Spock felt his insides twist. Her accusation was true. He pushed back a wave of guilt-laced frustration. She still had not answered his question.

"Why, Nyota?" he asked again.

"It weakens a bond, this sort of... cloaking. Did you know that?" She spoke with a nonchalance he knew - even without access to her mind - was false. No matter what she had learned during her time on T'Khasi Vokaya, the little girl she appeared to be was far less adept at concealing strong emotions than the woman had been. "The healers say a weaker bond is easier to sever. The sooner we do this, the better. You barely have more than a year."

"I will not choose another mate."

"Then you will go to one of the temples that now serve males in need. I won't allow you to die just because I can't live up to the promise I once made."

"There is no guarantee that I will even-"

"You will. It happened to him and it will happen to you." Her declaration was made all the more impressive by virtue of the quiet, matter-of-fact intonation of the child-like voice delivering it. "I will not watch my husband go to another woman."

"Meditation is a viable option."

"Not for you." Tears filled her eyes as she started to back away from him. "You have to find a new mate, Spock. You shouldn't have to die because I'm unfit and can't help you."

"I could not lay blame at your feet, ashayam, when the greater culpability was my own."

The tears spilled over, but when she spoke, her voice remained strong. "That doesn't change my mind, Spock." Her tone was grave, no longer completely devoid of feeling.

There was an almost... wistful quality to her inflection. She left the room before he thought to investigate it.

Spock sank to the floor before her asenoi.

___________

The scent of Nyota's incense clung to his clothing as Spock made his way to the ambassador's kitchen. His t'dahsu sat alone at the otherwise empty table. The others were gone.

"Enough food remains if you are hungry. You may serve yourself." The ambassador pointed to a small stasis unit and then to an open cupboard containing dishes.

Spock retrieved a bowl, filled it with cold soup and selected spicy flatbread to complete his repast. He sat across the table from his t'dahsu, but did not begin to eat right away.

"How did you explain my absence?"

"We didn't have to; Sanek assumed your were tired from your journey and none of us challenged his theory." He nodded towards Spock's bowl. This other Spock sounded weary and the younger wondered, not for the first time, what right his family had to impose upon him. "It is good you haven't taken much; the next meal is not far off. The child is growing and must eat frequently."

Spock paused, the spoon just outside his mouth. He placed it back in the bowl. "Which child? Both have grown more than I anticipated."

"A child is all you see when you look at her?" The old Vulcan hid neither his surprise nor his discontent. "Is that how you interpret her choices, Spock? I had hoped that you of all people would see beyond the exterior."

"I realize that she has retained the memories and the intellect of the woman I married, but her actions and behavior since the regression can hardly be said to be those of an adult."

"On the contrary," Spock Tela'at countered, "from what I have seen, her most recent actions display a level of maturity few adults are likely to show. I don't see a child at all when I look at her."

The younger Vulcan studied the older for a moment before calmly picking up his spoon again. He took a sip of his soup before placing the utensil back in the bowl and pushing the lot away in a series of slow, deliberate motions.

"Oh?" he queried, brow raised. "What exactly is it that you see?"

"I see a woman who believes - not without warrant - that her husband abandoned her at her greatest time of need. One who, no matter the cost to herself, is yet willing to do what she feels she must in order to preserve his life," his t'dahsu replied. "I think that you have been extraordinarily fortunate in your choice of a bondmate."

Understanding, out of his reach before, came all at once.

"You taught her how to hide herself from me."

"I taught her how to survive a pain that was crippling her."

"She is my wife!" Spock gritted out. "The responsibility was mine."

"Yes," his t'dahsu quietly agreed. "And had you remembered that when you were making decisions for her instead of with her, you most likely would not be fighting to keep her in that role."

Spock's shoulders slumped, his head falling forward. He didn't try to hide his weakness from his elder self.

"Nyota is my bond-mate; I do not want another. But I doubt there is anything to be gained from fighting her," he said with a stoicism that belied his certainty that his world would end in just over a Terran year. "Nyota has always been tenacious when she believes she is in the right."

"Then you must convince her that she is wrong about this matter."

"She does not wish for me to seek... assistance elsewhere while we remain bonded."

"She is unmistakably an adult, but in some areas, she still has the Mastery of a child," Spock Tela'at admitted. "Human children are not known for sharing what they hold most dear."

Slowly, Spock nodded, then stared down at the table. Three full minutes passed before he looked up and spoke again.

