Chapter 1: Sparring Sparks
The air in the holodeck combat sim hummed, a low-frequency thrum that vibrated in the molars. It currently displayed a sparse, grey dojo, mats lining the floor under a cool, neutral light.The scent of ozone and clean sweat hung in the air.
Jill Tallentire bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, her long copper curls tied back in a severe, practical knot.A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. “You’re leaning into your right cross, Mandy.Every time. Saw it from a parsec away.”
Amanda Olsen, opposite her, wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. Her dark hair was plastered to her neck.“Says the woman who apologizes before she sweeps my legs. It’s combat, Jills. Not a bloody tea party.”
“Force of habit.” Jill grinned, her grey eyes crinkling.“Ready for another round? Or have you had enough?”
“You wish.” Amanda settled into a ready stance, her brown eyes sharp with focus. “Just try not to bruise anything vital. Scotty needs me functional for the injector realignment tomorrow.”
They moved together again, a blur of gym clothes—simple grey tanks and shorts—and controlled motion. Jill was fluid, using leverage and speed where Amanda relied on solid strength and relentless pressure. They traded grabs and parries, the smack of skin on skin echoing in the vast chamber.
They were so engrossed they didn’t notice the environment shift. The grey walls of the dojo dissolved, pixelating into a stark, rocky canyon under a bruised purple sky.The gravity felt subtly different, heavier.
A proximity alert chimed, soft but distinct. Two new figures materialized across the simulated canyon floor, also dressed in standard Starfleet gym attire.Jill pulled back, breaking their grapple. “What in the world?”
Amanda straightened, hands on her hips. “We didn’t program opponents.”
Captain James T. Kirk stretched his arms over his head, his blue eyes scanning the new terrain with tactical appreciation.“Seems the parameters got an upgrade. Anonymous user request, logged ten minutes ago. Thought we’d see who was holding the court.”
Beside him, Commander Spock stood utterly still, his hands clasped behind his back. His black tank top contrasted sharply with his pale, disciplined physique. His dark eyes found Jill, and for a fraction of a second, simply held.“Captain.Commander,” Jill said, her voice regaining its professional steadiness. A flush, not entirely from exertion, crept up her neck.
“Don’t let us interrupt,” Kirk said, his gaze sliding to Amanda with open, appreciative interest. “Though it looks like you could use some fresh sparring partners. Things were getting a bit predictable.”
Amanda’s eyebrow shot up.“Predictable, sir? Care to test that theory?”
Kirk’s grin was quick and dazzling.“I was hoping you’d say that.What’s the scenario? Hand-to-hand only? Or are weapons enabled?”
As if in answer, four holographic lirpas—the traditional Vulcan pole weapon—flickered into existence, embedded in the sand between them.Spock finally spoke, his voice even, addressing the air. “Computer, confirm program parameters.”
“Parameters locked,” the computer’s feminine voice replied.“Training exercise.Mixed combat. Objective: submission or disarming. Safety protocols engaged at ninety-seven percent.”
“Ninety-seven?” Jill murmured, a flicker of concern in her eyes. That left a three percent margin for real impact.“A calculated risk,” Spock said, as if he’d heard her. His eyes met hers again, and this time the intensity was unmistakable, a silent, perplexing charge in the air between them. He had watched her in the mess hall, in the lab, in sickbay. Her empathy was a frequency he could not logically tune out, a warmth that defied his insulation. He found himself cataloging the curve of her neck, the determined set of her mouth, the intelligence in her gaze.It was… illogical.It required study.
Kirk had already grabbed a lirpa, hefting its weight.“Alright, Engineer. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Amanda took the other weapon, her stance shifting into something deadly and competent. “Try to keep up, Captain.”
They squared off, and the clash of their weapons was a sharp, resonating crack that split the artificial air.
That left Jill and Spock, standing a few meters apart.The purple light cast deep shadows along the planes of Spock’s face. He retrieved the remaining lirpa and approached her, his movements eerily silent.
“Doctor,” he acknowledged.“Commander,” she replied. Her heart was pounding a rhythm entirely separate from the fight.She could feel the gaze of his total attention like a physical pressure. “My Vulcan is proficient, but I’m not sure it extends to archaic combat forms.”
“The principle is universal.” He settled into a beginning posture, fluid and poised. “Adaptation is the logical response to unforeseen variables.”
