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“So, the son of Sarek has decided he wants you again,” Stonn said.
He was sitting across from T’Pring at the crescent table they’d bought for the kitchen several years ago. It showed its age - scuff marks on the faux marble, a chip at its side, the seemingly random pattern becoming so familiar that shapes had appeared within it, readily available the moment one of them looked. They’d never asked what the other saw. They knew.
T’Pring placed her teacup back down, gently. “He is dying,” she said, cutting to the matter’s heart.
Stonn had a habit of standing still and endlessly turning things over that T’Pring didn’t think worthy of looking at twice. (That she didn’t want to look at once). She, in turn, had a habit of pulling him toward more important matters.
Things that could not be changed did not require endless discussion, hypotheticals, and debate.
“Are you certain that your parents care for you?”
“Did he not betray you with one of his ship’s scientists?” Stonn asked, refusing to move on from discussing minutiae.
“She was a nurse,” T’Pring said. After a beat in which she realized she’d been drawn into that same minutiae she added, “last I checked.” She had not checked in a long time.
It had been…a shock.
Though she’d asserted they required time apart, (“Maybe it’s best-” What had she expected? For Spock to follow? For him to show up at her door the next day? Eventually that pathetically emotional prefix had twisted and hardened in her mind. “It is best-”) though their relationship was far from perfect, she’d been certain she and Spock cared for each other enough to eventually have a conversation about such things; their relationship, the future…they had been on the cusp of marriage.
“I am very well known by our people but not half as liked,” Spock’s words to her.
“Our people at times find it difficult to digest difference as beauty, despite the old wisdom.”
“An association with me will bring you pain. I don’t want that for you,” Spock’s expression, clearly holding back a pain of his own.
The desire to share it, halve it.
“I can handle others’ judgment. My profession is necessary but not well regarded. They say my association with our people’s darker elements will taint me.”
“If you are already being made to suffer for your professional life then perhaps your personal life…that is, perhaps we should not meet like this any longer.”
Him, looking away. Her, staring, moving closer.
“Why? Will you hurt me, Spock?”
“No-”
“Will you leave me writhing?”
Eye contact at last.
“You are…teasing me.”
“Come here and I will cease.”
She had thought they’d been prepared to weather any storm for one another.
But then a week turned into two, eight, twelve, until an entire year of silence had passed between them. It was unprecedented to the point that she’d even called his captain sometime in the midst of it to ascertain whether or not he was in good health.
“Spock? Yeah, he’s fine.” Chris had said, nerves bleeding into his manner. T’Pring had a finer eye for emotion than most Vulcans, having been trained not to look away from it - to analyze and assess it. “Why? Is everything…uh. That is, I thought you two were…”
At the time T’Pring had blinked and bowed her head slightly. She hadn’t expected Spock to inform his captain of their relationship’s…challenges. But perhaps the older man had worked as his counsel in the place of a Vulcan elder or his own father.
(Later, T’Pring would think of this moment as being intertwined with the one on the bridge, her staring at Spock kissing Chapel, declaring his love. There had only been a few seconds of doubt on her part before Spock’s plan clicked into place. There had been no cause for concern. They had had sex afterward and she had meditated to banish the feeling of sand slipping through her fingers.
Later, Stonn would say she had a bad habit of trying to see the best in people, a flaw she had never in her life been accused of and which she had yet to be accused of since - by anyone but him. He had been talking about her father but the phrase stuck to Spock’s image in her mind.)
“Thank you. As you’ve no doubt heard based on your reaction, Spock and I are taking some time to reassess our relationship. As such, I would appreciate you not informing him of my call.”
“And you don’t want him to know you called why…?”
“If he wishes to speak with me, he will.”
“...Gotcha.”
Once the call was over, T’Pring leaned forward in her chair, resting her chin on intertwined fingers, staring out into space.
The conversation with Chris had left her feeling disconcerted but there was no basis for the feeling, so it was set aside. Also, at the time, she’d been very much preoccupied with Spock. It was a time she looked back on as being frenetic, desperate, and strangely detached from the rest of her life.
