Disclaimer: The characters belong to Paramount, their actions are mine.
Chekhov
was the first to notice the darker outline in the shadows near Uhura’s front
door and then only because the black-clad figure chose that moment to step into
the beam of her porch light.
“Mr. Spock
vhat are you doing here?” Pavel asked
with relief, now moving aside and letting Uhura see who had been standing on
her porch as they returned from her birthday dinner.
“Mr.
Spock, I had no idea you were in town-we’ve just come back from dinner-had we
known you were here--” Ny stammered like a midshipman under the stern scrutiny
of Spock’s silent gaze.
“Commander,
I apologize for my late arrival, but I must speak with you tonight,” Spock
announced in a tone that brooked no refusal and clearly excluded Chekhov from
the conversation.
“Well
then, let’s go inside shall we?” Ny tried to lighten the mood and smooth down
the short hairs standing at the nape of her neck.
“I must
speak with you alone,” Spock replied in the same cold tone, but looked at
Chekhov with clear dismissal.
“Mr.
Spock, there’s no reason to be rude,” Ny started her own challenge. Over the years she had tolerated a lot of
strange behavior from the Vulcan standing before her, but rudeness was not one
of them.
“Nyota,
it’s okay.” Pavel leaned in and kissed Uhura softly on the cheek. “I need to be
going anyway. Happy birthday, Moyo Zolotse,”
he whispered in her ear as he gave the stoic Vulcan a challenging look of his
own. A look that conveyed he was leaving
because he did not want to upset the ending of a beautiful evening more so than
Spock intimidating him.
“Thank you
for dinner, Pasha, I had a wonderful time.” Nyota hugged her old friend enthusiastically,
kissing him back, but on the lips. It
was *her* birthday and she would do as she pleased.
With a
smile of vindication Chekhov nodded to Spock, “Goodnight Ambassador” then
turned and walked away. Spock merely
watched his one-time protégé disappear around the corner of the next brownstone
before following Uhura through her front door.
“May I
take your cloak?” Uhura asked as she stripped off her own wrap. Spock might be uber-Vulcan tonight but she
had no intention of allowing his coldness to affect her good manners.
“Yes,
thank you,” he answered with the first hint of warmth in his voice. Taking his
cloak along with her wrap, Nyota hung them both on the coat tree, studying him
as he moved further into the room. He was clad in unrelenting black and moved
with the sensual grace she always admired.
“May I
make you some tea? If you were out there waiting for very long I’m sure you’ve
gotten a chill.” Ny offered in hope of making him comfortable and possibly
drawing the old Spock she knew and loved out of the hard shell of aloofness
before her now.
“That
would be acceptable,” he answered with a slight bow of his head.
“Good, I’d
like some too. Why don’t you light the
fire while I make the tea.” She motioned toward the fireplace as she moved
toward the kitchen.
By the
time she came from the kitchen with a tray bearing a pot of tea, cups and a
small platter of fruit and bread, the fire was burning nicely. Spock was standing before it, palms
outstretched, his gaze seemingly lost in the flutter of the flames before
sensing her returned presence in the room. Uhura made a show of pouring the tea
as he moved to sit next to her on the sofa.
“I think
you’ll like this blend. A friend brings
it to me on occasion from Rigel Four.” She made small talk, patiently waiting for
Spock to announce why he needed to speak to her so urgently.
“It is
agreeable,” he remarked after a cautious sip, an edge of surprise in his
voice. Ny just smiled and watched as the
warmth of the tea slowly eased some of the rigidity from Spock’s body--not a
spring thaw by any means but a step closer to the easy Vulcan she was used to.
After
finishing his tea, Spock sat the cup down with a sense of dreaded purpose and
Ny’s hackles once again rose from the expectant silence between them.
“Commander—Nyota—“,
Spock began again, fumbling over the familiarity of her given name. “I came to see you tonight in order to
fulfill a promise and deliver a last birthday gift to you from Admiral
Kirk—from Jim.” He spoke the name with gentle sadness as he produced an envelope
from his tunic pocket and held it out to her.
Nyota felt
her heart leap into her throat as his words took on new meaning. She placed a
hand over her chest to hold the wayward organ inside. Now, Spock’s reticence
made sense…now, what had never been discussed between the three of them
ruptured the carefully crafted fallacy that Spock had been ignorant to the
human’s private relationship. She stared
at the parchment envelope in her hands, not remembering taking it from him but
caressing it just the same. A maroon wax seal bearing the Kirk family crest
dared her to peel it away and seek the words inside. As always these past thirty years, he called
to her and she came. From the quiet of
the bridge or the unknown of death, it did not seem to matter.
Her fingers
toying with the seal, she looked up into Spock’s eyes and drew strength to open
the envelope. Gone was the stoic
reserve, replaced by a sympathetic gaze that obviously knew that whatever the
letter said, it could only bring some form of pain. Did he know this from reading something
similar? Her hand trembled as she took a
deep breath and opened the seal. Ny
unfolded the sheet of inner parchment and her eyes immediately grew too bleary
to read as she recognized Jim’s handwritten scrawl—that it was legible meant he
had taken great care to make it so. She
tried to blink back the tears but gave up and just let them flow as she read
the first line.
My Darling Penda,
If
you're reading this letter then it is because I am dead and Spock has brought this
confession to you as a last remembrance from me on your birthday. I know this
because I've always recognized you would both long outlive me. Don't be sad; we
all know I cheated death so many times that my marker would have to be called
in sooner rather than later. I am content with that; it is a fair trade to have
lived the life I lived.
