She returns to her quarters she shares with Tilly. Her roommate is thankfully still working on the bridge where she's trying to troubleshoot with . Michael crosses the room to the small table behind their beds and braces herself over it. The mess of her chessboard still lies in shambles on the floor. She can't the stop the thought from forming in her mind that she feels akin to it.

Spock's angry, Amanda's shunning, Sarek's inability to empathize, has broken her. She thought the world had ended when the Klingons killed her birth parents but since joining Starfleet and falling in love with the male that was supposed to be her brother she sees that things could be and have been far worse.

She knows each one of their arguments against her current depression. Sarek would say that logically, the course of her actions could only be learned from. Amanda, if she would speak to her now that she had seen to Spock being healed, would say the war was inevitable and no more her fault than the Klingons. Spock, however-

Michael steels herself with a breath and turns away from the ruins of her chessboard. She can no more look at it than she can the bed they made love in just hours before. He had told her to tell him, to profess her love for and of him. He had played her heart just as masterfully as he has done with her body and mind, time and again. She didn't deny it nor had she wished to but where was his confession? Where was he? Wherever Spock was, he was livid and all his ire was directed at her.

Maybe it was from having to relive the moments in which she scarred him irrevocably while they were on Taols IV or the months he spent slowly going mad. She wouldn't blame him on either account. Spock had been there for her as best he always could, fighting for and alongside her as his sister and- more. And then she left for Discovery and something between them broke.

He has been sore with her but never angry. Michael hugs herself and walks over to her bed. The well of emotions she tries to hold back leave her feeling raw. She lays down and lets herself cry. This command has been so hard...seen so many lost, her Captains, her friends. Will it have taken Spock too?

The door slides open and close with no welcome from her or greeting from the person entering. She knows from the candance on the floor who it is and closes her eyes to keep herself blind. He walks past either ignoring her or oblivious of her grief and goes to the table where she had just been standing moments before.

His deep voice breaks the silence gently between them, soft and apologetic as he assembles something behind her. Her ailing spirits grabs onto like a drowning man while her mind deciphers his words.

When he finishes she sits up to see a new three dimensional chess board sitting proudly on the table. While the details are similar the craftsmanship tells her that it was her brother and not a replicator that saw to its production.

Spock sits primly on the other side of the table like some giant bowerbird looking for the appraising female before him to approve of his work. Michael smiles a little and with it finds the deep ache in her chest subsiding. She rising up and out of the bed and sits across from him. He gives her an elegant, single nod for her start and she accepts with moving her first pawn down onto the base board.

They play three rounds in silence, enjoying the mundane task between them. Michael welcomes the respite, thankful that she's been relieved, no matter how briefly, of her Starfleet and familial duties.

These games are as much of an apology as they are an acceptance. She knows it from the brief but frequent brush of his fingers across her own. Soothing little kisses that ferry over superficial thoughts. She pleased with both and tells him as much. The spaces Spock held for her within the melds, his mind and heart remain open and warm.

Jealous and despair had gripped him when he saw her with Ash Tyler. First he had lost her to duty and now to this...traitorous interloper? He had tried to kill her and yet she forgive him? He could not comprehend it and his instinctual Vulcan possessive, protectiveness sought to secure her away from the rogue Klingon.

An apology spins its way through his fingers, if he embarrassed or upset her with his rough handling of her body when he last took her. He does not, however, regret one moment of confronting Lieutenant Tyler and would gladly do so again to keep her safe.

" Checkmate." he announces, moving his piece to the top board.

Michael blinks and scrunches the bridge of her nose. " That's hardly fair. You distracted me the entire game."

Spock lifts a brow and resets the board. " It sounds to me like you could not maintain your concentration and carry on a conversation at the same time."

She moves to help him with the game, going back behind him to straighten up the pieces. " Kissing isn't a conversation."

His lips quirk at her bickering with the pieces and shots Michael a look that's none too innocent. " We could amend that however…"

Spock trails his fingers up her arm in a long, sloppy form of a kiss. Michael's eyes open slowly to find that she's in his quarters and not her own. I must have fallen asleep then she thinks as she stretches beside him. Strange, when had they gone from her bed as children to his bed as adults. Still here, still protecting her.

