Spock dreamed of a world far away and Nyota dreamed of worlds just within her reach.

Spock stood on the outer balcony at night for reasons he was able to quantify but not understand. The stars held a sort of fascinating pull to him that seemed to beguile a side of him he actively fought. His mind, his intelligence, knew that the galaxies of the known universe were just a warp speed away. He could understand the physics of space travel and the astrophysical properties of these now-known other-worldly bodies. All these things he could recite, yet he felt like they were unattainable worlds, stretching out across a vast plain of thought he would never comprehend.

He heard the rustle of his Earthling mother's skirt in the confines of the walls beyond and he thought of her world. She came from a world of the illogical, a world of irrational action and hasty, self-righteous heroics. A world where feelings were only felt, not measured and suppressed. Her stories of Earth were free-flowing, like the waves of her planet's oceans. She spoke in lush, green words that held connotations of the heart, not just of the mind. Her eyes could shine with a sparkle of something deeper than reflected, external light.

Spock moved to stare in what he knew to be the direction of Earth, no matter how many warps away it truly was, and he let himself dream of this world so far away; a world he knew he could physically feel but could never attain. He drew together all the knowledge he knew of his mother's planet, his second home, and saw (in the imagination rarely used) a small, dark girl in the midst of a lush, green world. She was running barefoot in the dirt of her world, a freedom he could never share.

He could see the dust rise around her tiny feet as she danced, feeling a joy or a rapture he knew only in words and finite definitions. It was night in her world, the stars glinting in her deep, dark eyes. She stopped her joy suddenly and turned to the stars. He almost felt like she could see him, that she could see the longing within him to share her joy. The girl smiled as she looked into the stars, into his eyes. He felt a little of her happiness slip into him and he smiled too. She turned quickly and ran, her image slipped away into the recesses of his mind. He had temporarily stepped away from the cerebral world of Vulcan, the home he knew and treasured, and had felt the touch of the world he could only conjecture of; the world that didn't feel so far away now.

Nyota had always been bright and curious. She had loved the studies of worlds far in the recesses of space, worlds she could sense on the tips of her fingers. She could taste their languages on her tongue, her ears soft to the molding of their voices. She closed the precious book she had been reading and felt the all-too-familiar pull of the night. She slipped her shoes off to feel the cool dust of her country, breathed deep the air of the Earth, and jumped into the darkness. The dust swirled in a dance and she wanted to dance along. She pounded out a rhythm that was timed only to the frantic, joyful racing of her heart. She stopped, turning towards the stars. She could almost see the galaxies pulsating with the life of a thousand alien races, worlds she wanted to see and know and feel. She wanted to reach out and grab those world and make them hers.

She almost did reach out until she felt like someone was reaching out to her world. Her mind imagined him with pale skin and calculating, analytical eyes. She saw the pointed Vulcan ears that told her he had been raised to think, not to feel. She smiled, feeling his world flit on the surface of her skin, only a warp away. His world was so close, mere minutes away from her own. She wanted to feel the gentle hum of warp vibrate beneath her feet as she sat in a Federation starship, feel the crisp lines of her Federation uniform on her body.

She saw his lips turn up slightly before he turned away. She felt the length of space between them suddenly, like his world has pulled away to protest the surge of her soul upon its orderly, logical ways. She felt a crackle in the air as the image of the Vulcan boy faded from her mind. She glanced once more at the sky, a new determination to close the distance between worlds filling her veins.

Spock dreamed of a world offered to him like a gift while Nyota dreamed of a world reclusive to the gift of the heart.