“Is that what I am?” The question left her lips before she could stop it, bold and tinged with a breathlessness she couldn’t hide. “An unforeseen variable?”
His gaze sharpened, and for a moment, she saw not the impassive officer, but a being of profound, restrained depth. “You are… a paradox, Jill Tallentire,” he said quietly, using her first name with a soft, precise weight that stole the air from her lungs.Then he moved.
It was not an attack, but a testing strike, slow enough for her to parry.The shock of the impact rattled up her arms. He was strong, impossibly so, but holding back.Their weapons crossed, locking them close. She could see the fine logic of his capillaries, the focused intensity in his eyes.
“Your technique is sound,” he stated, his voice low. “But you are hesitating.”
“I’m assessing,” she breathed, disengaging and circling.
“Assessment in combat is a luxury that precedes defeat.” He advanced, a series of precise, controlled strikes that forced her back step by step. She defended, her muscles burning, but she held her ground. There was a rhythm to it, a terrible, intimate conversation conducted through force and reaction.Across the canyon, the fight was louder, more explosive. Kirk and Amanda were a whirlwind of strikes and taunts.
“Getting tired, Captain?” Amanda goaded, deflecting a powerful blow.“Just warming up,” Kirk shot back, genuinely impressed and thoroughly engaged. He’d expected competence; he was facing ferocious, glittering expertise. It was the most fun he’d had in weeks.
Spock suddenly changed tactics. He dropped the lirpa and closed the distance inside her guard.It was so fast she had no time to react. One hand caught her wrist, the other pressed against her shoulder, his body a solid line of heat against hers. He had her pinned, his face inches from hers. The scent of him, clean and alien, filled her senses.“Submission?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. His breath was warm against her lips.Her grey eyes locked with his dark ones. This close, she could see the human turmoil he kept so meticulously caged.A vein pulsed in his temple. His control was a fragile thing, a dam under immense, unseen pressure.Slowly, deliberately, she relaxed her resistance. Not in surrender, but in a different kind of yielding. Her free hand came up, not to strike, but to gently lay her fingertips against the side of his neck, where the green blood sang just beneath the skin.His entire body went rigid. A shockwave, silent and seismic, passed through him.His breath hitched, a tiny, fractured sound.
The world narrowed to that point of contact.
Behind them, Amanda successfully disarmed Kirk with a clever twist, sending his lirpa clattering to the rocks.He stood, hands up in surrender, grinning and panting.
“Alright, you win this round,” Kirk conceded, his eyes bright.
Amanda lowered her weapon, smiling triumphantly.Then she glanced over at their companions and stilled.
Spock and Jill were frozen, locked in a tableau that spoke of something far more complex than sparring. The tension between them was a live wire, crackling in the artificial air.
Spock recovered first, releasing Jill as if her skin had scalded him. He took a measured step back, his expression shuttering closed, but his eyes were dark, wild pools of conflict.
“The exercise is concluded,” he announced, his voice tighter than usual.
Kirk walked over, wiping sweat from his brow, his gaze flicking between Spock’s retreated form and Jill, who stood looking slightly dazed, her fingers still curled in the air where his neck had been.
“Well,” Kirk said, the single word loaded with understanding and amusement.He looked at Amanda, who was watching her friend with open concern. “That was… invigorating.We should do it again sometime.”
Spock did not answer. He was already striding toward the arch, the program dissolving back into the empty grid around him, leaving behind only the echo of his presence and the thrilling, frightening sense of a door flung violently open.
The silence he left behind was a vacuum, quickly filled by the hum of the empty grid and the sound of their own breathing.“Well,” Amanda said again, breaking the spell. She let her lirpa vanish with a flick of her wrist. “That was… educational.”
Jill slowly lowered her hand. Her fingertips still tingled with the ghost of his pulse, a rhythm far more rapid and human than she’d ever expected. “Yes,” she managed, her voice unsteady. “Educational.”
Kirk walked over to Amanda, his charismatic ease seemingly restored, though his eyes held a new, more serious kind of interest. “You fight like a denobuan wolf-cat.All flash and ferocity. I’ve got a bruise forming on my ribs that’ll probably thank you later.”
“You left your guard open on the lower right quadrant, Captain. I merely exploited the tactical error.” Amanda’s smile was sharp, but there was a pleased flush on her cheeks.“Shall we call it a draw?”
