank you, Captain."
"My pleasure, Lieutenant," he said. "Mr. Sulu, you have the conn."
Inside Spock's quarters, Spock looked defeated; his head bowed, shoulders slumped, hands folded in his lap. "You may as well set course for Altair," he said, before Jim could say anything. "There is nothing for me on Vulcan."
Jim leaned against the room divider. "What happened?" he said.
Spock took a deep, slow breath. "My wife contacted me," he said. "She will--" His voice broke. "She informed me of her intent to divorce by challenge."
"She's going to make you fight?" He wondered if Spock would still be married if he won; what the rules were, if your wife wanted a divorce and you were dying.
"It is her right," Spock said. He did look at Jim, then, his eyes hazy, not quite focused. "I will not force her. And so I will die. Set course for Altair, and at least let me die where I have chosen to live."
Jim went to stand next to his chair, and laid one hand on Spock's shoulder. Through his uniform, Spock's skin was too warm -- feverish, even for a Human, far higher than Spock's usual 33C. "Spock," he said, softly, and Spock stirred, blinking up at him with those unfocused eyes. "Isn't there anyone on board who--" He broke off, not sure what, precisely, he was asking, but then finished, "--who could help?"
Spock's eyelashes were dark against his skin. "Two that I think I could bear," he said, reluctantly.
"Two," Jim said. "Could you ask one of them? Or both?"
"No," said Spock. He straightened, and Jim could see what effort it cost him. "It is -- there is a thing which happens to Vulcans at this time. Almost an insanity, which they would no doubt find distasteful. And when it is over -- it is not a matter of seeing me through something brief. It is a marriage. And divorce is difficult. Often impossible." He tipped his chin up; he was trembling, very slightly, under Jim's hand. "And as I mentioned before, Vulcan marriages involve telepathic bonds."
Jim said, "Come on, who'd object to your mind? I'm sure it's fascinating." He paused, remembering that Spock's wife must've had that kind of connection with him, and she'd just asked for a divorce. Something -- grief? -- flickered over Spock's face, and Jim decided to work the problem. "Let's talk options. Who are they?" Spock only shook his head, and Jim thought about the officers Spock spent time with, that he seemed to like, that he spoke well of unprompted. "Uhura? You almost never shut her down when she flirts with you, and I know you know how to shut people down."
Spock sighed. "Yes, one of them is Miss Uhura. But I dare not--" He cleared his throat. "She is very beautiful, and her mind is soothing. I am -- attracted. But she and I have never discussed any -- I do not know what her career plans are, Jim, nor if she wants children, nor if she is interested in anything other than flirtation. She would almost certainly agree, if I asked her, because she would not see me die if she could help me." He slumped again; his head lolled, chin falling to his chest. "And then I would have trapped her, and she and I would both have to live with that, the rest of our lives."
"And the other person?" Jim persisted, still sorting through possibilities. Nurse Chapel would be willing, he was sure, but somehow he did not think she was one of the people Spock had said he could tolerate. That he'd be able to bear. What a low bar that was for a partner, and yet how few people on board could meet it.
"That person, I do know the answers to all my questions, except one," Spock said. His breath was rougher, now, his words more graveled.
"What question is that?" Jim said, and Spock opened his eyes and looked up at him, serious and fighting some internal battle, and Jim could almost feel the moment Spock decided to stop fighting and just speak, like a stuck valve releasing, all at once, inevitable and half-broken.
"The one question," Spock said, and his voice was very low, "is, 'will you have me, Jim?'"
"What?" Jim said, startled, and felt Spock flinch under his fingers. He went to one knee, quickly, and put his hand over Spock's hands, still laced in Spock's lap, and held him tightly; Spock tugged at their joined hands. He was more than strong enough to break Jim's hold, but instead he gave up after only a few tries. "Spock." Spock's eyes were shut tight, and the trembling was stronger, now. The odd, pleasant hum Jim had often noticed when he touched Spock's hands -- some Vulcan thing, he assumed -- was discordant today, perhaps reflecting Spock's unease.
"You don't want children," Spock said, which is not what Jim had expected him to say, although he didn't know what he had expected. "Neither do I. You want to -- you have expressed to me, many times, that you hope we will spend the rest of our Starfleet careers together." He breathed out, shaky. Jim thought of Edith, her head tilted, eyes on Spock, the speculative tone of her voice as she said "at his side, as if you've always been there and always will be." Spock breathed in, more steadily, and cleared his throat. "You are lonely," he said, very low. "You wish you could have someone to--" He stopped, and tried to pull his hands away again. Jim caught his wrist, as he'd caught his hand the day before, and Spock stilled; Jim rested his other hand on Spock's knee, and Spock made a wounded sound, uncontrolled. "I, also," he said, "am lonely. And I thought. Perhaps. Neither of us need be lonely, anymore."
