A/N: This is the follow-up to my story "What She Wants". Rated M for sexual situations and Bad Language. There will be one more chapter and possibly an epilogue for this story. R&R if you like it! (Oh, yeah, and I don't own the characters or the Trek universe.)

Six weeks have passed since Christine Chapel, Head Nurse of the ISS Enterprise, has gotten what she wanted. Well, one of the three things she thought she wanted out of her time on the Empire's flagship.

Technically it is the second thing she's gotten, the first being the death of her runaway, unfaithful bastard of a fiancée, Roger Korby. She has long since given up on seeking vengeance against Captain James Tiberius Kirk for the murder of her older sister when she tried to save her lover, former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike, from Kirk's ambitions.

But the third thing…she had that. For 72 glorious hours, she had Spock. The sex had been bruising, exhausting, exhilarating – everything she'd ever dared to dream it would be.

And since those 72 hours, six weeks ago?

Nothing.

Well, not entirely "nothing." They have not returned to the status quo they'd established before the Vulcan mating fever had struck the First Officer. He requests her assistance on various scientific projects far more often than he did before, and because of some quirk of Spock's half-Human physiology, the emotional bond they established that was meant to last only as long as the Pon Farr, has continued to exist.

He is solicitous of her, has made it clear to all and sundry that she is not to be molested without fear of answering to him. Aside from the normal, petty day-to-day harassment all women in Starfleet endure, she no longer receives unwelcome and unsolicited demands for sexual acts in return for requests she makes.

On the other hand, she receives no solicited requests for sexual acts, either. Spock has maintained a polite physical distance between them since she limped out of his quarters (under escort of his personal bodyguards, a scowling pair of twins who made it clear that any comments on her "walk of shame" would be more than unwelcome – and that they were eager to deal with such at the slightest provocation).

She wonders if it is because of that unexpected mental bond; perhaps he is struggling to deal with the unwanted influx of her erratic, tempestuous Human emotions and to add sex back into the mix would make it that much more difficult.

Or perhaps he simply has no use for her outside of the Pon Farr. She has no idea which possibility – or which of the myriad of possibilities that lie between such extremes – is true.

Because he doesn't talk about it. Hasn't said a word to her about their mutually gratifying – his words, as she left his quarters that last morning – fuckfest (her word, definitely not his).

He is married, has a Vulcan wife at home, but that is typical for Starfleet men. Most of them have wives at home – sometimes two or three on various planets. And Spock has indicated that he has not always been as faithful to his wife as Christine assumed a Vulcan would be.

She has had a great many of her assumptions about Vulcans turned on their heads lately, and is still struggling to figure out which "truths" are actually true, and which are complete fabrications, false assumptions and sheer bigotry.

It is one of the many reasons she hasn't pushed the issue with Spock yet.

That, and the fact that her period is now two weeks late.

She has put off this moment for far too long. She should have scanned herself as soon as she suspected anything was wrong…but has been afraid to do so.

And now, the moment of truth has arrived.

She feels the breath go out of her lungs, feels the stutter of her heart as her disbelieving eyes read the scan results once, twice, a third time, as if the information will change if she reads it enough times.

It remains the same. She is six weeks pregnant.

She feels sick. How did this happen? She has always been very careful with her birth control implants, even before "joining" Starfleet, where such implants are mandatory for all female personnel. The men, of course, can go around spraying sperm into any willing (or at least available) orifice without fear of punishment, but if a female in Starfleet – especially an officer – finds herself on the wrong end of such an encounter, the repercussions are severe.

She will find herself placed in the Agony Booth, a torturous punishment she has miraculously managed to avoid after nearly five years of her ten-year tenure have passed. If she doesn't lose the baby after that, then she will be forced to endure an abortion at the hands of Dr. McCoy. An abortion, then enforced sterilization.

And if she manages to survive all three procedures, then she is entirely at the mercy of Cpt. Kirk. Who has several options open to him, two of which she has witnessed first-hand since coming aboard the Enterprise.