“Absolutely not.You won. I’m a gracious loser, Lieutenant.” He grinned.“Most of the time. Come on, I’ll buy you a protein shake. Debrief.”
Amanda glanced at Jill, a question in her eyes.Jill gave a small, reassuring nod.“Go on. I’ll catch up.”
As Kirk and Amanda headed for the arch, their conversation fading—“So, where did you learn the Morinthian dismount?” “Academy extra-curricular. Where did you learn to cheat?”—Jill stood alone in the grey grid.She replayed the moment. The pressure of his grip, not just strong, but desperate.The fracture in his controlled façade.The heat. It wasn’t just the aftermath of exertion.It was something emanating from him.A fever.
Her medical training switched on, overriding the personal shock.Heightened basal body temperature.Dilated pupils. Increased respiratory and heart rate—she’d felt it. Vasodilation… the flush she’d mistaken for exertion. The symptoms compiled in her mind with clinical speed, but the diagnosis they pointed to was culturally, profoundly impossible.“No,” she whispered to the empty holodeck.
The officer’s gym was quiet, the late shift opting for sonic showers over water. Jill stood under the hot spray, letting the needles of water try to wash away the strange static clinging to her skin. It didn’t work.
Amanda was waiting, leaning against the bulkhead outside the lockers, already changed into a fresh red tunic.
“Out with it,” Amanda said, falling into step beside Jill as they walked towards the living quarters corridor.“What happened back there? And don’t say ‘nothing.’ I’ve seen spacedock debris with more cohesion than you two.”
Jill towel-dried her curls, her mind racing. “It’s… medical confidentiality, Mandy.”
“Oh, rubbish. You looked like you’d seen a ghost and then decided to ask it for a dance.” Amanda lowered her voice.“Did he hurt you?”
“No. No, it wasn’t that.It was the opposite of that.” Jill stopped walking, facing her friend. “He’s… unwell.I think.”
“Spock? Vulcans don’t get ‘unwell.’ They get logically peckish and meditate it off.”
“This is different. I felt it.His biological signs were… anomalous. Aggravated.” Jill chose her words with extreme care, the weight of the potential truth settling on her. Vulcan biology was a tightly controlled subject.Pon Farr was a rumour, a myth wrapped in cultural secrecy. To speak of it was a violation.“So he’s got a bug. Report it to McCoy.”
“It’s not a bug.” Jill resumed walking, her pace quicker.“Forget I said anything. Really.”
Amanda studied her friend’s profile—the tightness around her eyes, the focused concern.“You’re worried about him.”
“I’m a doctor. It’s my job to be worried.”
“Uh-huh.” Amanda’s tone was skeptical but gentle. “And the part where you two were practically nose-to-nose, sharing breath? Is that in the Hippocratic Oath too?”
Jill didn’t answer.
In his quarters, Spock stood before the small, unadorned meditation candle. The flame was steady, a perfect teardrop of light.He could not match its stillness.
The fever was a drumbeat in his blood, a insidious warmth that no logic could cool. He had attributed the… preoccupation with Doctor Tallentire to curiosity, an appreciation of her intellect.A logical assessment.
The events in the holodeck were not logical.The moment of contact—skin to skin—had been a catalytic event. A trigger. The biological imperative, which he had calculated was still years, if not decades, distant, now roared to the forefront of his consciousness with violent clarity.The Plak-tow. The blood fever.It was impossible.Illogical.And yet.His body knew. The drive was singular, terrifying in its intensity.It had identified its target with absolute, irrevocable certainty.
Jill.The thought of her was no longer abstract. It was a physical pull, a synaptic firestorm. Her scent (soap, a trace of antiseptic, human sweat), the timbre of her voice (calm, musical, her Vulcan flawlessly accented), the look in her grey eyes (empathic, intelligent, seeing) – every detail was etched into his mind with painful acuity.He attempted to marshal his thoughts.The pon farr was a cycle. It required a mate.A bondmate.He had none.The situation was… untenable. A fatal logical error.A chime at his door.
“Enter.”
Captain Kirk stepped inside, his demeanor uncharacteristically subdued.“Spock. Got a minute?”
“I am currently… occupied, Captain.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” Kirk leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “That wasn’t just a workout back there. What’s going on?”
“I assure you, my performance was adequate. Lieutenant Olsen is a highly skilled combatant.”