She had been spread thin at work which was beginning to drain her and her parents kept asking her about Spock and the wedding, not accepting ‘we are taking some time apart’ as an adequate response and she had begun to notice her friends’ eyes glazing over whenever she spoke about these issues. Yes, it had been a frenetic, desperate time.
It had been too long. That was what she’d been thinking at her desk: Since their very first meeting she and Spock had rarely gone as much as two weeks without contact of some kind, however brief. What could be the cause of this extended silence?
In the end, T’Pring had settled on this: Spock was Human in part. Perhaps his feelings for her were more…turgid, than T’Pring had assumed.
She had been trying to understand that side of him more deeply - to appreciate not just him but him in every facet. Taking their break had not halted that process. In fact, it had accelerated it.
She had taken time off work to visit his mother (who was plainly delighted to see her, Sarek’s absence not remarked upon) and learn not just about Humans as a species in a textbook but Spock: His childhood accolades and misdeeds, his brief stint as a young prankster, the pain he tried to keep hidden from all who knew him.
“But…it was obvious,” Amanda had said, a sad smile on her face. “Not just to me. He was unhappy. The world isn’t always kind to unhappy children.”
The more T’Pring learned about Spock the more she wished to speak to him. As she was shown down the halls of his childhood home, allowed to peer into his bedroom, and as she (alone then) ghosted her fingers over the spines of his infrequently used diaries, resisting the urge to read further - she wished Spock were by her side. She wished to tease him with her presence there, to watch as he stiffened and attempted to distract her from certain items, to hear his voice as he reminisced about things he’d hidden from his parents. Things he had, perhaps, hidden from everyone. Except for her.
Sitting in her office, T’Pring had thought of that visit and the books she’d read and the people she’d spoken to beyond just Amanda - relatives of Spock’s, the few friends he’d made on Vulcan with whom she was acquainted, and even those he seemed close to on Enterprise.
(Later she would think of how very much like her work it had been - circling in ever closing loops, learning more with each turn.)
Before their break, T’Pring had told Spock that the onus was on her to educate herself about his Human side. That same logic held true for their current situation: She had been the one to initiate a pause in contact to give them time to think, she would not waste that time wallowing.
She hadn’t. She had been productive, was being productive even to the point of working on fully appeasing Spock’s mother with semi-regular visits, however brief (though Amanda insisted that the flaws she’d brought up during dinner ‘weren’t that important’ and that T’Pring shouldn’t let them concern her and also that she looked tired and should rest). The moment Spock reached out, T’Pring was certain that her sincerity would finally reach him.
If he would just call…
A year passed, thinking, ‘if he would call…’ - the sentiment being pushed further and further into the back of her mind.
It was the pilot who finally informed her.
“Oh! You’re Spock’s girlfriend right?”
It was a coincidence. A planet T’Pring had traveled to for work ended up being the same planet Enterprise was on for shore leave.
At that point it had been over a year since the last time Spock had spoken to her and his absence in T’Pring’s life was paradoxically inconceivable and expected. She had stopped speaking to anyone about it and begun to think, finally, that it was over. What a cowardly, inefficient ending - a silence that dragged on forever.
“I guess it’s kind of awkward meeting like this. Listen, I’m sorry about uh…the whole Spock and Christine thing. It just kind of happened. I swear, it’s not like-”
Though it was finally becoming obvious that silence, total abandonment, was what had happened - what was happening, it didn’t seem that that could be true.
“-and she tells me it only really got started after you and Spock broke up. I’m not saying it’s right and I know Vulcans don’t really like the uh…gray areas of emotion but it wasn’t technically wrong either.”
She’d stopped hoping to receive a message about the resumption of their relationship but there had still existed an expectation that one day he would get a message to her, formally breaking the engagement. They had been together for years. T’Pring knew Spock. He could be clumsy and indecisive and he found it difficult to speak his mind but Spock was not a callous person. He would at least provide her that. Eventually he would-
“The one thing I wish…fuck, hold on - let me just finish this. She told me you contacted her and she thought you were gonna rip her head off but you were talking as if you wanted to get to know Spock better. You..knew it was over, right? He told you it was over?”
