DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters
are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc and Viacom. The story contents are the
creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2022 by Djinn. This story
is Rated R.
It's in the Spaces Between That We Fall in
Love
by Djinn
Part 2: How We Fell Apart
He is in his quarters when
Christine comes to him after the Captain's Dinner. She is in a dress he loves
on her, the dress she wore when she first hit him on the head as she gave him
relationship advice—black and white, elegant and definitively human. Her hair
is up. Her make-up is subdued to let her natural beauty show through.
She smiles in the way she
used to, when there was no need to hide feelings they
were both willing to pretend did not exist. "Hi."
"Good evening."
"I've had a chance to
think." She holds her hand out to him. "Get changed."
He is still in uniform. He is
not sure he wishes to change. "Why?"
"I've never been
conventional, Spock. So what if I can't ever be your
wife—or your bondmate, which as I said, sounds a
little intrusive. I'll be like Madame de Pompadour. If I'm to be your mistress,
then I'll be a very public one. Starting tonight, when we will go the lounge
and sit for a few minutes talking with our heads close together so the rumor
mill can get going."
He does not have the heart to
tell her the rumor mill long ago placed them together. Vulcan hearing is, at
times, a curse.
"Are you sure you want
this?"
"I want you. Seems clear
to me."
"You
say that now. But...I foresee difficulties." The captain, for one. He is a
great champion of T'Pring. Might he send Christine away if he does not like the
decisions Spock is making?
Could he stand that? Losing
one more thing after Sybok, Michael, Hemmer, now Number One?
"You're not getting
changed."
"You cannot be a public
mistress, Christine." He must be logical in the extreme. She is analytical
in nature; she will understand. "First, T'Pring is secure she has won. If
you and I are seen flaunting our relationship, she will take it as a
humiliation. I may well find myself at Ankeshtan K'Til as a result."
"Who would tell her?"
"She has friends on
board. One of them is the captain. What if he sent you away to stop us?"
What if in the process, Spock lost his friendship? Now, when they both need
each other so badly?
She sits in a chair heavily.
Her exuberance is gone. She runs her hand down the front of her dress and says,
"Stupid."
"Not at all. I
appreciate it."
"But if we have to sneak
around, you won't see me like this. Because where am I going dressed all fancy?
What story am I supposed to give someone?" She looks down.
"You could keep some
things here."
"And play dress up for
you?" She stands and heads for the door.
"Is that it? You will
not consider other options?"
She stops but does not turn
around. "I will. But I had this all figured out—I thought. And I liked it.
I'm not sure I like the idea of sneaking around."
"Of course. I am sorry I
am suggesting it."
She finally does turn. He
expects her to be crying but she is not. "But that's how it will have to be,
right? The only way I can have you?"
"I believe so. Perhaps,
in time, when the insult to T'Pring is not so fresh, she will relent and let me
go."
"You're an idiot if you
believe that. She will never let you go."
He starts to get up, but she
stops him with a move of her hand. "No, I get to think about this."
She turns and walks out of
his quarters.
He feels bereft. This is what
T'Pring intended though. If he wishes to have a woman in his life, close and
supportive, he must choose her. He must return to Vulcan and marry her.
But he does not want to. Not
now that he has tasted what happiness might feel like.
He will wait for Christine to
consider her options.
##
His sight is coming in and out
and his abdomen hurts. He thinks he is bleeding because someone is pressing
near where his heart would be and Chris is saying, "Hang in there, buddy.
Come on, Spock. Hang in there."
He wants to say he will. That
he will not leave him, but then the transporter takes them and the green sky of
the world where the mission has gone terribly wrong is replaced by the ceiling
of the medical transporter pad.
He sees Christine's face
above him and then it all goes black.
A moment later he is shocked
back into consciousness. "Stay with us," she says, and her voice
holds more than just concern.
"I love you," he
tries to say but it comes out as just a jumbled stream of sound as he finds he
is choking on something—his own blood?