“I’m not talking about me and the Lieutenant, and you know it.” Kirk’s gaze was direct, concerned. “I’m talking about you and Doctor Tallentire. You looked like you were about to either kiss her or dissect her. Frankly, it was hard to tell which.”
Spock turned from the flame.“The Doctor is an exceptional officer. Our interaction was within the parameters of the simulation.”
“The simulation ended when you dropped your weapon, Spock. What happened after was all you.” Kirk pushed off the wall. “Look, I’m not going to pry into Vulcan… stuff. But if you’re in some kind of trouble, if this is affecting your control, I need to know. The ship needs to know.”
The conflict within Spock was a silent, seismic war.Duty demanded disclosure.Survival demanded secrecy. Shame, a human emotion he currently could not quell, demanded isolation.
“I require… time to meditate upon recent events, Captain,” Spock said finally, his voice strained. “If I determine there is a condition which impacts my duty, you will be the first to know.”
Kirk held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Alright. But, Spock… don’t wait until it’s too late.” He turned to leave, pausing at the door. “For what it’s worth, she looked just as rattled as you did. And not in a bad way.”
The door slid shut, leaving Spock alone again with the drumbeat and the flame.He could not meditate. The fever would not allow it.A dangerous, illogical plan began to form in the heat of his mind.He needed data. He needed to see if the reaction was replicable, or a singular anomaly. He needed to test the variable.Jill.
He moved to his desk console, his movements precise, driven by a new, compelling purpose. His long fingers called up the duty roster, then the inventory log for the medical bay’s xenobiological research lab. He identified a specific, non-essential catalysing agent used in cellular regeneration studies.It was due for a routine physical inventory audit.
He scheduled the audit for 2300 hours.
He then cross-referenced the audit with medical staff on-call.The officer scheduled was Ensign Vikram Singh. With two deft, logical keystrokes, Spock submitted a formal request for a senior medical officer’s supervision, citing the volatile nature of the agent and protocol.He routed the request to the CMO, McCoy.
McCoy, famously overworked and skeptical of bureaucracy, would see the logic and assign his most qualified, readily available officer.Doctor Jill Tallentire was on light duty that evening.
Spock stared at the screen, the logic of his actions perfect, airtight. The illogical need burning beneath them, even more so.The door he had felt open was now pulling him through, step by calculated step.
He would see her tonight.In the sterile, quiet lab.He would observe.He would know.
The drumbeat in his blood agreed. It was a good plan.
The lab was a capsule of sterile quiet, humming with the low-grade thrum of refrigeration units and forcefield generators. The only light came from the glow of specimen tanks lining the walls, casting everything in a soft, aquatic blue.It was 2305 hours.
Jill double-checked the PADD in her hand, her brow furrowed. “Ensign Singh, the request says catalysing agent theta-nine.But the log shows it was just cycled this afternoon. By you.”
The young ensign shifted his weight.“I know, Doctor. That’s why I was confused.Commander Spock’s request was very specific. Protocol, he cited.”
A soft chime announced the opening of the main lab door. Spock stood in the threshold, backlit by the corridor’s warmer light. He was in his standard blue science tunic, every crease perfect, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked like a statue of composure.“Doctor Tallentire.Ensign,” he nodded, stepping inside. The door hissed shut, sealing them in the blue gloom.“I apologise for the hour. The timing of the stabilisation cycle was fortuitous for my schedule.”
His voice was even, too even. It had the calibrated flatness of a practiced lie.
“It’s no trouble, Commander,” Jill said, her own professional mask sliding into place. She could feel her pulse quickening, an instinctive response she quietly cursed.“Though the inventory was just completed. Ensign Singh can confirm the agent is stable and accounted for.”
“I do not doubt the Ensign’s competence. However, given the agent’s volatility and its potential for cross-contamination with the Vulcan cellular samples in bay four, a secondary verification by a senior officer is, as Doctor McCoy agreed, prudent.” He walked slowly along the tanks, his gaze not on the samples, but on the reflection of the room in the glass. On her reflection.The logic was sound.Flawless, in fact. It was also completely unnecessary.“Right,” Jill said slowly.She handed the PADD to Singh. “Ensign, why don’t you double-check the stabiliser readings on the primary storage unit? I’ll assist the Commander with the visual inspection.”
Singh, looking relieved to be given a concrete task, nodded and moved to a console at the far end of the lab.
This left Jill and Spock alone between the aisles of glowing tanks.The air felt thinner.
