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Chapter Thirty Five

Spock studied the adamant young woman before him. She seemed determined to talk about their mental connection, which he was not sure was entirely advisable. Her eyes softened before she spoke again.

"Spock," she said, "we can't just leave this alone. Do you know? I couldn't sleep last night—I dreamt about you—" Another furious blush covered her cheeks gratifyingly as she confessed. Then realization hit him.

"Last night?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"At approximately 0200 your local time?"

Nyota raised an eyebrow at him. "Probably…"

He blinked at her for a beat; that had been the time of his meditation, when he had allowed himself to imagine touching her temples and flooding them both with sensation… "I apologize."

Her eyes widened at him. "For what, Spock?"

"I believe I initiated the vision unknowingly during my meditation; I would not have deliberately linked with your mind uninvited," he told her earnestly. He could tell he was frowning, but could not smooth the expression. "I was not aware I could cause such a connection over long distances—" His speech was cut off by Nyota's hand on his knee. He looked down at the contact until she removed it, and he looked up at her.

Whispering, she told him, "I didn't mind." He held her gaze until her brown eyes were too much, and he turned away. "Do you know why it happened?" she asked again.

Once more, he gave her a long look. She wasn't going to give up, and it did involve her… "My father found a passing reference to it in his research on Vulcan. It is a little documented phenomenon that occurs in approximately 9.7% of unbonded Vulcans," he finally admitted, "though data collection has not been exhaustive—"

Nyota interrupted him with a warning, "Spock."

Obliging her, he continued, "It is termed irak-nahan tel-fam. Directly it means 'bondless telepathy,' though in my—our—case, it was more accurately empathy."

Nyota drew in a long breath. "So this is when a Vulcan is unbonded and contacts another empathically or telepathically?"

"Without touch," Spock clarified. "You are aware we are touch telepaths," he said, noting she looked down at his hands at his words, "and can initiate telepathic contact with others even when bonded. But irak-nahan tel-fam…it is the linking of minds while unbonded." Nyota was chewing her lip.

"Did you find out why it happens?"

Watching her closely, he replied, "It appears to occur when an unbonded mind selects another unbonded mind it determines compatible."

The girl just looked at him for a moment before prompting, "…compatible?"

Clarifying, Spock said, "Determined adequate for companionship or telepathic contact, perhaps. I do not have elaboration…"

"You mean for bonding?" Nyota asked quietly.

He should not have told her. This situation would have been more easily dealt with if he had not told her. "I do not know the extent of what the initiation means—" he said, making sure her legs were not coming any closer to his as she leaned forward eagerly.

"What usually happens?" she asked.

"I did not find statistics studying those involved, Nyota, it is a little known phenomenon, and I do not know."

"But probably—"

"Others do not impact us," he insisted, wary of where her reasoning would lead them. "We must deal with our own situation. Discovering that this has a name does not change our situation as—" He cut himself off, unsure of where to take the sentence.

"As what, Spock?" she asked, her brown eyes wide.

"As professor and student," he said warningly.

"Spock," she said quietly. "You're not my professor anymore." He had not yet integrated this fact. "I have tried to ignore this. It did not work." She was matching his tone; he could tell from her correct words that she wanted to convince him of something. "I assume from your mannerisms that you have tried to ignore this too. But when you said goodbye…last night…Spock," she entreated. He turned to find her fervent eyes on him, and had to tighten his mental shields.

XXX

Nyota restrained her feet from fidgeting as she sat on his couch, inclined towards him, trying to force that guarded look out of his eyes. She had let this get away from her, but she didn't care; she had just been going to tell him what she felt and leave it alone. But now she wanted more.

Deciding to push her luck, she said quietly, "Do you know how I figured out what mat-al is?" She saw his slight confusion at her change of topic in the tightening of his eyes. "You."

"Nyota, I told you I do not know what mat-al means," he said; she loved how he pronounced the Vulcan words as in his own tongue. She could spell out what the weird effect between them was called, but only because he'd translated for her. The sound of it had been too intriguing to listen to the words.

