Fire.

It was like fire; the pain, the loss, the grief, Gods, the pain...

Balling his hands into fists, the only visible sign of his anguish, Spock forced all signs of emotion from his face with the easy discipline that had been drilled into him from birth.

He'd felt emotion before, of course he had, but not like this. Strong, terrible, vision-blurring emotion, with the power to devour him from the inside. The planet had swallowed his precious mother, and along with her a chunk of his soul, it had been ripped from him, leaving a gaping, bleeding hole behind that pulsed painfully with every beat of his heart.

His jaw creaked with strain as he desperately struggled to keep a grip on his control. A muscle in his cheek twitched, his vision began to tunnel and his breathing shallowed as the emotion usually kept so strictly in check threatened to surge forth. He had to get out of there, away from the sympathetic eyes of his crew, back to the bridge, back to where he felt in command of things. Marching from the transporter room he made it to the bridge on autopilot, failing to acknowledge crew members that stood to attention as he passed, a slip in protocol that he would not have tolerated under normal circumstances.

Back on the Bridge he sat down in the big chair, made the big decisions in regards to the escape, he was the big man.

But he was still screaming on the inside.

Unable to contain himself and his grief any longer, he rose from the Captain's chair and made his way stiffly to the turbo lift. He was so caught up in the maelstrom of emotions that he didn't realise he was being followed until the turbo lift doors closed. A long, female arm reached past him to halt the lift and he found himself gazing into the wide, brown eyes of Lieutenant Uhura. The tiny sliver of logic in his brain that was still operating reminded him that she wasn't a proper Lieutenant yet, that her field commission was only in place because of the fleet's circumstances. Her hands came up to gently grip his jaw and with the brazen, uninvited human contact, her fingers dangerously close to his mind-meld points, he felt the turmoil within himself quieten, if only for a second.

"Tell me what you need."

He swallowed, unable to speak, afraid to even open his mouth, lest the pain that seared his very being come screaming out. She seemed to understand and rose up to meet him, her lips brushing his gently, briefly, before shifting to press a trail of kisses to his cheek, his jaw, embracing him, offering him an outlet for the emotion burning a hole in his chest. Sinking into the subsumption, he wrapped his arms around her slight figure, pulling her close and burying his face into her neck, feeling the burn of tears behind his eyelids but refusing to give in, fearing the loss of his sanity if he did. Pulling back after a long moment he let his eyes slide closed as he captured her lips in another kiss, its tenderness silently thanking her for her support.

The simple, chaste kiss drew out for long moments, slowly slipping from comfort to desire. Suddenly, something in him snapped and the beginnings of a possessive growl bubbled in his throat. His muscles flexed and he enclosed her completely in the circle of his arms, holding her so close he couldn't tell where he ended and she began. This was dangerous, the destructive emotions roiling through him were too strong, they were morphing from crippling pain to blinding need. He had to stop this or he would end up taking her right here and now in the turbo lift in the middle of a crisis, and with his superior strength his loss of control would probably kill her.

Wrenching himself free of her devastating kiss, he had to physically hold her at arms length while he struggled to regain his composure. The light of concern that had glowed in her eyes when they first entered the lift had gone, to be replaced with a flaming spark of want. He had to close his eyes for a second after re-activating the lift in order to gather himself. With his eyes still shut, he sucked in lungfuls of air, air that was saturated with her scent, her pheromones, her arousal. He cursed his superior Vulcan senses as they kept him teetering on the edge of his formidable control, threatening to push him over and into her arms. His fingers flexed where they gripped her arms, he was so close to just giving in and pulling her back to him when the doors mercifully slid open. He all but stumbled from the turbo lift in his haste to get clear of her influence, but his eyes remained locked rebelliously on hers, even as he backpedaled to safety, the flames of shattering control licking at his irises.