ST Fic: Five times Spock did NOT want a pet, and one time he did (4/6)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Four
On Vulcan the teddy bears are alive…and they have six inch fangs
-Spock, “Journey to Babel”
It was so strange, being surrounded by things simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. Spock looked at the street in front of him. He had grown up here, they told him, and he was just beginning to recall it. There were moments when he would look at something, and it would trigger a flash of memory: A doorway to a courtyard opened, and suddenly in his mind he saw a boy walking out - a boy he instinctively knew he did not like; Wind blew through the leaves of a huge tree, and he remembered a beautiful woman, his mother, stopping to rest in its shade as they walked home from a visit.
Today the flash of memory was different. He had seen a young Vulcan boy playing with a large animal, a sehlat. Spock could tell that the child had affection for the beast, for he was young, and not very practiced in emotional control. The boy was not merely leading the animal along for the purpose of exercise. He was surreptitiously petting the animal, and scratching its head. As he watched, Spock recalled an animal very like that - an animal that he once petted and loved, despite his attempt to be true to his Vulcan heritage. He remembered feeling affection for it, and he remembered feeling intense pain as he watched it die. The memory was confusing. For as the memory ran through his head, at times he was himself, playing with his sehlat, and at other times he was watching himself hover over its dead body. The only thing that was not confusing about the memory was the pain. That was sharply clear.
Spock was walking to his quarters to rest and meditate as he considered this new memory, when he heard two people conversing in intense whispers. One was his mother, and the other was . . . Jim.
“I have been and always shall be your friend.” Spock had remembered saying that to Jim, but he still did not understand his own words. His father told him that he had died, and Jim and the others with him had risked everything to bring him back. Had Jim felt at Spock’s death, what Spock felt at his sehlat’s death? Or had he perhaps felt worse pain? He realized that the two people were speaking about him. It was illogical to desire to overhear a private conversation, but he stopped to listen anyway.
“They don’t know how to really bring him back, Mrs. Sarek. They are full Vulcan, and he is half human. They are filling his head with facts and logic and reason, but our Spock - your son, and my best friend - he had learned the value of emotions. He was a Vulcan, yes, but he felt friendship and the happiness and sadness that comes with it.”
“I am as worried as you are, Admiral Kirk. But I have honored the Vulcan way since I came here, and I believe that it is good. I cannot suggest that Spock be taught any other.”
“But this is not about teaching, or about following the Vulcan way; this is about who Spock is. It takes courage to allow emotions. For every good one, there is another bad. For every moment of intense joy there is a moment of intense sadness. Every friend will one day be lost. I’ve learned that, experienced that, in the hardest ways possible, and I’ve borne it. But I never had a choice. I’m human. Spock had a choice, and he made the choice to accept the pain because he decided it was worth it. He values emotion, and that must be returned to him as well.”
“Admiral Kirk, don’t you think I know that? But my son chose to be Vulcan. Were it not for that, the Vulcan healers would have been unable to restore his katra to his body, so we must be thankful for his decision. They are teaching him the only things they can. Facts and reason can be taught. And even if we insisted that we teach Spock ourselves, how could we give him his emotions? They were strong and valuable because he fought for them - because he learned them through long, sometimes hard, experience. He cannot sit in front of a computer and have them programmed into his brain.”
“But isn’t there anything we can do? Sometimes I think if I spent more time with him . . . He recognized me right after the ceremony, you know, even though he clearly doesn’t remember much. But I don’t know how much that would help. His friendship with me is deep, but our relationship is on two different planes. We are fellow men but we are also captain and officer. That was confusing enough to him before this happened, so I’m afraid his memories of me might confuse him further. Couldn’t we give him something, or introduce him to someone who makes him feel things like affection and love without any complications? What if we gave him one of those . . . I was thinking of them because I saw one last week . . . those teddy bear things? Pets aren’t very complicated, and you mentioned once that Spock had one when he was little.”
“A sehlat? I see what you mean, and it is an interesting thought. Perhaps that would raise some emotional memories. But then . . .”
Spock started walking before he could hear any more. There was that sehlat again - that memory. And Jim and his Mother wanted him to remember his pet sehlat. They thought it would help him to relearn emotion and friendship. So those things that Jim spoke of were related to the way he felt about his pet. Jim had spoken of friendship always being accompanied by pain. And Spock was beginning to understand pain - the pain of losing something beloved. That, Spock decided, must have been what he meant when he said to Jim, “I have been, and always shall be your friend.” Before he lost his life and gained it again, he had been willing to risk suffering the kind of pain he had felt as a small boy when his pet sehlat died. It was a fascinating thought, but a frightening one as well.
Then another thought occurred to him, and it was frightening indeed. He had re-learned xenobiology under the tutelage of the Vulcan healers, and he knew that humans rarely lived past eighty, while Vulcans usually lived beyond two hundred years. He did not have enough information to calculate it precisely, but he knew that the probability that Jim would outlive him could not be more than 5.7%. So, at one time he had been willing to face almost certain suffering so that he could experience the joy of friendship before Jim died. How much suffering? How long had the pain had lasted after his sehlat - I-Chaya was its name - died? He seemed to recall feeling the pain as a small child and as an adult. A long time, then. And it was only logical that losing a human friend was more painful than losing a friendly animal. So that was who he was before? He had been courageous. But could he be that courageous now? He was not at all sure that he could . . . that he even wanted to. He would have to consider it more after he meditated and slept.