Jim pressed his mouth to Spock's knuckles and said, soft and steady, "Will I need to take personal leave for this?"
Spock shook his head, once. "I -- resolution takes, on average, two to three hours."
Jim stood, and squeezed Spock's shoulder, then activated the intercom. "Bridge. This is Kirk. Set course for Altair VI."
"Acknowledged," said Uhura, and he clicked it off.
"I'll be here one hour after the end of alpha shift," he said, to Spock's bowed head, to the thin and graceful curve of Spock's ear. "You'll be ready?"
Spock nodded, the barest movement, his eyes still shut, obviously exhausted and in pain. Jim didn't know how he would have held on the thirty-five more hours until Vulcan, but now he wouldn't need to. "Three hours, twenty-one minutes," he said. "You'll be all right, until then?"
Spock nodded again, and Jim left him there.
He headed straight for sickbay. "We're resolving Spock's problem on-ship," he said, to McCoy, who predictably erupted about it: hadn't Jim said Spock was worth a career? And now he was changing his mind? And hadn't Spock said the only way was to go to Vulcan--
"Bones," Jim said. "His wife divorced him. Over subspace. Not even two hours ago. He can't -- there's --"
McCoy sat down heavily. "His wife." He rubbed one hand over his face. "I thought it had to be something like that," he said, after a moment. "A mating cycle of some kind. There wasn't anything else that made sense, with the biochemical profile I was seeing." He was silent, and then said, "Hell of a time to divorce a man."
Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. "He said divorce is hard, on Vulcan. Maybe she couldn't. I don't know. He told me yesterday that in the distant past, you might have to fight to win the right to marry. I guess that's still how they divorce, from what he said." He sighed; he had a headache that had started up almost as soon as he'd left Spock's quarters. "I don't know. At least she gave him a heads-up about it. Which is probably more than she had to do, if she's supposed to divorce him by combat." He was trying not to think ill of a woman he had never met, whose only real crime was not wanting a man who had given his life to Starfleet. What sort of marriage had that been? None of his former lovers had wanted it, either.
"So how are we going to resolve this? I could maybe try some inverse agonists for the hormonal receptors, but--"
"Bones," Jim said, and saw the moment McCoy realized what he meant.
"Uh," said McCoy. "Are you...?" He licked his lips, nervously. "Jim, he could seriously hurt you."
"I don't think he will," Jim said. "Or at least. He says Vulcan marriage involves telepathy--"
"Marriage!" McCoy stared at him, his throat working for a moment before he managed, "Dammit, Jim." He shook his head. "Well, if anyone can tolerate a lifetime hitched to Spock, it's probably you."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jim said.
McCoy frowned at him. "About him hurting you--"
"Bones--"
"--look, I don't know details, but let's assume he needs to be the penetrative partner here. Have you ever--"
Jim frowned at him. "It's been a while. I'll be fine. I know the drill: go slow--"
"And if he can't go slow?"
Jim would much rather not have this conversation, but McCoy was right; it was better to be prepared. "All right, you're the doctor, Doctor. What do you recommend?"
Jim pressed the buzzer outside of Spock's quarters one minute earlier than he'd said he would. If he was all nerves, he couldn't imagine how Spock was feeling, and he couldn't shake the memory of how Spock had looked that morning, asking to die on the Enterprise.
He wasn't going to die today, if Jim had anything to say about it. And anyway, Jim had already done the assigned reading from McCoy, and the somewhat-uncomfortable prep work in his own cabin, and told Scotty not to bother him until tomorrow morning unless the ship was about to explode. There wasn't any reason to wait that last, agonizing minute.
"Come," said Spock, and Jim stepped inside.
Spock stood up from his desk when Jim entered, his hands clasped behind his back. He'd smashed his terminal at some point, the duraplastic crumpled like paper. "Jim," Spock said, and he sounded -- not like himself. He was trembling all over, and no longer bothering to hide it; perhaps he could not longer hide it.
"You asked if I would have you," Jim said. "So I'm here, as I said I would be. What do you need?"
