This has all the hallmarks of newlyweds struggling to understand and trust each other. Lovely work!

Ah! I love it! This development makes perfect sense! The Vulcans are an endangered species, the Romulans are biologically the same species—or at least close enough to reproduce with more genetic purity than Vulcans with any other race—and if the Vulcans have any hope of survival, it is with the Romulans’ help. But politically and culturally, the Vulcans in power would deeply entrench themselves against it! Oh, this is genius. YES. Damn good writing here.

A fantastic opening chapter, and one of the best I’ve ever seen at describing the practical realities of a telepathic bond between two individuals. The layer of work on top of the usual struggles of a marriage is insightful, and it goes *miles* towards explaining why Vulcans appear to be so locked down emotionally. If allowing oneself to indulge in emotion is the telepathic equivalent of screaming like an infant and giving everyone else around you a headache, it makes perfect sense that the cultural norms that would develop would be focused around being emotionally quiet. And it also goes a long way toward making me sympathetic to T’Pring, because Spock is congenitally incapable of being as emotionally controlled as a fully-Vulcan adult. He’s “autistic” in some sense, unique and attractive in some ways, and endlessly wearying in others. And it goes a long way toward explaining why he’s ashamed of his losses of control, because it’s the same kind of shame that I would feel if I started inappropriately laughing out loud at a funeral and making everyone around me draw back with a wince and annoyance. I can see why he prefers the company of humans, because even if they don’t understand why he is so emotionally repressed and they struggle to understand him, they are completely unbothered by the symptoms of his “autism”, and so it’s easier for him to be himself.

I read PsiCygni’s Spock/Uhura fic “The Place Between” on AO3 recently, and I think the most insightful line in it is when Uhura tells him that everything he does is normal for a half-Vulcan, half-human. He’s spent his whole life feeling like he’s a disappointment to one or both of his parents, because he can’t understand and follow either of them fully. He’s too emotional for Vulcans to be comfortable around him, and he’s not emotional enough for humans to be comfortable around him, and so he lives in this forever twilight, in the place between, and it’s not until Uhura tells him that who he is is perfectly right *for him* that he begins to accept himself. And through that, he begins to be able to love, not just her, but himself, his father, and everyone else around him, even in the midst of their not-understanding. It’s a fast-forwarded version of his transformation from TOS, because here he has Uhura.

All this to say that I’m loving your story and very much looking forward to where you’re going next!

Still here reading!

please let Saril be healthy!

Love Captain Kirk!

Great story and wonderful writing!

Great chapter! Can't wait to read more!

Going to post a review for each chapter I read because I love this story so far!

Thnx for the read. Well done.

Such a journey...

a beautiful chapter

Fascinating! So the Romulans avoid Plak Tow by defaulting to combat.

Ohmygod there are actual tears running down my face right now

Point for T'Pol! I always liked her. I'm glad they've worked everything out. I was going to be quite distraught if they hadn't by the end.