Spock noses along the back of her neck and plants a long, lingering kiss at the bite he marked her with.

She closes her eyes again and exhales silently as he does. She never knew it could be like this between them. Interactions are still fraught in public but simple enough. Spock wouldn't touch her so intimately out in public even if he was her bondmate.

" I am."

She swallows and turns around to face him. She realizes they're both bare as she does and can't seem to find it in her to care. She reaches out towards his face and he readily rubs his cheek into it. " You're my bondmate now?"

" When have I not been?"

" When you were hers." Michael says lifting an eyebrow and tapping a finger to the tip of his nose. Spock's mouth forms into a pout and he blinks at her. " Only in name but never in any other respect."

" You can't be."

" For you Michael, I am and I would be more. All you have to do is say yes."

She holds her breath as a bit of him stirs in her mind as he stares at her. He slides away when she stays silent and kisses her with his fingers. " I am yours. You just let me know when you will be mine."

Spock adjusts from where he's sitting at the comm station. Trying not to list back and forth has been a challenge but the familiar earthy scent of the human who-is-his sister on his jacket gives him something to concentrate on.

When words would want to twist and numbers jump their place, her voice would chase them back into place.

It's the reason he's not surprised that when he does come back to his mind, she's right there before him, angry, surly and worried within an inch of her life.

It's for that fact, Spock wrestles with the current task at hand. Listening to Michael's mother, the red angel, professing what she's witnessed and what she knows.

" I know what you've done with Michael."

It was an accusatory phrase delivered in a heavy southern lit. Spock paused the journal entry labeled for his eyes and ears alone after that one simple statement, unable to go on.

If it the red angel were some unconnected stranger stating such facts that would be one thing. The fact that it was Michael's mother, however, change and affecte a number of things.

Spock takes a measured breath and gazes towards the data chip containing 's message files. As much as he dreads learning what she has to say, Spock feels damned without it.

What did her mother know? What had she seen? What did she think of what she's witnessed?

Heat rushes up the back of Spock's neck as he swallows and straightens with his hands behind his back. " Computer, restart message."

The screen goes clear and then projects the image of the rocky gray landscape in which Dr. Burnham had, has and continues to make her camp. She sits propped against a rock with pitiful fire struggling to burn behind her. Her hair has the same length and density that Michael once possessed and that she has pulled into a serve braid trailing down her back.

She smiles at the camera as the log entry data displays along the bottom and he finds his chest constrict from the familiarity of it. He has never met her outside of the suit but he knows this smile. It's Michael's smile or apparently, their smile. Worn and grieved but most definitely theirs.

Her voice is much deeper than Spock anticipates it being, almost strained when she speaks.

" Hello Spock. You'll forgive me that I couldn't stop and formally introduce myself."

Her smiles widens at her attempt at humor but Spock cannot find an appreciation of it. She is trapped in time, seemingly damned for eternity to hop between planets and millennia. The brief meld he was able to manage with her drove him mad. He clenches his jaw and waits for the line.

" My name is Doctor Gabrielle Burnham. You first saw me as a child when I showed you the vision of Michael running away from your house and being...killed."

She grinds her teeth between the last two words and averts her gaze from the camera. Despair dims her expression momentarily before she recovers and composes herself. She looks back to the camera and shifts on the rock. " I never got a chance to thank you. I can't say it enough. My baby girl means the world to me."

She sighs then, so deeply that her whole body moves with the flow of air. Her eyes harden a moment later and she pins Spock with a look so severe he doesn't think even his father could perform such a feat.

" I know what you've done with Michael."

Again his skin chills as the words settle over him. He takes a deep breath in through his nose to steels his nerves for what will follow. She pauses as if anticipating his discomfort and breathes along with him. " I've known for a while now. And I don't know how you'll take this but-"

She stops and frowns. Spock stares unblinking, waiting for the rest of her sentence. She looks down between her legs and give a rueful smile. " I don't know what line of time you're following right now and where you are along it but hopefully this analogy makes sense."