Spock swallowed hard, struggling with something -- to speak coherently, perhaps. To explain what he needed. "The -- initiation of sexual contact will bring on the blood fever. From then, anywhere from one to four hours will pass before it is over. There will -- I will meld with you beforehand, to set the initial bond, but there will be sustained mental contact. Intercourse will be. Not what you are used to." He shuddered, eyes tightly shut. "Different. I -- it shouldn't be violent. I cannot guarantee it will be -- pleasant." He stopped, and breathed for a few seconds. "Once the blood fever starts, I will not be able to speak. But I will -- still respond, after a fashion. If you--" He looked away, swallowed hard again, then continued. "If you need me to stop. The word is kroykah. Desist immediately. It will hold me, for a time at least. Long enough for you to get away."
"I won't need to get away," Jim said. "Spock. I know you."
"How can you," said Spock, "when right now I do not even know myself?"
Jim took his hand, that familiar, strong, long-boned hand, and pressed it to his heart; he felt again the discordant hum between them. "You've hurt me before," he said, steadily. "But only when you were angry, and I'd deliberately provoked you." Spock's fingers flexed against his chest, his eyes fixed on his hand against Jim's body. "There's no need for anger here, Spock. I'm not going to provoke you. We're working together towards a common goal. We've always been able to trust that, haven't we?"
For a moment, those hazy, feverish, unSpocklike eyes focused on his face, and Spock nodded. "Yes," he said.
Jim released his hand, and stepped back. "A meld, you said?"
"Yes."
"And a bond," Jim said, "a marriage bond."
"Yes."
"That's what you need mentally." Jim was reluctant to go on, but McCoy had pointed out that one uncomfortable conversation early on could prevent a host of miscommunications. "Can we talk about what you need physically?"
Spock was sickly-pale beneath the flush high on his cheekbones, but he, too, could see the logic in the question. "Penetrative intercourse is required to resolve the fever," he said. "Due to. Necessary stimulation of the genital telepathic nodes. I don't. I do not know. If." He sat down, suddenly, gracelessly. "I know that if the Vulcan is the penetrative partner, the connection can be strong enough for resolution with a psi-null partner. I do not know if it can be--"
"The other way around?" Jim raised his eyebrows. "Well. That's all right, Spock. If I'd objected to that I wouldn't've agreed in the first place." Spock focused on him again, briefly. Jim added, "I prepared for that. I'll be fine."
Spock nodded, and shoved himself to his feet. "Let us meld, then," he said.
The meld was-- Jim had no idea how to describe the meld. Both McCoy and Dr. Van Gelder had told him about the one Spock had performed with Van Gelder, and he'd read Spock's log of the event. It had sounded awkward and unpleasant, and he'd been braced for that; he thought Spock had, too, though he couldn't've said how he knew that.
This was like sliding into a warm bath, or being held down by a lover, or stretching oneself awake in a sunbeam. Spock touched something, wonder and fear and puzzlement threading through their joined minds like ink through water, motes in sun, silver birds singing in the scrub.
What is it? Jim thought, and Spock said, T'Pring was right to divorce me -- Jim, I do not need to bond us. We are already --
The words came, Vulcan and Standard tumbling over each other all at once and forever: Dashal etek eh dahshauk worla -- parted from me and never parted -- worla heh kwon-sum estuhl heh estuhlik -- never and always touching and touched --
Jim thought, dizzily, somewhere beyond confusion or elation, nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing--
"Yes," said Spock, aloud. "Jim. We are already bonded. I did not know."
Jim laughed, and the meld faded; Spock dropped his hand. "Probably for the best, all things considered," Jim said, lightly, and Spock stepped back and sat down once more in his desk chair. He curled in on himself, his breathing ragged, his fingers flexing over and over in his lap, his palms turned upwards.
"I did not know," he said, again.
Jim wondered how often anyone had seen Spock vulnerable, but he seemed horribly so, now, in the ebb of the meld, as though every weakness he had were exposed in this moment. It struck him, all at once, that this was Spock after days of war with his own body, almost a different man from the one he knew and relied upon.
"Is that what the hum is?" he asked, as the connection clicked in his brain. Spock looked up at him. "When we touch hands," Jim clarified.
Spock made that expression that served him for a frown: a slight, quizzical drawing-together of the eyebrows, and sat up. He leaned forward and steepled his hands on the desk. "How long have you been able to sense that?" There was something of Spock's normal self in the question, that sharp mind focusing on a problem to be solved.
Jim said, "I don't know. Months, at least."
Spock said, "It is a spontaneous bond. Unsettled. After this, it will be different. The hum you describe may vanish." He reached for the destroyed terminal, no doubt to look something up in the computer banks, and stopped, exhaled sharply. "You are sensing telepathic energy moving between us. That will happen -- during, as well. More intensely." He closed his eyes and slumped back, the pon farr reasserting itself.