He can see her and then he
can't, everything is going black.
"Bypass now,"
someone else calls and for a moment he cannot feel his heart beat, he can sense
that no blood is running through is veins. Until the machine takes over,
pushing it fast—too fast—but he feels her hand on his forehead and she murmurs,
"Don't fight it, Spock. Let us help you."
He would let her do anything.
He stares up at her, at her beautiful eyes—eyes he has dreamed of seeing above
him but in different circumstances—and quits fighting.
"Good."
"Stay up there with him,
Christine." M'Benga sounds worried. The wounds to his abdomen—to his
heart—must be severe for him to sound so concerned.
She is smiling tenderly and
she leans in and says, "I love you. Don't leave me."
And he wants to say it back
and to promise he won't leave her, but he feels weightless, as if part of
himself is floating.
"We're losing him,
Christine. Keep him with us." He can feel M'Benga working faster, but he
can only see her.
"We don't have to be
public." She is whispering now and he makes a moan that is meant to be,
"Yes."
"We can sneak
around—maybe it'll be fun. I just want to be with you."
He does manage to say,
"Yes," this time.
"Vitals
stabilizing," a new voice says—some other nurse. They know Christine is
best up here, keeping him grounded, keeping him with her.
He thinks M'Benga may
understand what is going on quite well.
"I'll be yours,
Spock." She leans in and he feels her lips on his cheek, warm and loving,
but he can also feel the worry from her touch.
The near panic she has pushed
down.
I will not die, he tries to send her. But he is not touching her meld
points and she has pulled away.
And then he hears M'Benga say
he is closing, and there is the sound of a hypospray and he is gone, floating
peacefully into sleep, her eyes the last thing he sees.
And the first thing. He wakes
to find her holding his hand.
She tries to pull away.
"I know we have to hide."
He does not let go.
"This is comfort. Surely that cannot be criticized." His voice is
gravelly and his throat hurts.
She seems to know he is
thirsty and brings him an ice stick to suck on.
Then he holds his hand back
out. "I find it both comforting and grounding. You may always do this. I
do not care what others say."
She takes it, and he feels
the relief and the love she is feeling.
"Christine, I wish...I
wish I could offer you more."
"We're friends now.
People are used to seeing us together. So that doesn't have to change, Spock.
We can be lovers in private."
"Yes." But he is
falling asleep again.
"Don't fight it."
Her grip on his tightens.
He does not. When he wakes,
she is still there.
##
Chris throws him a Captain's
Dinner. He does not invite Christine, and Spock does not think he should press
since the other nurse is not invited. M'Benga is there, though. Given credit
for saving him.
"To be honest,"
M'Benga says as they sit around the counter. "I think Christine had as
much to do with Spock's survival as I did."
Chris looks directly at
Spock. "Is that so?"
"She is important to
me." He says it in rebellion, the same way he would have to his father.
"Seems to me you have a
woman on Vulcan who should be more important to you."
"She is rarely on
Vulcan."
Chris smiles but not in an
amused way. In a way that says he sees what Spock is doing, trying to deflect.
"You know what I mean."
"Christine is a valued
friend." He feels that this is not the way a party for him should be
going. He sees Ortegas studying him—why is she here and not Christine? He
spends virtually no private time with her, nor with Kirk who is also here.
He is glad when the dinner
breaks up earlier than most. His fault, no doubt, as he defaults to what most
people expect from a Vulcan: awkward silence.
But he wants to see her—he
wants to have her. And he has been cleared for all types of duty.
And pleasure, by extension.
He comms her as soon as he is
in his quarters. She does not answer. He tries again a few moment
later in case she was occupied. She still does not answer.
Where is she?
He goes to the lounge, and
sees her with a man he does not know. They are only talking, but the man
clearly wants more. He is leaning in, his smile too wide with many teeth
showing.