He tilts his head, curious as to where her explanation may lead. She begins and gestures with her hands as she goes. " When you have children, you want the world for them. You want to see their first smile, their first steps. You want to celebrate their wins, comfort and encourage them during their failures, explain how things work out in the real world and say how they could make them better."

She bounces her hands before her as if she's weighing something in her mind. " It's why I became doctor. It's why I wanted to be mom."

turns towards the screen and shakes her heads. " Being Michael's mama has been my biggest blessing. Ever since she was born, I knew that girl was going to be someone amazing."

She smiles and huffs through her nose. " She was always getting into stuff and asking why this and why that. She was and still is a force to reckon with. Never knew if she'd ever find someone who would marry her that wouldn't dim her light or she wouldn't stream-roll over."

The Doctor flips her wrist into the air and her smile turns from wistful to sly. " Then in my jumps, I saw you two, bumbling around each other, fighting like cats and dogs- or more like an old married couple."

She points to the camera and Spock feels the conviction behind it as she wags it at him. " You get on her nerves Spock and confuse her but you've never let her down. In all the times I've seen my baby girl saved or strengthen you've been behind it."

" I know why you went to starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy. I know that you felt solidarity with Michael in your humanness on Vulcan, loved the bond you two had in that. How deep it cut you when she tried to keep you safe and hurt you in the process. I know that you admired her once you gave her a chance. And I know that you've loved Michael ever since."

She falls silent for a while and sits back against the rock. Her eyes track memories he can't see or relive with her. Her face changes with each one, flipping from surprise, grief, joy and back again. She blinks and thumbs away a stray tear threatening to drop from the corner of her eye. " She needs you, Spock and she loves you too. She was so lost when her father died and I got trapped with this suit but you found her ."

Dr. Burnham shakes her fist as she tries to convey her words. " There were so many times when she wanted to give up on her dreams, her hopes but she had you fussing over her like a mother hen, know-it-all that would see hell freeze over before you let her do that. You knew life could be hard but you wouldn't let it break Michael. You showed her how to bend. You and your family did you best by my baby when I couldn't and I'm grateful for it."

Spock feels a tickle at his side at her gratitude. He isn't certain what he had expected from Michael's mother but it surely wasn't any of this. Her happy but tired face smiling softly at him had been the farthest expression from his mind.

She adjusts the sleeves on her suit and places her hands on her knees with a hum. " You're probably wondering what I think about y'all-" she makes a gesture with her hands and Spock finds himself blushing as understanding dons on him. "- your little Vulcan Adam and Human Eve impression you all like to do when you find yourselves alone?"

He holds his breath as her face goes hard like his mother when she's about to disapprove of something. She holds her scowl for a few more seconds before bursting out into deep, rolling laugh. She waves at the camera as she composes herself and clears her throat. " It's certainly not the way I wanted you two to go about it but then again I'm not there to vet any men Michael is interested in or advise her of on dating. Either way, you have my blessing." she shrugs and blinks slowly at the camera. " Would have been better if you two weren't brought up as siblings but I know better than anyone that life and love isn't orderly or fair. We all just make the best with what we have and remain grateful in the face of adversity."

Spock nods at the declaration as if she could see him and clasps his hands behind him. " Now I know she's hard-headed- hell, who am I talking to? You know that as well as anybody and you have a stubborn streak about you too." she chuckles. " - just promise me one thing Spock."

He mentally wills the yes he feels and listens on as she stares intently at the camera. " Promise me that you'll always- I mean, even if you two don't make things official, that you will-" her voice cracks and she had cough and clear her throat once more. " I want you to keep on being there for my baby girl. Until I can get back. Look out for her, love her and be there for her as best you can."

She goes on from there into a less personal, more detailed log entry, saying how his unique make up being Vulcan and human with a rare form of dyslexia has given her the only key to communicate to the present- their present. She concluding this observation when the door slides open and Michael walks in.