“Bay four, you said?” Jill moved towards the indicated section, her boots making soft sounds on the deck plating.
Spock followed, his proximity a tangible force.He stopped before a tank containing a faintly luminous green gel. “This is the sample in question.”
She leaned in, peering at the label. “Vulcan lé-spore culture.Non-sentient. Requires theta-nine for stimulation.” She straightened, turning to face him.“Commander, the lé-spore is famously inert. It’s used in first-year xenobotany courses. Its volatility is point-zero-one percent under standard conditions.”
He was looking at her, not the sample. The blue light deepened the shadows under his cheekbones, hollowed his eyes.A faint sheen of perspiration glossed his temple. “Your recall of Vulcan biota is impressive.”
“It’s my job.” She took a subtle half-step back, her spine brushing the cool surface of the tank behind her. “The audit is complete.The sample is secure. Is there anything else you needed to verify?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes tracked the line of her shoulder, the pulse at the base of her throat.The drumbeat was louder in here, in the quiet. The fever, a slow burn in his veins, sought the source of its fixation. Her scent here was different—sharp with steriliser, clean linen, the underlying warmth of her skin.It was overwhelming. Data flooded him: her elevated respiration, the dilation of her pupils, the slight increase in her surface body temperature. His own biological responses echoed them, amplified a hundredfold.
“I find I require further clarification,” he said, his voice dropping, taking on a rougher texture.
“On the lé-spore?”
“On the anomaly.” His hand lifted, not towards her, but to indicate the space between them. “In the holodeck. Your action was not within standard combat protocol.”
Jill felt a thrill of alarm, mixed with a defiant curiosity.“You had me pinned.I tapped out. It’s a common submission signal in Terran martial arts.”
“A tap is percussive. Brief.” His dark eyes held hers.“Your touch was sustained. Diagnostic.”
The hum of the refrigeration units seemed to swell, filling the silence.She could hear Singh tapping at his console across the lab.
“You were showing physiological signs of distress,” she stated quietly, her doctor’s voice overriding her personal unease.“Rapid pulse.Elevated temperature. I was assessing.”
“And your diagnosis?” The question was a blade, subtle and sharp.This was the line. To speak it was to acknowledge the impossible. She held his gaze, the clinical part of her wrestling with the part that was just a woman, stunned by the intensity of a singularly remarkable man. “I don’t have one.Yet.”
The word yet hung in the cool air.
Spock’s control fissured.A small, almost imperceptible tremor passed through the hand he still held slightly raised. The logical part of his mind screamed that this was a catastrophic error, that every second spent this close to her was fueling a biochemical fire that could not be quenched by reason. The rest of him, the part being dragged under by a primal riptide, didn’t care.
“Your empathy… is a disruptive variable,” he murmured, the words strained, as if speaking physically pained him. “I find I cannot calibrate for it.”
Before she could respond, his composure shattered.His raised hand flinched, not away, but as if to reach for her. A sharp, stifled groan escaped his lips—a raw, utterly human sound of pain. He stumbled back a step, crashing into a trolley of instrument trays. The metallic clatter was explosively loud in the quiet lab.Ensign Singh jumped.“Commander?!”
Jill was already moving, her medical instincts launching her forward. “Spock!”
He had braced himself against the trolley, head bowed, shoulders heaving.Every muscle was corded tight, a sculpture of anguish. As she reached for him, his head snapped up.His eyes were wholly alien. Gone was the logic, the patience.In its place was a burning, desperate possession. The Plak-tow looked out at her, stripped of all pretense.
“Do not,” he gritted out, the command visceral, a warning born of animal self-preservation. “You must not touch me.”
She froze, her hand outstretched.The reality of the situation crystallised with chilling clarity. The symptoms.The cultural secrecy.The irrational, targeted fixation.Pon Farr. It wasn’t a myth.It was here, burning in the man before her.
“Singh,” she said, her voice miraculously steady.“Ensign, I need you to go to sickbay.Now. Tell Doctor McCoy we have a… a systemic neurological fever.Vulcan.Code green. Go.”
“But, Doctor—”
“Now, Ensign!”
The urgency in her tone propelled him. He fled from the lab.The door hissed shut.The silence rushed back in, thicker, charged.
Alone with him.Spock was shaking, the tremor visible now. “You should have gone with him,” he rasped.
“I’m your doctor.”