Jim watched him for a few moments, concerned, and thought, initiation of sexual contact. Spock had said it would trigger something -- blood fever? -- and Jim knew, somehow, without knowing how he knew, that Spock would not initiate it. That he was too ashamed, or perhaps too frightened of hurting Jim, and he would rather die than do something Jim did not want. McCoy had said, "Try to keep control. See if you can lead him," and Jim had dismissed the suggestion immediately. Spock was as far from a natural follower as a person could be. He was demanding and flinty, under a veil of politesse which he would shed the moment he decided he owed you no respect; as a subordinate, he was nearly as likely to offer an objection as support. And yet -- he did respect Jim. Jim suspected that he enjoyed putting his strength at Jim's disposal, and it was his strength that was a danger now.
Jim said, as calmly as he could, "Spock," and Spock raised his head, blinking slowly. He was trembling again. Jim cupped the back of his head, stroked a finger along his neck, and then gripped his shoulders firmly for an instant before letting him go. "Keep your eyes on me," he said, and skinned out of his tunic, his undershirt; unfastened his trousers and stepped out of them and his underwear at the same time. Spock's eyes were fixed on his face, his lips parted. Jim folded his clothes neatly on Spock's desk.
"You should undress," he said.
Spock undressed, and placed his folded clothes next to Jim's. His eyes found Jim's face again; his lok -- McCoy had made Jim look up Vulcan anatomy, and the physical similarities and rhyming names of lok and cock had made Jim laugh helplessly into his hands -- curving up towards his stomach, sticky-wet and flushed a dusky blue, the wings of his mortra folded back around it.
"Go into the bedroom," Jim said, and followed Spock there. "Sit down on the bed." Spock sat, and looked up at him.
"Do Vulcans kiss?" Jim asked.
"Not as Humans do," Spock rasped.
"Show me," Jim said, and Spock held up one hand, fingers divided, palm out. Jim pressed his hand to it, unable to split his fingers in the same way, but matching him as best he could. Spock's hand vibrated under his, and a burning-bright flash of telepathic energy ran up his arm; Spock turned his hand, his palm to the back of Jim's hand, and it happened again.
"Jim," Spock said, his voice shaking. "Go now, if you do not want this."
Jim took Spock's hand and raised it to his mouth, kissed Spock's fingertips, and watched as Spock vanished behind his eyes: whatever, whoever, was there now was beyond words, beyond thought. He probably should have been more frightened than he was, but he had to keep his head. He stepped in close and straddled Spock's thighs, sliding his knees onto the bed on either side of Spock's hips.
Spock made a soft, broken sound against his chest. "Move back," Jim said. "I'm with you." Spock slid one arm around Jim's waist and pulled him along as he moved backwards up the bed. His skin was scorching hot, and he was shaking, and Jim could feel more of those telepathic sparks jolting through them both: flashes of fear, and desire, and a kind of heartrending, desperate trust. The bond roiled in the back of his head; he guessed it must be doing the same inside Spock's head. "I'm with you," he repeated, and pressed one hand to the center of Spock's chest; pushed him back to reclining. "Put your hands on my thighs," he said, and Spock did. "Keep them there," Jim said. "Keep your eyes on me." He reached for Spock's lok, and stroked it; it was slick and hot in his hand. It had been a long time since he'd done this, and he was abruptly, absurdly grateful that McCoy had made him study up. "Hold still," he said, to Spock, whose thighs had tensed beneath him. "Let me do this."
Spock let him, his fingertips stroking Jim's thighs as Jim carefully, awkwardly, worked the lok into his body. Jim kept one hand on his chest; Spock could easily take his weight, and it seemed to ground the sparks of telepathy, smoothing them out into something like a running current. Beneath his palm, Spock's breathing was jerky, every inhale somewhere between a whimper and a sob, until they were fully joined.
"All right," Jim said, once he'd had a minute to adjust. "Spock. Take what you need."
Spock surged beneath him, sitting upright and wrapping one arm around Jim's waist, pulling him down hard while his other hand found the meld points on Jim's face. The bond twisted like a live thing and the telepathic connection broke from its smooth current to shudder and crackle along Jim's nerves. He wrapped his arms around Spock's shoulders and held on; Spock had stilled again, only his fingers moving against Jim's cheek, pressing at his nose and forehead and jaw.
It wasn't anything like the earlier meld. Spock's voice had been in that one; his thoughts exhausted but clear. This was--elemental. Sparks, crackling electricity, something growing strong in the dark, illuminated only by flashes.