He turns slightly to watch her come alongside him and study her mother on the comm screen's projection. Her movements and expression are tempered from years on Vulcan but the light in her eyes displays everything she tries to hide. Dr. Burnham continues on about Spock and Michael smiles beatifically. That familiar smile she shares with her mother that she has often reserved for him. " She's got you analyzed pretty well, Spock."

He cants his head to the side in the Vulcan form of a shrug. " Maybe I am less of an enigma than people accuse me of being?"

Michael lifts a brow at his cheekiness and gives him a muted smile. " I doubt it's that."

Spock steps closer and meets her playful gaze with a mirth of his own. " I would think that brilliance runs in the Burnham family. At least for its women."

She comes to his side, nearly brushing her arm with his and grins at him. " Do you think so?"

Spock glances towards the door before wrapping her fingers with his to convey his conviction. " I know so. I am charmed with one and do not wish to rectify it."

She's tugging on the radiation suit when she hears the door slid open. Tilly has already been in just minutes before, leaving her with one conclusion as to who was coming in. " Spock. I'm going."

Large hands take a hold of her own and move her back against the solid bulk of his frame. " I am aware."

She turns her head to gaze up at him and feels them both working not to smile too broadly. " If you are aware then what are you doing here?"

Spock tucks his head alongside hers and closes his eyes with a raspy sigh. " That is simple enough to answer. I am here because you are here."

Michael exhales quietly as his arms come around her and lets her eyes shut as well. " I'm sorry we don't have much time. We never had that much time."

" I do not require much. The present has its own contentment to be felt."

Michael moves in his arms to stand face to face with him. " It is nice to hear something logical and kind from you."

His eyes crack open to peer down at her as he reset his head to rest along her forehead. " I have rarely been given an opportunity to be so magnanimous with you. You have always been a person who chaos follow. You are also stubborn."

" You're stubborn too." she says shaking her head.

Spock tilts his head to the side and lifts a brow. " Also being stubborn does negate your own, Michael."

" Trying to reason with you is hopeless." she sighs, smiling.

" Trying to rid you of your dramatics is akin to Sisyphus toiling with the his boulder up hill. Common sense will never stay put within you."

She chuckles silently against chest. The soft fabric of his jacket is warm from being against skin. Michael suppress the urge to nuzzle against him but indulges the whim to sniff along the lapel. Spock's scent is strong there. The smell reminds her of the days spent outside among the red K'ai tree just outside their home. She would read underneath them to shade herself from the sun while Spock ran around finding things to show her.

Michael moves her hands up along his side and feels his heart below her left palm. She doesn't even think of it as strange. Spock is normal to her like taking a breath of air, involuntary and life-long. She feels him mirror the movement at her side with his hand just below her breast. What could be seen as sexual has a different air of intimacy.

They feel that the other is alive, hearts strong and thrumming within their torsos. It might be the last time and for that reason, Michael wanted to have the memory of Spock and her like this. Hands to heart, eye to eye.

" I wish things had been different." She wants to moves her hand to his face but doesn't. No telling what that kind of touch would lead to. Spock glances down at the hand she thought to move and brings his own after from her chest to her face. " Different how?"

He's asking for her to show him. It's been years since they've melded. Spock feared its practiced repetition might make for a mating bond between them, that their father would deter. That he had one at all bothered Sarek into inquiring over it. Spock had made him content with the answer that she had formally requested one with him as her brother. While not entirely true, Sarek didn't argue the point. He had bonded with Michael as a Vulcan father would his child to maintain a sense of security over her welfare. He let it go but Spock could tell his father did not wholly satisfied with his answer.

He pulls along the weak string of it, smiling gently as he sees Michael's eyes light from feeling flare to life between them. " Show me."

She moves slowly to bring her hand to rest of his at her face and closes her eyes.

She opens them to see Spock looking around them. A litany of emotions race through him as takes in her appearance. " A telik robe."

Michael nods down at the silky gauze of her gown beneath it and spreads her arms out to the side to stretch the thin robe atop it. Spock glances down towards his own attire, a thick embroidered robe of dark bronze with his clan's name running down the lapel.