Then she’d met that pilot.
When she’d become aware of herself again, everything T’Pring thought she knew was shattered into pieces. Unsalvagable.
The message T’Pring had been waiting for never came. Instead, the silence dragged on.
Until slowly, over time, she stopped waiting - and it was drowned out by (among other things) Stonn’s gentle voice.
“Her profession is immaterial. He cannot expect you to honor an engagement he himself has shown holds no obligation over him.”
T’Pring turned to look out the window. The building they lived in now was a bit further from work than the ones provided by El-Keshtanktil but it was nicer. The neighborhood was not comprised of only workers and suffering families. The commute was worth it. There was more sun in the evenings.
She was more than content with her life. Spock had ceased to be a part of it years ago and she had assumed he would never return to it in any form.
Now she was being summoned to appear before him, compelled to spread her legs for him, to be his legal wife as she’d once wanted to be, over a decade ago.
“The law will not listen to me.”
“T’Pring-”
“The bond has not been broken. Once fever takes hold of a man the law thinks of nothing but the preservation of his life,” She turned back, cutting off Stonn’s train of thought. Now was not the time to talk about what was fair. “We must be realistic. At this point, refusal to comply is tantamount to a criminal act.”
Stonn said nothing, considering her words with a deeply furrowed brow.
T’Pring picked up her tea again, looking into it. Brown, with a golden-orange glint where sunlight hit its surface.
She had waited much too long. The possibility that Spock was unbonded had not occurred to her. At first he had had Christine, then T’Pring had seen Roger Korby introduce the woman as his own ‘wife to be’ at a conference (“Nu-uh, no ‘wife to be’ stuff until you actually pop the question!” Laughter. Applause. An errant hoot.)
T’Pring had reached out to her.
“Is this because I broke things off with Spock? Listen. If you’re here to yell at me about how I’m a bitch or a slut or whatever word you Vulcans have for that kinda thing can we at least do it somewhere private? I can’t cause another scene or they won’t let me back in here.”
Humor as a defensive mechanism. Attempts to divert attention from T’Pring’s perceived goal. Distancing herself from whatever pain she was bracing for by addressing it first and lightening it into something she could bandy about, like tossing a ball casually between her hands.
Nurse Chapel had no personal obligation to her. She had not betrayed T’Pring as Spock had, making her second-guess and doubt every relationship, every person in her life. Making her doubt herself most of all. Had she been so horrible? Too cold? Too much like her mother? Not enough like Spock’s? Had their sex life been unsatisfactory? Why had she been so untrustworthy? Had she meant so little to him? Had she always meant so little or had his regard for her shrunk with time - and how had she not noticed? Was she stupid? Had the entire crew known? Were they laughing behind her back? How could someone claim they wanted to marry her then never speak to her again?
Despite that, Chapel had known about her and Spock’s engagement. It made her unpleasant for T’Pring to talk to and her Human need to joke when feeling awkward did not help matters.
“Is Spock now unattached?” T’Pring asked, wanting the conversation to be over as soon as possible.
Christine stiffened, glancing at the drink in her hand. “Uh…”
T’Pring waited, staring.
Christine sucked in a breath, rubbing the back of her neck. She had a ring on her finger, collecting moisture from the glass she was holding. What had Spock done with the necklace she’d given him?
“Yeah…he…kinda is. Sorry,” she said, unable to meet the Vulcan’s eye.
T’Pring furrowed her brow slightly, confused, before the realization hit her.
“I could not be less interested in resuming our relationship,” T’Pring said, tone sharpening. The thought that she would be so desperate as to…she banished the thought. She would meditate on the anger that misunderstanding aroused later. “This is a Vulcan matter and it is important. Is Spock currently involved with someone or not?”
