Thank you, thank you, thank you. The reviews have been fabulous and I've really enjoyed playing with these characters.

Uhura's pushy brain is sleeping, but Spock's logical one is still very much awake. This is what happens when a half-Human/half-Vulcan becomes contemplative post-coitus …

Disclaimer and warnings in chapter one.

Chapter Six of Six: The Son of Sarek and Amanda

He was, first and foremost, a scientist. He believed in the order and reason of the universe. He believed in what could be measured, counted, quantified and analyzed.

He learned through experimentation and observation. He learned through categorization and organization.

He had lived in his parents' home on Vulcan for many years; it was his first laboratory. It was where he learned what it was to be Vulcan and what it was to be Human.

His mother was Human and, therefore, unpredictable. She reacted to things, she yelled, she cried, she laughed. She made sweaters for him and worried over him when he was ill. She would defend him when his schoolmates would taunt him in their efforts to elicit an emotional response from him; and she comforted him the day they succeeded. She had cried the day he left Vulcan for Earth. She told him over and over again that she loved him.

His father was Vulcan and, therefore, predictable. He was measured and calm, his tone and carriage fixed. He would tell his wife that their son should not be defended, that he must learn to temper his responses and actions and behaviors; that was what was expected of a Vulcan, and Spock was a Vulcan. His father had not reacted the day he had chosen to continue his education at Starfleet rather than the Shi'Oren t'Ek'Tallar T'Khasi. He had bid him farewell, as implacable as ever, the day Spock had departed for Earth.

His mother was variable, his father never varied.

Almost never.

Throughout his time on Vulcan, he would, at odd and unexpected moments, enter a room to find his father leaning close to his mother. Spock would observe as his father spoke to his mother in low tones. His mother would respond by turning and smiling at his father; often she would laugh. She would reach up and run her fingers through his hair and his father would lay his palm against her cheek.

When he was younger, he had believed that in those moments a le-matya could have entered the house and his parents would not have taken notice.

As he grew older he concluded that did not understand his father's actions; that they were the only illogical choices his father made. His father should not have the need to seek out his wife's caresses: His parents were bond mates, telik; that alone should have been sufficient to assure his father of his mother's respect, regard and commitment for him. There was no need for this touching of hair and of faces; the touching of their fingers…ozh'esta…should meet all need for physical communion.

He had believed that as firmly as he believed that two plus two would always equal four.

Believed it until the day she sat in the front row of his classroom and raised her hand; believed it until the moment he had heard her speak.

She was one of 256 students in that lecture, one of 9078 students in the Academy.

She was one.

He could access that moment in his memory as clearly as when it had first occurred. He could still envisage the sweep of her hair, the color of her skin, the luminosity of her eyes, the tenor of her voice. He could remember her pulse rate and the pattern of her breath.

Observation. Categorization. Analysis.

The fever began later. He could access that moment in his memory as well: A particularly excited Nyota, very human as she argued with him about the translation of a newly discovered Old Andorian text. She had leaned close to him, as Father had with Mother, and her breath washed over his face, her hand brushed against his.

She continued along with her argument, oblivious to what that casual contact had stirred within him.

I began to burn for her.

The fever did not fade, would not fade, even in the face of logic, reason, protocol or meditation.

It had become a part of him, a ceaseless, unprecedented form of plak'tow. A never-ending desire that threatened to shred his willpower. He had never experienced anything like it, had never encountered anything that could have prepared him for its onslaught. He was unable to categorize it, he was unable to analyze it, he was unable to distill it into its component parts and he was unable to create a cure.

Even so, I allowed her to enter my quarters…

Nyota stirred but did not waken; her hair, which he could only describe as silken, brushed across his arm. He touched the strands, felt the gentle warmth of her breath on his skin, felt the heat radiating from her body. She had just given herself to him, had driven him beyond the limits of his control, had pushed his body into pleasure he had never imagined.

And it was not enough: He still desired her touch; he wished to wake her and share those experiences again and again.

He was not sated. He yearned for more. He still burned for her.

And then he understood.

I know this.

I learned this.

He had learned it long ago on Vulcan; learned it not in the vast libraries or education pods, but in the dwelling in which he was raised, within the home his parents had created out of their bond.

Human words that his mother had taught him swept over him: Unexpected, attachment, belonging.

Necessary.

His parents gravitated towards one other; they were drawn magnetically into one another's presence. It had been that way since the time they had met and would be so long as they drew breath.

His mother was an illogical Human, but how she had fit into his father's existence, how he had shifted his world for her, how the universe had ordered itself around her presence in his life, was entirely logical.

Nyota.

He felt the pull of gravity, felt the world moving and shifting, felt the universe reordering itself.

Me and Nyota.

Entirely logical.