"After the change, it was as if a part of me was blinded. From the moment she knew she was dear to me, Nyota helped me navigate... emotion. She was my guide, and then..." He trailed off. It was obvious that his t'dahsu knew exactly what his wife had been for him.

"And then, when she could not see, you found you could not make your own way through this darkness you perceived," the elder mused, nodding his understanding. "Fear replaced the contentedness you had become accustomed to. You allowed it to prevent you from meeting her needs. You chose to shut her away rather than have her know you were lost, as well."

"I wanted to protect her," Spock said, knowing that his protest was weak. "To keep from constantly reminding her of what we had lost. So she would not see what I thought I still needed."

"And to protect yourself from seeing the truth? That even though she could not give you what you had become accustomed to having, she was still Nyota Uhura?"

"I tried to make amends as soon as my error was clear, but..."

"But she had already cauterized the wound in your bond," Spock Tela'at finished for him.

"Yes."

__________

From the balcony outside his bedchamber, Spock could look over the modest grounds of Ambassador Spock's home. T'Khasi Vokaya would soon turn from its sun, leaving him to contemplate his state of affairs in darkness. While in the past he had acknowledged the existence of the emotion he was currently experiencing, he never named it.

"It's called loneliness," said a disembodied voice.

Spock glanced around. He still appeared to be the balcony's sole occupant, and yet he was certain he had not imagined the words. And that it had come from somewhere close to him.

A shimmering form began to resolve itself from hot air until a small, dark-skinned person stood at his side.

"I imagine you have come to know it well since we last met," Eshu added, tilting his head.

The orisha seemed to want confirmation, but Spock studied him in silence, aware that an ill-chosen response could prove disastrous.

"I have known it most of my life," he said at last.

Eshu nodded, stroking his chin, eyes trained on the stone floor. "Mmm. But this is different!" The African deity looked up, smiling strangely. Goading, Spock decided. "You have known what it is like to be 'never parted,' as your people say, and you liked it. And now you are learning there is no such thing as 'never.'"

Forcing himself not to look away, Spock quietly said, "We have been parted for more than two years."

The orisha's smile faded and, despite the heat, Spock shivered. "But it's different when the choice is not yours. Isn't it?"

The words were an accusation, designed to bring pain. Eshu achieved that goal, and the half-Vulcan stopped fighting to control his anguish and desperation. He swayed on his feet.

The orisha sighed and motioned for Spock to take seat in the shadows cast by the house.

Compliance came easily. Spock pressed his back against the stone wall and stared up at the small man-shaped being.

Eshu stared back, hands on his narrow hips. "So, Son of Sarek and Amanda, tell me what have you learned. What was your error?"

Shamed, Spock looked away. "There have been many. My first was dispensing with common sense. My last was sending my family away from me."

Nodding, Eshu motioned for him to continue.

"I knew the stories of your conquests and was determined to keep she who is my wife away from you. I was feeling possessive and did not like hearing you claim what was mine. But Vulcans are not supposed to experience jealousy, so I argued in the name of logic."

"Yes. Good. What else?"

"I did not respond well to Nyota's changing needs. The truth is, I had difficulty functioning while her pain was part of me. She, who had been the one to steer me through intense emotions, did not understand her own feelings. My reactions were heavily influenced by my own sense of loss and confusion, but I told myself I acted with her safety in mind. And when weeks had gone by without any change for the better, I could no longer bear to see her pain, either. So I sent her and our son away."

"Where she learned to hide herself from you." Eshu's eyes where no longer accusing. He peered at Spock with something akin to pity. "You have learned well. It is unfortunate the price had to come at such cost."

"I do not want lose her. But I do not wish to hurt her more by going elsewhere when I must...when my..."

Eshu held up a hand, palm out, fingertips up. "You will not need another to get you through your Time next year. I can grant you that. Winning back your wife's favor, however, is your task, alone."

Spock watched the world around him distort.

__________

He was immediately aware of what happened.

Spock stared at his hands as he felt his hard-earned Mastery begin to fade. He estimated that Eshu had not set him back far enough for it to disappear entirely, but he could not deny that he had far less control than only moments before. He mourned its loss, wondering if Nyota's change had been similarly daunting.

Of course it was. And I did nothing to make her experience easier to bear.

The guilt of knowing pushed him back to the stone floor.

He hid - there was no other word for what he was doing - on the balcony off his sleeping chamber until the sky darkened into night.