“You are the variable!” The force of his outburst made her flinch. He pushed himself upright, using the trolley as a barrier between them. The struggle was horrifying to witness—the brilliant mind at war with a body in revolt.“The bond… it is not possible.It is a statistical impossibility. Yet it has formed.It is… you.”
The word landed like a physical blow. Bond.“Spock…” Her mind raced, reeling.A bond?Formed?When? How?“The fever does not lie.” He spoke through clenched teeth, each word costing him. “It recognizes its mate.It will have you, or it will consume me. There is no logic. Only fact.”
The clinical horror of it, the sheer violation of such a fate imposed without consent, ignited a cold fury in her. But beneath the fury, wiring through her shock, was another thread—a terrifying, magnetic pull.The same pull she’d felt in the holodeck. It wasn’t just him. Something within her, something she’d dismissed as professional admiration or simple attraction, answered that burning look.She took a deliberate step around the trolley.
His eyes widened. “Do not.”
“You need a doctor.”
“I need you.” The confession was ripped from him, stripped bare of all veneer. “And that is… unacceptable.”
He was rejecting the bond, even as his biology screamed for it.He was choosing death over coercion. The nobility of that choice, the sheer brutal Vulcan strength of it, broke through her fear.
“Stop,” she commanded, her voice low and firm.She was within arm’s reach now. She could feel the heat radiating from him.“Spock, listen to me. You are not in your right mind.This is a medical condition. Let me help you.”
He let out a choked sound, part laugh, part sob.“There is no help. Only the cycle.”
“Like hell,” she swore softly.Her medical training mapped a desperate path.Suppressants. Neuro-blockers.A medically-induced coma.McCoy would know.They had to get him to sickbay.
She reached for his arm, just above the elbow, the contact points for a standard vascular scan.
The moment her fingers made contact, the world dissolved.
A jolt, like a neural lightning strike, arced between them.Not pain, but a fusion—a terrifying, exquisite overload of sensation. She felt his agony, the scorching fever, the desperate, clawing need. But beneath it, she also felt the deep, steadfast core of him—the discipline, the curiosity, the profound, lonely integrity. And she felt his perception of her: not just an image, but a essence of calming grey light, a cool rationality wrapped around a fierce, protective heart.It lasted only a second. He wrenched his arm away as if burned, breaking the connection.
They stared at each other, gasping, both shaken to their core by that split-second synapse.The lab door hissed open again. Doctor Leonard McCoy stood there, medical tricorder in hand, his face etched with deep suspicion and concern. Ensign Singh hovered behind him, wide-eyed.
“What in the name of Saturn is going on in here?” McCoy’s drawl was sharp, his eyes darting from Spock’s pale, sweat-sheened face to Jill’s stunned expression. “Ensign here’s babbling about Vulcan fevers.”
Spock, using every last gram of his eroding control, drew himself up. He looked at Jill, a silent, profound communication passing between them—an apology, a warning, a shared, horrifying secret.
“A minor… discomfort, Doctor,” Spock forced out, his voice scraped raw.“I overestimated my capacity for fatigue. I will retire.”
He moved to walk past McCoy, his gait stiff and deliberate.
McCoy wasn’t having it. He snatched Spock’s wrist, flipping open his tricorder with a practised jerk.The device immediately began a frantic, high-pitched warble. McCoy’s eyes shot to the readings, his frown deepening into a scowl of professional disbelief.
“Like hell it’s minor.Your catecholamine levels are off the charts. Your body temperature is spiking into the red zone. You’re in systemic distress.” He looked from the tricorder to Spock’s face, then to Jill. “And you,” he accused, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What aren’t you two telling me?”
Spock pulled his wrist free.“Nothing that requires your intervention, Doctor.I require solitude. That is my prescription.”
He strode past McCoy and into the corridor, moving with the unnatural, focused speed of a man fleeing a crash site.McCoy watched him go, then turned his full attention to Jill. The lab’s blue glow made her look haunted.“Jill,” he said, softer now. “Talk to me. What just happened?”
She looked at the empty doorway, then down at her own hand, the fingertips that had touched him still humming with the ghost of that fusion. The weight of the secret, of the bond, of his terrible confession, settled onto her shoulders.
She met McCoy’s concerned gaze, her own eyes clouded with a turmoil that was one part doctor’s dilemma and one part woman’s shock.
“I think,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, “we might have a very big problem.”