When Lt. Carolyn Palamas found herself pregnant after an encounter with an alien who styled himself one of the gods of the old-calendar Greek pantheon, she'd undergone the torture, the forced abortion, and the sterilization.

Then Kirk had sold her to the Orions as a sex slave.

And when one of his own mistresses had thought to manipulate him into providing a luxurious future for her by "accidentally" forgetting to renew her annual shot on time, he'd not only put her through those first three procedures; he'd not only overseen them personally; he'd also done the honors when she was unceremoniously tossed into an airlock and jettisoned into space after spending a week in the brig, believing that he was going to let her transfer off the ship in disgrace.

She is not Kirk's mistress, thank God. She is definitely not his type, since he seems to prefer doe-eyed brunettes like his current Woman, Lt. Marlena Moreau from Bio.

All of which does nothing but fuel her incipient panic. What the hell is she going to do? The only way she can escape the mandatory punishments and whatever fate Kirk will decree for her when he finds out is…if he never finds out.

No one voluntarily transfers off the Enterprise. It is the flagship of the fleet, the ultimate goal of every scheming ensign and officer assigned to deep space duty. To request a transfer is tantamount to requesting that one's personal life be placed under an unpitying microscope – to court a punishment for perceived treason every bit as gruesome as that meted out for an unsanctioned pregnancy.

Which brings her whirling mind back full-circle. What the fuck is she going to do? She's always been diligent with her shots, has never allowed herself to go over the time limit by so much as a single day, let alone the full week required for the previous years' implant to become completely ineffective.

She stiffens as it finally dawns on her that her baby isn't fully Human.

Mr. Spock is the father. She hasn't had sex with anyone since that spectacularly erotic 72-hour period six weeks ago, hasn't wanted anyone even in the sudden abstinence she finds herself forced into.

What the hell is he going to say? She knows Vulcans are a bit fanatical about family, but she also knows that he's not only half-Human, but that he defied his father in order to enter Starfleet. So maybe he won't have a problem if she quietly has an abortion and then tells him about it afterwards...No, that won't work, either.

If he doesn't already know, he soon will.

Their emotional connection will no doubt see to that. He is probably experiencing her current mental upheaval nearly as clearly as she is, which simply fuels her growing panic. There will be no hiding her condition from him.

Her only hope is to confront him with the truth and try to get him to believe her when she tells him she didn't do this on purpose, that she doesn't know how it happened in the first place – well, of course she knows how she got pregnant; what she doesn't know is what the hell happened to her implant. A faulty batch of suppressant, she supposes dully as she sinks onto the lab bench and lowers her head, forcing herself to breathe since, judging by her light-headedness and the black spots dancing before her eyes, she has forgotten to do so for several minutes.

The lab doors slide open. She looks up in shock; she'd coded them shut, to be opened for medical emergencies only, and Dr. McCoy is in the Rec Room getting completely tanked at the moment; she checked before she slipped back here at the end of her duty shift. So who…?

She should have known. She recognizes the back-lit silhouette of the very man she wishes most to avoid at the moment.

"Nurse Chapel." That grave, gravelly voice she knows so well. She flinches. "You are distressed."

Yup, right on schedule. Her panic attack must have given him a near-crippling headache, one to match the dull throb of her own temples. Wordlessly she holds up the scan results, waiting for him to take them from her.

Before approaching her, he turns and recodes the door, locking it behind them. She knows no one will be able to interrupt them now, even if there is a medical emergency. No one short of God himself could get through a locking code Spock had devised – and probably not even He could manage such a trick.

She feels a bit of hysteria bubbling up inside her at the image of the all-powerful Christian God pounding on the door and demanding entry to the locked room, but swallows it down as best she can.

Spock approaches her slowly, cautiously, as if she might suddenly spring at him, and she realizes he isn't looking at her, but is carefully examining the small lab as he makes his way to her side and the scanner she is still holding up for him to take. He has a small, Type I phaser in his hand, and she belatedly realizes he must think this is some sort of ambush, with her as bait.