To the left is an elder matriarch with her guard, a healer with their assistant. Between them stands a podium with a large triangular gong mounted at its center. On either side are their parents, Michael smiling tearfully on the left and Spock's looking far more stoic about the event but no less moved by it on the right. In this world they was no red angel, no klingon war or attack on her family.

In this timeline, their family grew acquainted, saw the soundness of a bond for their children and now celebrate the final step in its completion. Here she is strong and unbroken. Here in her dream they are free not just in their melds or closed off rooms. They are together out in the open.

The ruby colored sand shines gold from the light of the suns above, making her pale blue robe take on an angelic like appearance. In the not too far off distance lies a cave where she and Spock would finish the commencement of their bonding, alone together for three days time.

He turns back to her and the way he looks at her makes her tear up and smile. He blinks back tears of his own and steps closer to her. He raises his hand palm up before her, demonstrating what should be done. Michael follows with resting hers atop his with her fingers lightly grazing his wrist.

Spock's lips quirk at the joy that bubbles over through her touch. He sends back his own amazement with her mind's imagination and admiration of him. He thinks she set her requirements far too low if in her fantasies it is he that she fancies but she firmly rebukes him in an honest regard of her love for him. He flusters and for a moment can do nothing more but be in awe of it.

Holding her gaze Spock next draws up two fingers. He waits for her to mimic the gesture before running them down one side of her hand followed by the other.

" Apart but never parted."

Michael's fingers tic in barely suppressed happiness as disbelief suspends itself for a moment. She's bonding- with him. And he, Spock-

She mirrors the motion of his hand and clears her throat to dislodge the lump of emotion growing there. " Separate but whole."

" We are one heart, one soul." they chant in unison, to the chattering of bells shook by the elder's guards. They halt immediately as the elder holds up her hand in call for silence. She glances towards them and speaks in a Vulcan dialect that neither one has ever used. " Kneel before the healer and have thine minds observed."

Spock kneels first, bracing Michael as she comes down to upon the ground next to him. The healer comes forward moments later and quickly rests a hand on each other their brows. He just as swiftly draws them back and turns to the elder and their families. " Telik." he says in confirmation and the guards begin to shake their bells once more.

Spock stands before her and waits for her to join him. Once on her feet, he leaves Michael to strike the gong on the podium and raises his voice in proclamation. " Kali'fee."

The bells ring again and stop as Michael takes her place beside. A question passes between them as he watches her approach. Is this what she wanted? If time and the events therein were in fact, different would Michael want him as her mate?

Michael stops before him and holds up two fingers in acceptance. " Kali'farr."

Spock's gaze holds her as he reaches out and presses his fingers to hers. " T'nash veh."

Michael waits for the meld to end but feels Spock's reluctance to do so. She looks at him and sees the image of him as her husband shift to reveal the cave beyond. The touch he has on her hand is deep with a heated promise as he eyes her. " You are my bonded here but not yet my wife. Do you wish you amend that or end the meld?"

Michael flushes as she takes in his meaning. Of course but-

-but what? When we are here, are you not mine? As my bonded, can I not make you my wife? No one is here to glean what we think and share so you can share with me all you wish.

She inhales slowly between parted lips and lifts her chin to him in challenge. " Make me yours then, Spock. Attend me."

A tremor racks through him as her further inflame him. " Come."

He turns his back to her and stalks towards the cave. Michael trails behind him, eager to see what would and could have been between them as formally bonded mates.

The elder claps her hands behind them and calls an end to the telik ceremony. " The time of bond has ended. Now the time of consummation."

Michael hears the bonding guests shuffle off behind her as she and Spock draw closer to the cave in his mind's eye. Her hands shake in the bells of her sleeves. She clasps them together but her heart races unabated.

They've joined dozens of times but something about figmented coupling makes her nerves bad. How would feel? What would he think of her? What was she expected to do? And if they did this here, what would it mean outside the meld?

If Spock is privy to her thoughts he stays silent in answering her. Instead he retrieves a torch and waits for her to come at his side. The look he gives her further inflames Michael as Spock looks like a male possessed. It turns out he is once they enter and he beds her.