"But you do," she insisted. Almost wary to bring it up, she said, "You know when you said goodbye to me? And you left your shields down?" Despite his lack of affirmation, she continued, "I could feel your emotions again. And that indescribable—" She couldn't quite bring herself to explain the tide of protectiveness that had hit her. "—that feeling? There's no word for it anymore, because none of you ever talk about these things. But there used to be a word for it. It's mat-al." He just continued to study her, and she wanted to reach out to feel what he was feeling. She wanted to trace the line of his eyebrow and the turn of his ear, but she tightened her hands into fists in her lap as he decided how to respond.

"I should not have allowed you to feel that," he finally said, his voice restrained. She couldn't help herself: she reached a hand out to touch his forearm fleetingly through his meditation clothes, which reminded her of scrubs but long sleeved.

"Yes, you should have," she said. "And I'm glad about the irak-nahan…" she said slowly, trying to remember.

"Irak-nahan tel-fam," he supplied softly, speaking the Vulcan with that wonderful lilting accent of his native language…

"The irak-nahan tel-fam and the dream," she continued, growing warm at the memory of his forehead pressed against hers, "because it means I know…"

"Know what, Nyota?"

She swallowed and took a deep breath. "I know that you won't mind, not really, if I…"

Scooting forward until her knees bumped the side of his thigh, she reached up to take his face in her hands, her fingers curling around his neck. Before she could move forward to press her lips to his, his hands came up to her wrists and his eyes closed. She thought he would pull her away, but his fingers closed around her and held her hands to him. Watching him with shallow breath, she felt his shields open to her tentatively.

The mat-al was there, but quieter, behind uncertainty and curiosity and simpler want. Her thumb stroked his jaw line, and she felt the curious sensation of the ghost of it coming back to her, through him. She was kneeling almost, now, but felt her body less as he let her feel his desire. Her breath hitched in her throat.

He swallowed and opened his eyes, starting to pull her hands away; she couldn't resist him, for he was too strong. But she didn't lose the contact as his hands remained on her wrists, and she could still feel the overwhelming fact that he wanted her, not just abstractly and like this, but strongly, and sexually, and mentally and, to him, inappropriately.

"It is not reasonable," he said slowly, his voice low and unsteady, his eyes still half lidded.

"Life isn't reasonable," she whispered, leaning forward again. He held her at bay.

"We must make it as reasonable as possible," he replied. She didn't like that he seemed to be recovering when her breath was still slightly unattainable and his nearness was making her head swim. She frowned at him.

"Irak-nahan tel-fam is not reasonable," she argued. "Mat-al does not seem reasonable." His eyes were troubled as they searched hers, only inches away from her. She studied his long lashes and the depth of color in his irises while she had the chance.

"There are too many words," he said quietly, suddenly switching to Vulcan, before releasing his hold on her only to flip over his hands so that the pads of their fingers brushed. Nyota lost her breath.

This wasn't only his emotions; this was like in her dream, only magnified a billion times. She could feel all of him, and wondered dimly if he could feel her this way; and to her surprise, she heard the answer like a whisper in her mind. "Yes," he responded. Slowly, through the chaos of his swirling being, she began to discern individual thoughts. Only they weren't quite articulated; they were like her own thoughts, whole, but not put into words yet. The first reminded her to breathe, and she pulled in air unevenly.

He wasn't supposed to allow this, because he was her teacher; her immediate response was to the effect of, "Screw it." She watched curiously as he seemed to retrieve information from compartmentalized areas, and he acknowledged this with an amused non-comment about her disorganized thoughts. They communicated in a confusing mess of English and Vulcan and feelings, and she couldn't even place how each thought reached her. But then he was thinking about how he could not force this on her just because of his own lack of control, which, before she could respond that she most certainly did not feel forced, brought forth a feeling of shame she could not quite comprehend. This, over his mental connection with her when it happened in 9.7246843%—his mind provided the full number—of Vulcans? Of unbonded Vulcans, he amended automatically, but she was still trying to respond that she felt she was trying to convince him, but also figure out how she was categorized in his mind. All of his memories and knowledge seemed to be sort of floating behind his conscious thoughts, and she could see—feel—that she was compartmentalized too, as student and friend and desirable woman and, most intriguingly, as object of irak-nahan tel-fam. He felt her searching and enveloped her in a new wave of mat-al, but this was too much as he simultaneously tried to argue that it was illogical to defy Starfleet when she would graduate in four months, two weeks, and—

Nyota pulled away from him abruptly, and both of them gasped at the sudden loss of contact. Nyota swayed back on her heels as her breath came quickly and she finally saw his eyes unguarded. Steadying herself, she said shakily, "That was too much."