"It's all right," she finally musters the energy to say, her emotions subsiding into something approaching numbness. "There's no one here but us. I wasn't expecting…I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asks as he finally reaches her side. He still makes no move to take the scanner, simply tucks his phaser back into its belt holster and folds his hands behind his back as he examines her.

"For this," she says, waving the scanner listlessly at him. Why doesn't he just take the damned thing and get this over with? "For what it's worth, I didn't do it on purpose. I'm not trying to trap you or manipulate you, and if you need to do a mind meld to prove I'm telling the truth, just go ahead. I won't fight you."

She's seen what happens when people try to fight one of Mr. Spock's forced melds. It isn't pretty, and often ends up with irreparable brain damage as the result.

"There is no need for me to perform a mind meld on you, Christine."

She gapes up at him. He hasn't called her by her first name since they parted ways six weeks ago. He hasn't so much as accidentally pressed against her in the turbolift since she'd exited his quarters after his Pon Farr had ended. Yes, the emotional bond still lingered; she always knew when he was pissed off on the inside even if nothing rippled that smooth Vulcan mask he presented to the outside world. She'd thought he might try to eradicate that bond, possibly through another meld, but he'd left it in place and she hadn't wanted to risk his anger by asking him about it.

Yeah, the lack of sex has been frustrating and annoying, but somehow she's managed to cling to the hope that eventually she'll be able to coax him back into her bed. She doesn't feel rejected, exactly, certainly not enough to want to try and get back at him for using her (and allowing her to use him)…but still. All of that is moot now.

"I'm pregnant," she says, in case he didn't understand exactly why her emotions were in such a turmoil. She wiggles the scanner at him again. In case he hadn't actually noticed it in his desire – nope, wrong word, too emotional and Human, she thinks bitterly – in his heightened alertness due to the possibility of an ambush.

"I am aware of your condition, Christine."

Those quiet words are like a shock of ice water down her spine. She gapes at him again, stunned, confused, her numbness utterly obliterated as her tumultuous emotions render themselves into a raging storm. "You…you're aware?" she finds herself repeating incredulously as she shoots to her feet, the scanner clattering to the floor, falling from suddenly numb fingers as she turns to face him. "How?"

"Your scent," is his simple reply. As if that explains it all.

Like hell it does. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she rages, feeling a hint of relief as her emotions finally settle into a coherent whole, something identifiable and not at all confusing: pure, seething fury. "How can my scent tell you I'm pregnant? And why aren't you more pissed off at me?"

She is practically yelling as she asks that final question, her last vestiges of control disappearing under the weight of her anger. She reaches out blindly to slap some of the smug neutrality off his face, only to find her wrist grabbed tightly in his hand. She tries with the other hand, snarling defiance at him as she does so, only to find that wrist just as firmly grasped as the first one has been.

She has no formal combat training and he is Vulcan; the fight is over before it gets to the kicking and screaming phase by the simple expedient of him yanking her against the hard length of his body and slanting his mouth over hers for a searing kiss.

When the kiss ends, so does her rage, leaving in its wake a blank confusion. "What the hell is going on?" she asks, pure bewilderment in her voice and face as she stares up at him.

"The week before our…encounter…in my quarters," he begins, but she interrupts him with a bitter laugh.

"Encounter?" she echoes, shaking her head. "You mean when you fucked me over every horizontal surface in the room and up against nearly all the vertical ones."

He pauses as if considering her words, blinks, then nods. "Yes, I suppose it could be characterized that way. The week prior to that," he then continues on as if she hadn't interrupted him, "Dr. M'Benga took me aside to inform me that the medical synthesizer used to process the birth control implants for roughly a third of the female crewmembers had malfunctioned, and although the technician in charge of maintenance had been punished for his negligence – " That would be Henry McMasters, the lazy bastard; so that was why he'd been sent to the Agony Booth and put on toilet-scrubbing duty on the lower decks for the past two months "— it was, of course, his duty to inform me of the situation before recalling the affected women to Sickbay for examination."