Spock debates what to do and
finally walks over to her. She looks up, her expression unreadable, and says,
"You're here."
"Dinner was not the same
without you." He knows it is ill advised to announce a connection with her
this way to what may be a rival. But he cannot fight the urge.
Her eyes widen and her smile
is a real one. She turns to the man. "I'm sure you'll find more
interesting company than me."
He looks like he finds that
highly unlikely.
As they walk out of the
lounge, she says, "The longer I sat in my quarters, the worse the fact
that I wasn't invited to dinner got." She stops him. "The captain
doesn't like us together, does he?"
"I believe he does not.
He is a friend of T'Pring."
She looks as if this is not a
surprise. "I wanted to be waiting for you. But my resentment was going to
start festering if I just hung out thinking. So I had
to find people."
"Don't you mean you had
to find a male?"
She sighs, as if he is
exhausting her. "He found me. I was just sitting at the bar minding my own
business. And was I supposed to tell him I'm with someone if we can't be
public? How logical is that?"
She was right of course.
Still, he did not like to see her with someone else.
She stops and it takes him a
moment to realize she is not with him, that he should go back to her.
"This isn't romantic,
Spock."
He studies her carefully, the
way she is holding herself, the set of her mouth. "Did you want it to be?
I am a Vulcan; I have limited experience with romance."
"Especially with a
human, right?"
He nods.
"Have you ever been with
a human?"
"I have not."
"So
I'll be your first. Small victories, I guess." She pushes past him and
waits at the lift for him.
"Perhaps your
quarters?" he says softly.
"Yours are nicer."
"The captain
occasionally will show up unannounced."
He can nearly feel the anger
rising up in her. She backs away from the lift and stares at him, her gaze so
controlled it has to be that she is desperately trying to keep control—to not
make a scene.
"We haven't even started
and this is hurting me."
"I regret that."
She puts her hand up. "This
is what it is. I get that. But...let's not start it tonight, after you've been
somewhere I wasn't invited even though I think I would have been before."
"Are you changing your
mind?"
"I don't know. What I do
know is I'm saying not tonight."
He feels a surge of
disappointment—and annoyance. They have planned this.
But he merely nods and says,
"As you wish."
"Don't. Don't say that.
Because I wish we could go back in the lounge and you would put your hand on
the small of my back and we could talk to our friends as a couple. I'd like to
dance"—she holds up a hand—"I know you don't dance, but I'd like
to."
"You seemed very sure
when you were telling me to hold on during the surgery."
"I was sure then. I
didn't want you to die. But this...I'm not sure the woman I am—that I happen to
like—will survive this."
She turns and leaves him. She
is clearly headed back to the lounge.
Will she find that male
again? Will she bring him back to her quarters?
He is clenching his fingers
so hard it hurts. Yet he cannot stop.
It takes everything in him
not to follow her and drag her out of the lounge, to his bed—but then he would
be no better than the man who tried to drug her.
She has said no. He has to
respect that.
##
He finds her in the mess at
breakfast. She looks as if she has not slept.
"May I join you?"
he asks as soon as he has filled his tray.
She nods and he sits.
"Are you sure about sitting with me, though? We can't be seen together too
much, right? I mean if we can't fuck in your quarters."
He looks around but she has
chosen a table in a barely populated area—had she been waiting for him?
"I suppose we can't go
out to eat when we're on shore leave?" Her voice seems dangerous, like
T'Pring's was at the end, waiting for him to make a mistake in how he replies.
He shrugs, uncertain how
leave will play out.
"And holidays—if you
even celebrate them—won't be together." She is pushing food around on her
plate rather than eating. "I didn't think this through. I was so enamored
with the idea of having you, that I lost sight of what I'd be giving up."
He does not know what to say.
"I'll disappear if we do
this. I watched a friend do it. She was having an affair with a prof of ours.
Only she never told me. The secret—it ate at our friendship. It changed
everything. And she changed—the life went out of her the longer she was with
him."