"Sorry," he said simply, reaching forward to brush away a strand of escaped hair from her forehead, but keeping his thoughts away from her.

"If you try to tell me that any of that was reasonable…" she said, placing a hand on his shoulder to hold herself up and readjust her seat.

XXX

"Are you recovering?" he asked with concern as she sat back down next to him but with her legs curved to her side and leaning toward him. "I should not have overwhelmed you with thought," he said, yet yearning to pull her into him again, to experience her unbridled, joyous mind again.

"I should be fine," she said, tucking her hair behind one ear and turning her face to him. Their arms pressed together, and he determinedly prevented himself from flipping his hand around to where it would touch hers again. "But I don't think we're turning back from this," she said. "I want to try that again some time."

He felt a surge of his possessiveness again, what Nyota had pronounced mat-al, and at her shiver, knew she had felt it.

This was not logical. They had no legitimate reason to defy Starfleet. She had pointed out that he was no longer her direct professor, but he was still her superior, and she would be working for him next semester. She had, at least, assured him she was entirely willing. More than willing; he had felt her longing for him, glimpsed, in the chaos of her, fantasies of kissing him. He pressed against her now, and she leaned into the touch of his body next to hers on the couch.

Perhaps life was not always reasonable. As she had said, mat-al did not feel reasonable; but it did feel right. Her mind held only respect and desire for him, which he found intoxicating when joined with his similar emotions regarding her. He had never felt mat-al, this possessiveness, before, and he allowed himself to feel, instinctually, that the probability of developing it again was low.

His father's words from their conversation about irak-nahan tel-fam repeated in his mind: "Spock, we will forever strive to be logical, and to rise above the primitive impulses of emotion. Yet I have learned that there will always be a part of our race that, however illogical and unpredictable, uses our emotions to guide us to our happiness." When he had finished, his mother had come into the vid screen briefly to add quietly, "Happiness is rarely illogical, sa-fu."

Spock turned to Nyota and held his hand out palm up. "Can that sometime be now?" he asked, promising, "I'll be quiet."

She placed her small, dark hand over his with her eyes trained on his face. Softly, he brushed his thoughts over her mind, letting her feel his willingness. "You'll try this?" she asked in his mind and out loud. "Even though it's unreasonable?"

Carefully allowing his mat-al to cover her, but monitoring her response, he said quietly, "I believe reason has been interrupted."

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand, telling him that was just fine with her.

XXXXX

A/N Oh my goodness. We've done it. That's the end folks; I made it. Never would have done it without all of you! I never expected such a fabulous positive response to this story, and I wouldn't have had the motivation to finish or the joy of sharing RI if it weren't for all you, my lovely loyal readers! A special thanks to all of you who reviewed—you continually made my day, challenged my writing, and gave me the will to keep going!

I do sincerely hope you are satisfied with how they got together. I know it was a long wait, and I hope it was worth it. Irak-nahan tel-fam is a concept I completely and utterly made up—it has no basis in canon. There you finally have the explanation about why it was only Nyota who felt Spock's emotions. The word mat-al I also made up (based on mat, possession).

Now, the words you've all (I hope!) been waiting for: YES, I do have a sequel planned! This doesn't feel like we're done, does it? That's because we're not: we've got to get Nyota's thesis done, get Spock onto the Enterprise, and lead up to the movie, not to mention figure out how this relationship is actually going to work. I'm very excited to explore their actual relationship, and it may slip into M rated themes…Originally this was all going to be one giant behemoth, but I decided to make it two =] It's more like two parts of a whole than a story and its sequel. HOWEVER, I will be taking a break. I want to work on my original novel for a while, and I will be planning things out a bit closer before I start posting. So I don't know how long this hiatus is going to be. I'll guess a few weeks, maybe (gasp!) a full month. Keep me on author alert and I promise I'll be back!

FYI, I had really bad timing on this in that I am going on vacation for a week starting tomorrow and I don't know if I'll have internet. This means I won't be able to get to all your reviews immediately, but thanks in advance and I promise to reply!

Once again, thank you; I look forward to hearing what you all thought. See you in less time than it takes to type irak-nahan tel-fam,

winter