DISCLAIMER: Don't own Trek. Wish I did. It may own ME, however.

Characters: Spock, T'Lar, T'Sura (T'Sura first appeared in "The Lost Years")

Rating: PG

Genre: Angst

Setting: Post-"The Search for Spock"

Spock grasped a handful of red, dusty soil in one hand and supported his head with the other. He knelt at the feet of T'Lar, his breath coming in fits and sobs.

"No more, High Master," he whimpered. "I can bear no more. The healers are not helping me. Make them stop. Make them stop." T'Lar studied Spock, his disheveled hair and garments, the dark olive circles beneath his eyes. She poured a dipper of water into a cup and held it to his lips.

"Spock, if you wish to be fully restored, the healers need..." He waved her hand away.

"I have endured so many mind melds by so many healers that my head hurts," he nearly shouted, "yet I am no less confused than the day I awoke here on Mount Selaya." His voice lowered again to a soft plea. "Make them stop, please."

T'Lar regarded him again, turning the cup idly in her hands.

"Perhaps we have not found the proper healer for you. Let us try once more." Spock shook his head slowly, miserable at the prospect of enduring more futile mental probing.

"High Master..."

"Let us try. We endured much to bring you back through the fal tor pann. We wish to restore you, at least to a functional level." She offered the cup again. Spock accepted it and drank deeply, then rested his poor head on T'Lar's knee. She smoothed his hair with her fingers. *Who could help him?* she wondered. After long moments, T'Lar lifted her head. * Of course.*

Spock enjoyed the past two days of rest in T'Lar's chambers. No one disturbed him or demanded anything from him. Spock was grateful for that most especially. His constant state of confusion and mental disarray left him haunted and lost, but at the very least, his head no longer hurt. Perhaps he should consign himself to his fate and accept his present condition.

He was lost in his own muddled thoughts and so did not register the presence of someone else in T'Lar's chambers. Suddenly two warm hands grasped his face and pulled his head into-imagine that!-a kiss! The gentle pressure and the soft lips were not at all unpleasant, and also vaguely familiar. He look up into warm brown eyes and saw...

"T'Sura!" Her eyes drank in the sight of him, his delight in seeing her and in himself for recognizing someone so quickly. "T'Sura. T'Sura, you remembered!" She caressed his face and head.

"You were an excellent teacher." The sound of her voice was a joy to his ears and her kiss a liquid balm to his tortured soul. Together they remembered that night in the desert during their engagement, when they gazed up at the stars and he shared with her the pleasure of touching lips.

"I am here for you, Spock." He gave a small gasp as he realized her meaning.

"You are going to help me?" The healer nodded.

"I shall try." Spock reached up and traced two fingers across her cheeks. His eyes were bright with hope.

"Oh, T'Sura, I am confident that you will help me." He pulled her head into another kiss. "Oh, T'Sura, T'Sura," he whispered against her hair. She pulled back and looked again into his eyes.

"The way your mouth caresses my name still pleases me, Spock." In the privacy of their embrace, they smiled. Then Spock frowned and dropped his gaze. He shook his head.

"I should never have left you." She touched gentle fingers to his lips.

"You had to go. It was your path then." He looked back up at her.

"But it is no longer my path." He sat forward eagerly. "Let us be rejoined..." T'Sura sat back.

"First, let us get you well. Then we shall speak of marriage."

Spock felt comfortable with T'Sura. A mind meld with her was like a warm embrace, not the cold violation he felt from the other healers. He found himself opening more willingly for her gentle probings. And seeing her vivid memories of their original bonding and brief engagement helped him to re-orient his mind into some semblance of normalcy. At the very least, he no longer felt so lost. T'Sura had helped to anchor Spock so he was no longer adrift in that sea of confusion.

T'Sura withdrew her hands, and Spock felt a coolness where her warm fingers had pressed against his face. She folded her hands and rested her lips on her fingers. Spock grew disquiet at her extended silence. This had been one of many sessions, and they usually ended on a hopeful note. This had been a particularly long session, yet Spock felt no further change in himself.

"Please don't tell me we're finished," he pleaded softly. "There is still so much left to do." T'Sura looked up at him and shook her head.

"I have done all I can, Spock. Some of your memories are simply lost." Spock heaved a great sigh and turned away. "Much of this is book knowledge. This can be relearned, but as for the rest..." Spock turned back to her. "As for the rest, there is no telling what you have lost, the relationships, the experiences. Even if you went back to every person you ever knew and asked them to share their memories with you, it would not be your memories. And what of the persons no longer living? We must accept the 'holes' in your mind and move on."

Spock turned away again, this time to hide his anger. He was not willing to quit, and if it had been anyone else saying these things to him, he would say so. But this was T'Sura, and he trusted her. There could be no other truth.

Spock tried to master another emotion-sorrow. He felt like mourning his lost knowledge, but he knew that was highly illogical. He took the three deep breaths to compose himself, then turned back to T'Sura.

T'Sura saw the look of acceptance in his eyes and she permitted herself a surge of admiration for this poor wreck of a being. She extended her hand to him.

"We should see the High Master." Spock nodded.

"Very well." Spock took her hand and they walked back in silence to T'Lar.

"I have done all I could, High Master," T'Sura announced. "The rest must be up to Spock and the teachers." T'Lar looked up from her low cushion.

"You have done well, Healer," she intoned regally. T'Sura shook her head.

"I have failed, High Master. Spock is not restored." Spock looked at her in surprise.

"She has not failed, High Master," he countered. "I may not be as I once was, but I am functional. I believe that eventually I will find wholeness because of her efforts." T'Sura looked back to Spock and inclined her head in gratitude.

"You honor me."

"And what of marriage?" Both Spock and T'Sura snapped their heads back towards T'Lar in surprise. "You were once bonded, and I heard you say that you would consider it after Spock was well."

"But he is not well," T'Sura blurted.

"I'm as well as I'm going to get. You said so yourself." Spock took the healer's hand to his heart and asked ritually, "Wouldst thou be bonded to me?" T'Sura studied him. Her life had been full of loneliness and broken relationships. She had felt whole during their brief engagement. She would be whole again.

T'Sura took Spock's other hand and placed it over her own heart.

"I would be bonded to thee. Let us be one."

The lightest of touches, the deepest of melds, Spock and T'Sura stood motionless as their minds surged and entwined about each other, joyfully weaving a bond that could not easily be broken. Their hands traced caresses on each other's face and they chanted the sacred words together.

"Parted from me, and never parted. Never and always touching and touched. We will meet at the appointed place." Spock looked deeply into T'Sura's eyes and said softly, "When the times comes, I will seek thee out, from whatever distant hill my camp is on." T'Sura considered his face for a long moment, considering the ritual response and rejecting it for a more meaningful one. Finally, she took his face in her hands again and, pulling his head to hers,-imagine that!-she kissed him-again.

FIN