Perhaps sensing the severity of the situation, Christine’s body language became a bit more relaxed, less worried about T’Pring hurling personal grievances or fists at her. More annoyance ran through T’Pring at the thought (how dare you be on edge- how dare you be relaxed- how dare you be happy or sad- how dare the both of you be anything at all-) though it was quickly filtered from her system.
“He is. There’s this girl on the ship I’m kinda maybe friends with…after me and Spock- after things ended she helped him figure some stuff out. They say it’s not serious and they’re taking it slow but lately…slow’s looking awfully steady if you know what I mean.”
That had been all T’Pring needed to hear and she’d (without another word) turned and left Christine, the lounge, and finally the entire conference building.
At the time, the thought that Spock had not only not considered their engagement worth fighting for in any capacity but had abandoned it completely to have an affair with a woman who’d ended it in less than a year was maddening. On top of that, upon the cessation of that relationship he had found yet another woman.
It seemed that in those days she was always learning new things about Spock. He had become a stranger to her the moment that pilot…
T’Pring had not kept up with his romantic pursuits after that. Spock had found someone so quickly it seemed there was no need to be concerned about her apparent ex fiancé’s pon farr.
Both the bond and the silence remained and T’Pring guessed that Spock had made a romantic connection with someone of another species, perhaps a Human, and that eventually one of them would marry and their previous bond to the other would be officially dissolved. Or else Spock would go through the pon farr and run to one of his apparently numerous mates.
The possibility that Spock would remain unattached yet keep her in his back pocket for years upon years like a spare key, her body his to be used in case of emergency, had never occurred to her. T’Pring somehow never thought him capable of the cruelty he continuously enacted on her.
Outside of their building, a row of trees had recently been planted, fully grown. They were resilient, as was almost all flora that thrived on Vulcan.
There had been a sandstorm the day she and Stonn moved in together and they’d watched it, talking about how grateful they were to be inside - how it’d just missed them - how if she hadn’t done this or he hadn’t done that they would still be there - mundane conversation to the extreme, yet it was representative of everything T’Pring had wanted: Someone to share a life with.
“Should I have asked you to marry me after all?” Stonn asked now, surprising her.
The two of them had of course discussed marriage at length. Their perpetual courtship had lasted an eternity by Vulcan standards and moving in together while remaining unwed had apparently been a bridge too far for her parents.
“How long do you plan to keep him waiting?” T’Pring’s mother had asked, father sitting beside her. Though T’Pring glanced towards him for help, he was preoccupied with a loose button on his cuff. T’Pril cleared her throat meaningfully.
“I thought you were less than eager to see me officially attached to Stonn.”
“When has my opinion stopped you?” T’Pril asked, continuing before T’Pring could say anything. “Those who know our family are beginning to gossip. They say you are promiscuous, that you are unfaithful, that the men of El-Keshtanktil are well cared for indeed.”
T’Pring’s face grew hot. She’d never heard such outrageous claims and the insinuation was especially vile on her mother’s tongue.
The times when T’Pring had found comfort in her mother’s presence were rare, especially as an adult. However, telling her of Spock’s betrayal and continued silence had been one such instance.
She had expected the woman to go on an anti-Human tirade while including numerous jabs at T’Pring herself: her stupidity, her looks, her inability to do anything the way that was right and obvious, her willfulness always leading her to trouble.
However, instead, T’Pril had listened with a frown then sighed heavily, cradling her daughter’s head.
“I knew he was unworthy of you.”
It had been…pleasant, to hear anything approaching affection from her mother. More pleasant than T’Pring had expected. However, since then, their relationship had continued as it always had.
“And do you believe them?” she asked.
“Of course not,” T’Pril responded immediately, raising her brow. “I know your faults and these do not apply. I bring them up because I hear them more frequently each month. If they continue you will bring shame not only to us, whom I know you care little about, but your profession - which I believe would do a great disservice to both it and you.”