He takes her mind deeper and body longer than he's ever done before. Michael feels half-crazed in it, delighting in each kiss, push and adoring touch he gives her. He holds her when she's limp and sated and nuzzles her face.

What more would you have for us Michael? Let me see.

Fully submerged and lax into the meld she dreams before him. A life of exploration, service and kids. Growing old on Lutonia VI, published journals and grandkids. Days of friendly rivalry and nights of untempered love. Spock raptly absorbs it all and replaces for them in a moment by moment play back. Michael lives in each imagined day stunned with amazement. She savors each and every one until her figmented end.

The wall of her cabin aboard Discovery comes back into view. Michael blinks at it before her knees buckle out from under her. Strong arms catch her from falling completely as Spock's hook underneath her.

Her labored breathing feels ineffectual, like a fish gasping at the dry, thinness of air. Spock seems equally affected with his strength somewhat wan as he draws her up against his chest. Michael clasps her arms around him as best she can and closes her eyes against the torrents welling up behind them.

His hand moves up from under her arm and comes to rest on the crown of her head. A lifetime. He gave the gift of one together with him and her together in the meld. Nothing in her can form what she feels about possessing such a treasure. That she received it from him of Spock's own want and volition makes it even more precious.

" You are the one that is precious." he croons softly above her. He drags his hand down, smoothing his fingers over the fragile, wooly curls there and sighs as if delighting in them all over again. " You are Vulcan's first and only angel and my guardian."

A choking sob leaves her and he shushes her and pulls her tighter. " Don't Michael. You have no need to cry. I am here with you now. Right beside you. Always for you. My red angel."

In true quarrels fashion she cries anyways and in the true sentiment of love he lets her. He tilts her head up by her chin and kisses at her cheeks as the culmination of all their shared emotions drain out of her and her crying slows into hiccuping sniffs.

After a minute Spock takes her mouth against hers again for what they will learn will be the last time. Michael's half gloved hand goes to his face and tries desperately to sort the mess of her heart's declaration. They do not have much time. Alarms are blaring with a chorus of warning sirens. He's looking at her to hear any and everything she wishes to say. Her bright eyes are fully open to the depth of her and Spock can see inside her without the meld. There's a bond churning between them whether she knows it or not. Neither human or Vulcan, just theirs.

Michael cups her fingers against his face and let's her face open further to him. It's the most human Spock has ever seen her since she arrived at his home some twenty years ago. He leans into her palm and exhales slowly in awe of it. She is completely herself with him and for him. There's no doubt in his logic-led mind that Michael loves him with everything she is. " Michael."

A whispered I love you in Vulcan manages to leave his mouth and she looks as if she might cry all over again. " Spock. I-"

"- Lieutenant Spock. Commander Burnham. Report to engineering immediately. Assistance on the suit's replication and production are needed."

Michael's lip quivers as she fights with the need to report and the desire to stay and finish what is still unsaid. Spock saves her from having to choose by speaking for them both. " We are on our way."

Gone is the tender reflection of her Spock and in its place the budding starfleet officer who's earned her admiration. " Let's go."

She does because they have a plan now. They will open the wormhole, travel through time and save everything that can think for itself. Ash is gone, they're parents stuck here and they will be free to make their meld reality. Michael runs and Spock is at her heels to see the task done.

" Stay in my wake." he tells her before they depart and for once she does as he instruct

" You have so much more to give."

He swallows thickly, human and Vulcan emotion threatening to consume him. He sits in the inoperable shuttle feeling impotent as Michael stands outside ready to save the known universe without him. He had been surprised by how pained he became in telling her he could not follow her and shocked that it could double at the sight of her crestfallen face. He had failed her but he would not have it keep Michael from her goal. He could never keep his aid from her. Or his love. " I do not wish to. Not to just anyone."

She nods understanding and visibly fights to compose herself. Time is relative but it is always short for lovers. " I know, Spock. Me neither. But you have to promise me to never have that precious part of who you are get locked away forever. You need to stay open, keep reaching." -towards love. Please find love - even if it means it's without me

The words wound him with a hollow ache at his side. Without her? No.