But now, in death, I need to confess many
things I never had the courage to tell you in life. Funny, how the idea of
eternity frees one to speak truths they've seldom chosen to face. How the soul
runs to unburden itself from wrongs never righted and opportunities thought
lost. Please forgive me for not telling you these things in person; I tried to
find the words on more than one occasion but I’m afraid this letter is the best
I can do.
I need
to be forgiven for taking you for granted, for always expecting you to be at my
side, regardless of hazard, regardless of what else might be going on in your
life. I never asked if it was an inconvenience; I never asked what you might be
giving up.
I need
to be forgiven for selfishly keeping you in my world, but never making you my
world. For hiding behind the rules and regs that supposedly kept us apart when
we both knew I could have forced the universe to accept us.
I need to be forgiven for depending on you to
rekindle my spirit and then leaving you to sweep up the ashes. For using your
devotion to push back the despair that tried to conquer me so many times.
I need to be forgiven for having loved you too
much yet not enough. For loving you too much to let you go, for never pushing
you to take on the challenges I knew you capable of because they would take you
away from me.
I need to be forgiven for not loving you
enough to claim you as mine because I could never give you the one thing you
ever wanted--all of me.
I need to be forgiven for never telling you
how much I loved you. For never telling you how you lived in the very center of
my heart, keeping others from ever meaning more to me than you did.
But mostly, I need to be forgiven for keeping
you from ever seeing the love of another. A love much less selfish and much
more worthy than mine could ever be. I know because I benefited from that same
love, depended on it and used it just as selfishly as I did yours.
I tell you this in hope that perhaps I can
redeem myself in some small way and give you one last present, a love truly
worthy of your heart. Look past the reserve that stands before you and see the
love shining in his eyes. It's there, waiting patiently for you to see it too.
Please know I always loved you deeply if
imperfectly.
Jim
Nyota felt
as if she were smothering—all the oxygen was gone—leaving her in a vacuum with
Jim’s words. She acted out of instinct,
looking up into the tall Vulcan’s eyes and for once seeing beyond the veneer of
his reserve and finding tenderness in their brown depths.
The heat
of the fire suddenly became too much, shoving the letter into Spock’s hands, Ny
bolted out the French doors to the coolness of the night. Leaning on the iron railing she gulped in
great lungful’s of air before crumpling as her body wracked itself with grief,
anger and fear.
Jim’s
words constricted her heart—the blunt truthfulness overwhelming. It was as if he had just died all over again
and she still had not gotten a chance to say goodbye. She had never asked to be
his world—just a part of it. Ny had
always known she would be a shadow in his life and was content with her
choice.
Anat’s prophecy from long ago whispered in her
head, ‘not meant to be, but meant to be forever’. How true the words had come
to be. The fantasy they shared when it
was just the two of them too fragile to withstand the realities of their lives
and careers.
She was devastated
that he had left her and furious that he had found a way to tell her all the
things she had already known but needed to hear. All but Spock—and in those thoughts lay fear.
How could
she have been so blind? Not to just his
attraction—but her own? She always had a
soft spot in her heart for Spock but when had it grown to something more? And how had Jim known and she not?
“Nyota,
please come back inside before you get chilled.” Spock urged softly as he
practically carried her back to the sofa.
The letter, now neatly folded, rested on the mantle. One look at Spock confirmed he knew its
contents.
“Spock—Spock—I
didn’t know—you never let me see how you felt.”
Ny shook her head in confusion as her world turned inside out.
“Would it
have made any difference between us?
Could you have denied him if he sought you out?” Spock asked, his voice
roughened by his own measure of grief and uncertainty.
“Jim would
never have come between us if we had been a couple—“ Ny stammered in Jim’s
defense, yet knowing she had not answered the question.
“He was always
between us—he was your choice. Jim was
my t’hy’la but not my yon-shal tersu. I
could not share you with him just as he could not share you with me.”
“I am not
a possession to be bartered for,” Nyota remarked coldly—suddenly realizing she
had been the center of a debate she had never been privy to—and not liking it.
“No, you
are not, but that did not change the fact that we could not share you and you
had made your choice.” Spock again repeated that everything between the three
of them was based upon her choice, like it made perfect sense to him.
“I didn’t
know a choice I made twenty-five years ago would be permanent. I was hurt and scared and he represented
safety and security to me,” Ny challenged back, reliving the terrifying months
between her rape and her final rehabilitation in Jim’s arms. It was the only choice she had ever made that
could have the repercussions Spock claimed.
How he knew she was past caring.
“To a
Vulcan such a choice is always permanent.” Spock answered with quiet finality.
“I’m not a
Vulcan, Spock.” Ny offered, trying to get past Vulcan logic.
“You are
not, but I am. The choice would still be
permanent.” The intensity of his stare told Ny he was speaking of tonight just
as much as we was speaking of their past.
“Spock, please
don’t make me have this conversation right now.” Nyota dropped her face into
her hands, trying to blot out the past twenty minutes of her life.
“I am not
forcing you to say anything, Nyota. Jim’s letter has exposed quite enough
truths for one evening.” He rose and
swiftly moved to take up his cloak.
Ny
panicked and reached out to stop him. “Spock, I’m sorry, please don’t
leave. I just need some time to deal
with all of this.”
Spock pushed
into Nyota’s personal space, running his fingers lightly over the psi points of
her temple. “Nyota, I am not running away.
But I need you to be sure of what you want and who you want. I will not compete with the memory of Jim. When you know what you seek I can be found at
the Consulate.”
Nyota just
nodded, her voice trapped inside by the intensity of Spock’s gaze. He pulled
away his hand like it was hardest thing he had ever done and walked out into
the night.
~Finis