"Perhaps if we were
actually to be intimate, the cost would not seem so high. You and I still have
roles on this ship that are rewarding. We will still be friends—as we are now,
eating breakfast."
"Or it would just get
emptier." She meets his eyes. "Would you spend the nights?"
He has not thought that far
ahead. Although it does not seem prudent to be gone from his quarters that
long.
"I'll take that as a no.
Do you want my opinion on your relationship with T'Pring, Spock?"
He shrugs, unsure if he does.
"Marry her. Because she's
got you tied in knots as it is. At least then she'd let up and you'd have some
freedom."
"And would I have you,
then?"
"No. Have you not been
listening?"
"I have, but I am
confused, Christine. You are with me and then you are not. You say things to
keep me from dying—were they lies? I care for you. Do you care for me?"
"I don't think caring
for each other is really up for debate here. I'll always love you. But...what I
thought I wanted with you sounds pretty empty right now as the details fall into
place."
"If we just
tried..."
"You actually think
fucking each other will make everything better? It doesn't. It makes it worse.
Especially if it's good. Yes, please, let's bring a lovely warm light to shine
on all the shit that surrounds us."
He does not like having a
possible relationship with him being referred to as excrement. "I can see
you are upset this morning. We can revisit this later, after shift."
"I have a call with
Stanford." There is something in her voice that says he should pay attention
to her.
"Why?"
"Because we have enough
field-testing data and there are nurses I've trained
to do the disguises. Maybe it's time for me to go back to where the magic
happens, not be out here in the academic netherworld."
He cannot believe what she is
saying: she will leave him. Before they have even had a chance to try?
"No," he says so
softly, but it has a quality of a little boy, the little boy he was when his
brother disappeared. The little boy he felt like when Michael disappeared.
"Do not leave me."
"I always said if I
settled down it would have to be for the right man. But maybe what I meant was the
right man in the right situation. You are the right man, Spock. I mean that
sincerely. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. But I just can't do
this."
"You have already
decided."
"Yes."
He stands and feels a rush of
dizziness. Picking up his tray, he carefully nudges his chair back in with his
hip. "I wish you every success, Nurse Chapel."
"And I you, Mister
Spock."
##
He sees her at the trial for
Number One. She is standing next to a man who is also a witness for their side.
They stand very close and they laugh easily together. He knows that laugh. He
knows the proximity of her when she is intrigued and engaged. He knows what she
looks like when she is in love.
She is in love now.
Chris sees him looking and
says, "That's Doctor Korby. Apparently he was a
professor of Christine's early in her academic career. Amazing they should find
each other again." His smile holds no malice. Christine left the ship and
all is well—his world is, at times, a very simple place.
She finds Spock when the day
is over, tells Korby to wait and comes to talk to him. "I hope we
helped."
"I believe you
did." He studies her; she is as lovely as he remembers. Then he sees the
ring and takes her hand and holds it up. "You are engaged?"
"I'm sorry." Her
eyes are full of something he cannot fully understand.
"Were you involved with
him before?"
"No. He was my teacher
and I looked up to him. We had a great rapport. But nothing happened. But
working on this—with him at Stanford now. It just happened."
"Like we just happened."
He looks down. He cannot stand the sight of the tastefully sized diamond on
fingers that once touched him so lovingly.
"Don't you want me to be
happy?"
"I do. But I also wanted
you to be with me. Happily with me."
"Has anything
changed?"
He shakes his head, still not
meeting her gaze. It is too much, to look into her eyes and see not welcome,
but caution.
"I love him."
He finally does look up,
meets her eyes, and moves closer. Her pupils dilate and he can tell she is
aroused by how close he is standing, by the way he is pushing back a strand of
hair that has worked its way loose from the updo she wears. "Which of us,
Christine, are you trying to convince?"
And then he turns on his heel
and leaves her to her new man.