He does not wish to keep reaching. He does not want to stay open. He wants to stay with her. He wants what they had in the meld. He does not wish to loose her. Without her?

Fear grips his throat and his voice falters as he speaks to her again. " Will you -" he was going to ask for her to come back but he cannot bring himself to ask. If she's trapped with no way back she'll be stuck with a promise left unfulfilled and festering. He blinks hard and tries again. " How will I know you have safely arrived to your destination point?"

Michael stand in front of his ship staring through the window. She only twenty feet away but she's already beyond Spock's reach. I have lost her he thinks mournfully as he stares back at her lovely face. It was already goodbye with the sighting of the signals and the future of it has finally arrived . Dr. Burnham's sad smile comes back to his mind in a haunting foreshadow. She knew that what we had would not last but she lead me to believe there would be a chance so I would not grieve Michael early. So I would love her fully in the present.

For the first and last time Spock finds himself hating the banality of space. Its uninhabitable sphere bars him from the intimate departure he yearns to have. Michael, of all people, does not deserve a paltry farewell of words. Not from him, not with what they've shared. " Michael?"

She gives the same smile her mother gave him in the record logs and his whole being aches. " I'll send a signal. A seventh one. Just for you so you'll know."

She sniffs at the water running from her nose and shakes her head. " I don't want to lose you again."

Spock narrows his eyes to keep from joining her sorrow and shakes his head. " You never lost me. And- as far as I am concerned-" his voice leaves him and he starts again. " - you never will."

The bond between them pulls at them like a tether- drawing them both to silence. Michael closes her eyes at the sensation with a hand tightening at her side. Spock reaches out and caresses her through it as best as he encourages her on her way. That he does so with a sane mind and spirit makes him unsure that he actually is sane. Why would he let her go ?" You- Michael, I am sorry."

She cries openly now, understanding but stricken by their plight. " Don't apologize. I know you would come if you could."

He stares at her wide-eyed and in near shock as he tries to absorb every moment they have left. " Thank you Michael, for letting me find myself with you. And letting me see and love who you are."

High Vulcan leaves his lips soon after, a proclamation of devotion so saccharine that both their tears flow freely now.

Michael takes the fist at her side slowly over her heart and nods. " I love you too, brother." - Spock, I love you too. Forever and a lifetime.

And one minute, fifty two seconds later she was gone.

His medical evalu comes back clear with the exception of a few lacerations but he feels crippled. His mother visited him early on after his review before Starfleet's internal affairs bureau.

She assures him it is normal to hurt but he will be okay but even she does not seemed convinced. Spock felt her, still feels Michael but he cannot find her because she is literally stuck beyond him. At least he assumes she's stuck.

Maybe she is still arriving. Maybe for her, the wormhole has just begun and she has seen the whole of his life and those after him flash before her eyes. Has she seen his life a hundred times, a hundred ways, with a hundred different beloveds? Spock hopes she has not. He is not ready, nor does he want to be. He wants her.

Four months and sixteen days have seen Spock staring out of the portholes of Enterprise with nothing but stars to show for it.

As much as duty can afford him, he works in departments with a view out beyond the gray hull. Observation deck ten becomes his space for recreation and his cabin's porthole remains open. He stands and waits with a wounded look of anticipation.

Will it be today? Perhaps he will find the image of crimson blazing brightly at the planet closest to them through his sensor arrays' viewscreen. Maybe he will wake and see her smiling down at him with the joy of her return.

Maybe. Perhaps. He hopes. So he waits.

On the one hundred and forty second day that passes Spock pauses before the mirror.

Do you really think that beard is working for you?

He runs his hands over it as he had in that moment and decides then it does not. She would tease him for being too sensitive and shaving it off but he knows she would approve of his clean-shaven face. She would approve of his science blues over his Vulcan robes. She would approve of him reporting for duty. And more than, Michael, found human, made friend, first love would be proud that Spock chose to get back up, move forward and reach out, even though it hurt.

Because she loved him. And he loves her.