She blinks, going quite still as she processes this information. She was not informed by either Dr. M'Benga or Dr. McCoy of this development; as Head Nurse, she should have been put in charge of rectifying the situation before anyone was accidentally impregnated.

Anyone such as…herself. "Oh my God," she whispers as the penny finally drops. Spock nods again, agreeing with her unspoken understanding, releasing her wrists from his bruising grasp and watching as she takes an unsteady step away from him.

She has been given a faulty contraceptive implant. She had changed hers out only a month before the fuckfest in Spock's quarters and hadn't bothered with the redundant confirmation of the follow-up procedures, confident that the batch she'd been injected with was as effective as the last several had been.

She blanches. Even though McMasters has been punished, it would be just like McCoy to point the finger at her if the Captain got wind of the situation. She could be held responsible if anyone else turns up pregnant; how can she mitigate this, how can she fix it…

Spock is speaking again, and she forces herself to focus, to listen to his words. Belatedly she recalls that he and Dr. M'Benga have been aware of the situation for nearly two months now, and if she were going to be blamed it would have already happened. "He mentioned that you were on the list of affected crewmembers, and I informed him that I would personally alert you to the situation, as we were meeting later that evening to deal with the Kelvin experiment. Do you recall?"

She nods dumbly. Yes, she recalls. The Kelvin weapon they'd confiscated could turn living beings into polyhedrons composed of their base chemical components – and reverse the process as well. In conjunction with Chief Engineer Scott, she and Spock had been working on a way to adapt the small hand weapon to a larger-scale model capable of reducing entire armies to such a state. "You didn't say anything to me," she finally says, once again feeling her anger start to get the better of her. "Why?"

His face becomes, if anything, even more rigidly controlled, although she can feel a glimmer of some intense emotion through their link. He, of course, feels her emotions much more clearly, being a touch telepath. Her own psi abilities are approximately null, which means this unnamed emotion must be extremely strong. "I do not clearly recall that evening," he admits after a long silence. "It is very likely I was already being affected by the onset of the Pon Farr."

She sees – feels – how difficult it is for him to admit to having lost clarity of mind for even a nanosecond. She feels a flash of anger toward him – this is officially all his fault – that subsides as quickly as it flares. There is no point in screaming about it, not now that the damage is already done. The only bright side she can see is that fact that it, indeed, his fault. He neglected to warn her about the faulty implant, which means that she might be able to get out of this hole into which she's fallen.

If Spock is willing to speak up for her, the perhaps she can simply be allowed to abort their unplanned fetus and continue on as she has been, without incurring the Captain's wrath.

She finds herself intensely shaken at the thought of that scenario playing out; why? She's given no thought to motherhood in the past, certainly not to becoming the mother of a mixed-species (although dominantly Human) child. So why does the idea of terminating the pregnancy…hurt?

"So where does that leave us?" she finally asks, when she feels capable of speaking without bursting into tears. Damned pregnancy hormones.

"I will arrange for you to be sent to Vulcan," he says, and she finds herself gaping at him in shock for the third time in less than fifteen minutes. "My parents will take you in, protect you from T'Pring's wrath, and will raise the child themselves if you elect to return to Earth – or the Enterprise – after giving birth. Whatever you decide," he adds. Clearly as an afterthought.

She feels her earlier rage returning, but this time she manages to hold onto her control, not to reach out and claw his face the way she so desperately wants to. "Whatever I decide?" she mimics bitterly. "Seems like you've already made all my decisions for me. Why bother giving me a choice after the fact?"

One delicately pointed eyebrow raises itself, and she wishes, not for the first time, that she could manage the same effect with her much lighter, boring curved ones. "I fail to see the issue, Christine," he says, but before he can continue she cuts him off with a bitter laugh.

