A/N: This is going to be a long fic, I'm guessing 10-20 chapters, probably my longest one yet (just to forewarn you). It's based on my response to a ship wars prompt ("Fairy Tales"), but expanded. I'll post the original story once I'm done, as to not give away the ending.

One day Spock, who was still young, woke up next to an old woman. It wasn't that he hadn't seen her age before—he had watched as the lines appeared on her face, her skin became thin and papery and she gained weight over the years and then lost it again. But for the first time, he looked down at her and she seemed frail. Her grey hair was spread across the pillow and her bony body seemed impossibly fragile under the blankets. She was one hundred and five. Spock tried not to dwell on the thought as he got up and went on with his day.

It was three months later when his father noticed, at Thanksgiving. It was a small dinner, just Spock, his father, Nyota and their daughter Nadine, who had just gotten divorced. Sarek gave Spock a piercing look as he helped Nyota into her chair. He cornered him after they were done eating.

"I think that it is time you consider looking for a new mate," he told Spock in the darkness of the TV room. Spock said nothing and turned away from his father, as if he thought the request was beyond consideration. Sarek moved towards him and looked into his son's opposing eyes,

"You should at the very least think about it."

Spock tried to conceal his irritation. Of course he had thought about it. Twice, he and Nyota had seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and the first time, when the patriarch had said that he'd kept on sleeping with his wife long after he should have stopped they'd laughed, but the second time they'd sat there silently, awkwardly with his smooth hand clasped around her bony one.

Later that night, he'd gone out to get ice cream for Nadine, who was doing so well, studying for her GED so she could get into community college, and he'd walked past the working girls and thought about it. He'd never done anything. But he'd thought about it.

"Father," he said, looking down, "I cannot."

"Spock," Sarek whispered harshly, "You need to think about this. What if you hurt her? What if she cannot sate you? What if both happen?"

Spock didn't answer. Sarek persisted.

"What about Nadine? What if she needs you?"

Spock raised his eyebrow. Sarek had never approved of adoption, or of Nadine. He was pandering.

"Why are you going to such great lengths to raise somebody else's bastard child?" he had asked Spock more than once.

"Somebody has to," Spock would usually answer, with a touch of anger.

But Nadine wasn't really the consideration here, anyhow. Spock broke his father's gaze and shook his head.

"We have time. Just think about it," Sarek said finally, seeing that his son was not budging.

It was three weeks later when Spock realized that his father was right. He was sitting in his study, thankfully not at Starfleet headquarters, thankfully not out in the garden when he heard Nyota calling for him. There was something about her voice that made him know right away that something was wrong. He followed it and found her lying across the bottom of the bathtub, clutching her pelvis. He tried to lift her, but she cried out in pain. Eventually, he called an ambulance.

"My wife fell in the bath," Spock explained to the paramedics, leading them into the bathroom. He assumed that they would expect her to be elderly, as she had been hurt by a minor fall, but instead when they saw her, they stood for a moment and gaped.

Not that stares were unusual. Their differences in aging had led Spock to conclude that the average human wasn't very bright. Often, even at Starfleet functions, people would give them strange looks until Spock subtly mentioned the length of their marriage. They had travelled around Earth for their seventy-fifth anniversary, so usually it wasn't difficult to change the topic to travel and bring it up, although now it was starting to sadden him. It was only four years ago that she had been chipper and energetic, pitching tents in the forests of California, playing frisbee on the beaches of Mexico, walking across the Great Wall of China without hardly using her walking stick. Now, some days she barely had enough energy to do the housework.

Nyota usually took it in good spirits, though.

"You should tell them that life used to be difficult as a Vulcan escort," she'd joked one night, with a sly smile, "But now all the women want one."

But today was not the day for jokes or subtlety.

"My wife of seventy-nine years," he told the paramedics disdainfully, and they moved towards her quickly, as if embarrassed by their hesitation. They quickly got her onto a stretcher and covered her in a blanket.

Spock rode along in the ambulance, and then waited behind the curtains as the doctors looked at her. Finally, he saw the head doctor push her out in a wheelchair.

"It's going to take a few months for it to heal at your age," he was telling her, "Try to walk around a bit every day, but as soon as it starts to hurt, go back to the chair. And make sure you don't put too much pressure on the area. Tight seatbelts, grandchildren on the lap, that sort of thing."

It was then that Spock saw the truth in what his father had told him.

That night, after helping Nyota into bed, Spock walked by the Comm. system three times before he got the courage to pick it up. It didn't have to mean anything, he convinced himself. He could always change his mind when she got better. It was just a precaution.

Purposefully, Spock turned on the Comm. and punched in the necessary digits.

"Father," he whispered hoarsely, "Make the arrangements."