_____

She appeared before him as if called by his longing and regret. He probed the bond, although he already knew she still held herself aloof. The disappointment on her face had been quickly hidden, and he felt no trace of it as she walked towards him.

"Oh, Spock. What have you done?"

He did not think she was angry with him. The expression on her face was familiar. His mother had often looked at him in that manner. He felt his throat tighten as an image of Amanda Grayson, concern - muted in deference to the customs of her husband's people - written across her face, filled his mind.

"I-" He paused, irrationally surprised that the high-pitched, fretful voice was his own. "I am frightened, Nyota."

With a poise discrepant from her outward appearance, she sank onto the floor next to him. When her thin arms came around him, he stiffened before attempting to respond in kind. Graceless limbs with no muscle memory of holding a human her size struggled to find their place. The first time he had worn the body of a young half-Vulcan, there had been no Nyota Uhura in his life. Even in his adult form, he had rarely embraced her after the transformation.

Sharp pricks heralded tears trying to escape his rapidly diminishing control. He pressed his face against the top of her head as if the action might ward them off.

"The healers would have parted us," he said, his plaintive voice muffled by her thick, sweet-smelling hair. "They would have helped you sever the bond."

"But this, Spock?"

He had not even contemplated the possibility of his own regression and all that came with it.

"The orisha came here. He knew about the Time, and I asked only that you be spared having to give me to another," he said, ashamed that, once again, he had failed to sufficiently weigh the consequences of his words. "I did not expect this."

A sudden memory of Sanek, flinching away from her touch, caused icy tendrils of fear to uncoil in his abdomen. Nyota clutched him tighter until he gained some small semblance of Mastery over it.

He might have given in to despair, but Nyota was holding him. And loving her was no longer painful. Stripped as he was of the fetters of his need for something impossible for her to give, for someone impossible for her to be, he also began to understand the lack of understanding that had so frustrated her in those first two months.

Through no effort of his, the bond opened, bathing him in her presence.

"Sanek..." he said, knowing she would perceive his mind's direction.

"Will adjust more easily this time," she assured him. "He's had two years to get used to having a kid for a mother. Why shouldn't his father be a kid, too?"

Her voice was cheerful, optimistic, but the bond was no longer veiled and he knew she worried nearly as much as he did.

"I think you will agree that Eshu intended for me to be an adolescent."

Her laugh was unconvincing, but he could feel her appreciation for his attempt at lightheartedness, however short-lived the effort was.

Thinking and speaking of their son sharpened his sense of the familial bond, and-

"He knows we worry! I must go to him." Spock attempted to stand as Nyota's hands fell away.

But Sanek was already standing in the doorway, staring.

Spock dropped back to the balcony floor, wrapping his arms around his knees, and stared back. He felt the dread seep into him again. This time there was no cool human touch to abate it.

Sanek stepped away from the door, halted exactly two meters away.

"Sa-mekh?" There was no confusion in the child's voice, only curiosity. "Why?"

"I did not wish to be parted from your mother," Spock answered honestly. Because he didn't know what else to say.

He watched his son watch him. The boy's gaze was considering. There was no sign of rejection. Yet. Spock steeled himself for it, drawing his knees closer to his chest. But he did not look away.

Then he had to loosen his hold on himself because Sanek's short legs were carrying him rapidly over the remaining distance. The child hurled himself at his father's chest.

"Don't be sad, Baba," Sanek demanded as his arms snaked around Spock's neck.

"I will try, sa-fu," Spock whispered. He lifted a hand and began stroking his son's sturdy back.

Sanek pulled far enough away to stare into Spock's eyes again. He placed tiny hands on his father's cheeks.

"Don't be sad!" he ordered again.

Spock moved his eyes only enough to observe Nyota, wondering if she would be hurt by their son's favorable reception of him when her own acceptance had been so hard-won. But she was smiling at both of them, her cheeks and lips curved with amusement-laced joy.

Sanek squeezed his cheeks. Spock met their son's serious gaze again.

"Do it, Sa-mekh!"

The wave of the boy's love left Spock too overwhelmed for speech.

"He will, mwana," Nyota promised. "But first, perhaps you can go find Babu and Sa-mekh-siyah? They can help him."

"Okay, Mama," the little boy promised, beginning to withdraw from his father's embrace. But then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Spock's cheek. When he drew back again his lips and cheeks were curved into the same shape as his mother's.

_______________________________________________________________

Meditation here
May think down hours to moments.
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
- William Cowper, from The Task: Book VI, The Winter Walk At Noon