"Of course you don't, Mr. Spock," she finally chokes out as she slumps back onto the hard plastic chair and buries her face in her hands. She raises her head and uses the backs of her hands to scrub away the tears that have finally burst free. "I knew what I was getting into, that's what you think, right?" She doesn't bother to wait for an answer as she lets six week's worth of pain and frustration pour out of her. "You melded with me so I wouldn't have any illusions, but guess what. I'm only Human so yeah, I had illusions. I was hoping for more than just three days of the best sex I've ever had and then the coldest damned cold shoulder I've ever experienced. I wanted more, at least while we were serving together. I know that's probably all I'd ever get since you have a wife on Vulcan who would probably slit my throat for sleeping with her man if she ever found out – "

"She would not care if we were sexual partners," Spock cuts in, his voice even, expression once again settled into pure Vulcan neutrality. "However, when she discovers that you are carrying my child, she will go out of her way to attempt to end your life…if I allow her to do so. Which is why you must go to Vulcan," he adds, as if it is entirely clear and logical for him to make those two statements, cause and effect, without needing to go through the bother of explaining the interim steps to her.

She supposes it is a compliment, although she is unwilling to simply take him at his word. "You sound like you want me to keep this baby," she says, putting aside her other questions for the moment, once again managing to tamp down on her anger under the weight of her very real curiosity at the moment. "If I just terminate and we don't tell the Captain, then why…" Her voice trails off as she feels a definite surge of mixed emotions from him – entirely identifiable emotions, at that.

She studies him carefully as she mulls his emotional response over in her mind. The first part is pure revulsion. He doesn't want her to terminate the pregnancy. He…wants?...this child.

That is the second feeling, a sense of longing she's never felt, an ache for something…their child. He wants this child, he does, wants her to be the child's mother…

He wants her. "Why did you just…push me away?" she asks in a near whisper as his feelings threaten to overwhelm her own confusion and pain and rising hope. "If you want me, want this – " her hands flutter over her still-flat midriff – "then why push me away?"

His eyes lower, his hands, which have been lying passively by his side since he released her from that searing kiss, clench into fists before he deliberately relaxes them and clasps them once again behind his back. "I am…unused to indulging my personal desires in such a manner," he finally confesses. "After the Pon Farr had stripped me of so many of my natural defenses, I was…unwilling to give in to my body's desires again, at least, not immediately. I have been meditating on it," he adds, "And had reached the conclusion that I was foolishly denying us both what we wanted. However, before I could decide on the best way to approach you…"

His voice trails off in a manner very unlike his usual, precise way of speaking, but she understands. This is as close to a confession of love as she will ever get from him, and it brings a slow smile to her lips. Life in the Terran Empire is harsh, life in Starfleet even more so, but it does not have to be without its little moments of triumph and peace.

"All right," she finds herself saying. "I'll go to Vulcan and have the baby, if that's what you want. But," she adds, "I want you to promise you'll take extended leave when my due date comes. I want you with me when our child is born." She takes a deep breath. "Do you think…can you do that, for me? For us?"

He nods. "I will arrange your temporary transfer of duty to the Terran Embassy in my home province," he says, then starts to turn away.

Oh, no, he's not getting out of it that easily. She jumps to her feet and grabs his wrist, stopping him. He turns back to face her, once again doing that damned eyebrow thing that melts her bones to butter, and she gives in to her desire to kiss him.

He returns the kiss, wrapping his arms around her and pulling his against his lean hardness. She feels his cock thickening, heating, and her own arousal skyrockets at this non-verbal admission of desire. He has kept her at arm's length for six weeks, and who knows how quickly his "request" to transfer her will take to go through? Not long, she suspects, but she is determined to make the most of their remaining time together.

When she transferred to the Enterprise, she had a list with three things on it: Kirk's death (never gonna happen, at least not at her hands); vengeance against Roger Korby for deserting her at the altar (checked off and then some, another reason not to kill Kirk besides keeping Spock happy, or at least not unhappy), and get Spock into her bed and keep him there as long as possible.

Part one of that fantasy became reality during his Pon Farr. She'll be damned if she lets him go without part two coming true.