Outside the meld, nothing moved. Spock remained still for longer than Jim would have thought possible, long enough for Jim's legs to cramp. Jim shifted, trying to ease his quads, and the hand Spock wasn't using to meld clamped down on his thigh hard enough to bruise. The ache spread; the arch of his back began to burn, and still Spock did not move, unless long, rasping breaths counted as moving. Spock's erection throbbed inside of Jim, an odd and vaguely unsettling counterpoint to the stillness of the rest of his body. Jim breathed through the cramping as it spread to his calves and his hips started to ache from being pushed open, and counted time in his head. He didn't know how long it had been, but long. He kept losing track, his mind skittering away from the counted time as the meld whelmed and retreated, then came crashing back, bright and thoughtless and terrible. One to four hours, Spock had said, and Jim's muscles were already shaking with exhaustion. Spock had been right when he'd described it earlier: it wasn't comfortable. It wasn't violent, but it wasn't good, either; it was something outside of good, or bad, something juddering and strange and a little nauseous.
He tucked Spock's head into his chest and rocked them both, gently. The lok inside him slid a little, out and back, and Spock choked and clamped down with his hand again. "I'm not leaving," he said, unsure if Spock could hear him, either inside the meld or out of it. "I'm not leaving," he repeated. "I just need to move a little." He rocked again, and Spock loosened his fingers, slid his arm back up to Jim's waist and held them together. They pressed into each other and then released without ever really drawing back, and the relief of movement was its own kind of exquisite. "I have you," Jim said, letting his mouth drag against Spock's cheekbone.
The current snapped back into place, strong and unrelenting, and Spock cried out, thrusting up hard, his hands landing on Jim's hips. Jim expected the meld to break when Spock's fingers left his face, but it did not: the bond had them now, and the sex went from barely sex at all to fiery licks of pleasure at the base of his spine, to a deep, throbbing sensation that he knew all at once was Spock's orgasm, building in the way Vulcan orgasms built: long and slow contractions of the core muscles, pressure in the chenesi beneath the skin of his back--
Jim leaned down, and slid his hand underneath Spock; the chenesi were swollen and hotter even than the rest of Spock's skin under his touch. He kissed Spock's neck, and Spock arched under him, one hand going to the back of Jim's head. Jim pressed the flat of his hand to one engorged chenesi, and Spock cried out again, louder this time, the full-body ripples of guv-runev shaking him over and over.
The bond slammed Spock's pleasure into Jim full-force, and he came, surprised, gasping, shaking almost as badly as Spock was shaking, and then he blacked out.
Jim came to as Spock was shifting them both to lie on their sides; Spock's skin was sticky, but no longer burning hot. "Hey," he said, and cleared his throat.
Spock tucked him close, Jim's back to his chest, and intertwined their legs. "Jim," he said, sounding more like himself than he had in days.
He'd been doing something. Spock had needed help with something. "You're--"
"Out of danger," Spock said. "The fever is resolved. Your neurotransmitters are depleted. Sleep."
Jim thought Spock might have kissed his shoulder. It didn't seem likely. Spock's hand drifted down his thigh, which also seemed unlikely, but he couldn't, quite, figure out why.
He slept.
Spock woke him by setting a clean uniform down with a thump on the bedcovers. "I have registered our marriage with Starfleet," he said. "Alpha shift starts in one hour. Dr. McCoy requests you see him beforehand. I am still on medical leave, until we get to Altair VI, but I have filed a protest."
Jim blinked up at him, amused. "Right back to business, eh Spock?"
Spock tilted his head, and something that might almost have been a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I see no reason why the addition of a sexual and romantic relationship should change anything else about our lives," he said. "Is that not why we are so suited to each other?"
Jim stood up and drew Spock close by one hand. The hum was indeed gone, as Spock had said it might be, but in its place was a clear sense of Spock himself, calm and fierce and pleased under and against Jim's skin. "It is," he said, and kissed Spock's fingertips until the tips of Spock's ears turned green. "I look forward to you browbeating Bones into ending your leave by tomorrow."
Spock huffed. "Tomorrow? I intend to be back on duty before the second half of alpha." He turned his hand in Jim's, arranged his fingers with the index and middle extended, and stroked them down the back of Jim's hand, which made the sense of him within Jim increase, the connection between them sweet and strong. "Until my meeting with the doctor, I shall be in the lab working on personal projects."
Jim grinned. "I'll see you on the bridge after lunch."
"Yes," Spock said, and now he looked like the cat who got the cream. "You will."