T’Pring had sat in her silence, listening distantly as her parents got into a side conversation about whether or not the gardener had gotten the color or order of the front garden’s flowers wrong. They appeared perfectly content in one another’s company and why not? There had never been an issue between the two of them that had not been addressed, rectified, and apologized for.
It seemed their daughter was the sole source of discontent in their lives.
“Why does your father not defend you?” Stonn had asked once as they walked home from her parent’s house.
“Explain.”
“You said he was your one ally in the home, yet he does not defend you from your mother’s constant criticisms.”
T’Pring had shrugged lightly. “They are constant. Is he expected to fight at all hours?”
“For his child? Yes.”
Had she and Spock defended one another? No…it had been more like them to bear it, remain civil, then lick their wounds in private. It had been nice, having a place to escape to, to complain, while keeping up the appearance of being unperturbed. It was, they’d both agreed, cuddling into one another, the best of both worlds.
Stonn was very much unlike both her and Spock in that manner. Stonn did not let things slide by unremarked upon. He did not hold his opinions tight to his chest. He did not care, particularly, about whether or not he was seen as polite. It was why his first dinner with her family had ended early and with them walking home.
T’Pring’s mother claimed Stonn’s “inability or refusal to conform to polite society” was due to a low-brow and disrespectful nature. T’Pring thought, privately, that it was because he had more important things to care about.
“I am not a child anymore. I do not require defense from anyone,” T’Pring retorted.
Stonn had been silent for a moment before brushing their fingers together, a jolt of affection being passed between the two of them.
“I admire your strength, T’Pring.”
Stonn had told her several times how much he admired her, even before they began a relationship. He said it to her, to colleagues, to friends - he’d even told the news at one point.
“I joined El-Keshtanktil with the hope of rehabilitating those who have lost their way. After knowing administrator T’Pring, that is, being afforded the privilege of watching her work and spending time in conversation with her, I realized that my goal had changed. I no longer sought to rehabilitate, but to understand, and it has made me much more effective…she and her tireless efforts are among the foremost reasons El-Keshtanktil remains a haven for health and recovery rather than a prison.”
It was while watching that interview that T’Pring realized how much respect Stonn truly had for her, how deeply he seemed to regard her. It had been the first time she’d ever heard him speak at length and noticed him as more than a colleague, though they had not gotten to romance just yet. Years of friendship came before that particular flower bloomed.
However when it had, it had bloomed strong - a flower of Vulcan through and through.
During their discussions on marriage, T’Pring had made it clear that she wanted to be the one to propose and that she did not know when the day would come that she felt ready to do so. She’d apologized, knowing it was unfair to make him wait indefinitely, but the thought of moving down that road again…the same processes and rituals…didn’t she have a right to be wary? To move slow?
Apparently not.
What did Spock expect from her, T’Pring wondered. When he thought of her standing before him in wedding silver, did he expect a fight or quiet capitulation? A wife or an enemy? An eager embrace or corpse-like silence as the act was done? Did he have a preference, a fear?
Or, as T’Pring suspected, had he not thought of her at all?
She leaned forward, bridging her fingers together elegantly as she fixed Stonn with her eyes. He returned her gaze, his own expectant, waiting, open. This, she knew suddenly and without doubt, was the man she wanted by her side forever.
“I plan to issue a challenge,” she said, her mind drifting already to the ritual grounds - to sand and dried blood. “Are you willing to fight?”
“T’Pring, my lady,” Stonn said, reaching across the table and pressing her hand to his cheek. She felt the warmth there, his blood running beneath the skin, his thoughts - all resolute. “I am willing to die.”
Love. That was what she had and that was what she felt in turn - in Stonn’s blood, his thoughts, in his katra which had long since become as familiar to her as her own.
Spock had taken much from her and his callous disregard for their commitment had reshaped her utterly, painfully, but it had also given her many things she would not have otherwise found. The most precious among them was Stonn.
And as T’Pring sat there, eye to eye with her beloved, she knew that she would fight by any means necessary to keep what was hers - no matter the cost.