One thing he was sure of - if his mother or Jim offered him another sehlat, he would refuse. He had not made a final decision about friendship with Jim, but the affection of a sehlat was not worth the inevitable pain of losing it.
Part 5
Part 6
Part 2
Part 3
Four
On Vulcan the teddy bears are alive…and they have six inch fangs
-Spock, “Journey to Babel”
It was so strange, being surrounded by things simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. Spock looked at the street in front of him. He had grown up here, they told him, and he was just beginning to recall it. There were moments when he would look at something, and it would trigger a flash of memory: A doorway to a courtyard opened, and suddenly in his mind he saw a boy walking out - a boy he instinctively knew he did not like; Wind blew through the leaves of a huge tree, and he remembered a beautiful woman, his mother, stopping to rest in its shade as they walked home from a visit.
Today the flash of memory was different. He had seen a young Vulcan boy playing with a large animal, a sehlat. Spock could tell that the child had affection for the beast, for he was young, and not very practiced in emotional control. The boy was not merely leading the animal along for the purpose of exercise. He was surreptitiously petting the animal, and scratching its head. As he watched, Spock recalled an animal very like that - an animal that he once petted and loved, despite his attempt to be true to his Vulcan heritage. He remembered feeling affection for it, and he remembered feeling intense pain as he watched it die. The memory was confusing. For as the memory ran through his head, at times he was himself, playing with his sehlat, and at other times he was watching himself hover over its dead body. The only thing that was not confusing about the memory was the pain. That was sharply clear.
Spock was walking to his quarters to rest and meditate as he considered this new memory, when he heard two people conversing in intense whispers. One was his mother, and the other was . . . Jim.
“I have been and always shall be your friend.” Spock had remembered saying that to Jim, but he still did not understand his own words. His father told him that he had died, and Jim and the others with him had risked everything to bring him back. Had Jim felt at Spock’s death, what Spock felt at his sehlat’s death? Or had he perhaps felt worse pain? He realized that the two people were speaking about him. It was illogical to desire to overhear a private conversation, but he stopped to listen anyway.
“They don’t know how to really bring him back, Mrs. Sarek. They are full Vulcan, and he is half human. They are filling his head with facts and logic and reason, but our Spock - your son, and my best friend - he had learned the value of emotions. He was a Vulcan, yes, but he felt friendship and the happiness and sadness that comes with it.”
“I am as worried as you are, Admiral Kirk. But I have honored the Vulcan way since I came here, and I believe that it is good. I cannot suggest that Spock be taught any other.”
“But this is not about teaching, or about following the Vulcan way; this is about who Spock is. It takes courage to allow emotions. For every good one, there is another bad. For every moment of intense joy there is a moment of intense sadness. Every friend will one day be lost. I’ve learned that, experienced that, in the hardest ways possible, and I’ve borne it. But I never had a choice. I’m human. Spock had a choice, and he made the choice to accept the pain because he decided it was worth it. He values emotion, and that must be returned to him as well.”
“Admiral Kirk, don’t you think I know that? But my son chose to be Vulcan. Were it not for that, the Vulcan healers would have been unable to restore his katra to his body, so we must be thankful for his decision. They are teaching him the only things they can. Facts and reason can be taught. And even if we insisted that we teach Spock ourselves, how could we give him his emotions? They were strong and valuable because he fought for them - because he learned them through long, sometimes hard, experience. He cannot sit in front of a computer and have them programmed into his brain.”
“But isn’t there anything we can do? Sometimes I think if I spent more time with him . . . He recognized me right after the ceremony, you know, even though he clearly doesn’t remember much. But I don’t know how much that would help. His friendship with me is deep, but our relationship is on two different planes. We are fellow men but we are also captain and officer. That was confusing enough to him before this happened, so I’m afraid his memories of me might confuse him further. Couldn’t we give him something, or introduce him to someone who makes him feel things like affection and love without any complications? What if we gave him one of those . . . I was thinking of them because I saw one last week . . . those teddy bear things? Pets aren’t very complicated, and you mentioned once that Spock had one when he was little.”
“A sehlat? I see what you mean, and it is an interesting thought. Perhaps that would raise some emotional memories. But then . . .”
Spock started walking before he could hear any more. There was that sehlat again - that memory. And Jim and his Mother wanted him to remember his pet sehlat. They thought it would help him to relearn emotion and friendship. So those things that Jim spoke of were related to the way he felt about his pet. Jim had spoken of friendship always being accompanied by pain. And Spock was beginning to understand pain - the pain of losing something beloved. That, Spock decided, must have been what he meant when he said to Jim, “I have been, and always shall be your friend.” Before he lost his life and gained it again, he had been willing to risk suffering the kind of pain he had felt as a small boy when his pet sehlat died. It was a fascinating thought, but a frightening one as well.
Then another thought occurred to him, and it was frightening indeed. He had re-learned xenobiology under the tutelage of the Vulcan healers, and he knew that humans rarely lived past eighty, while Vulcans usually lived beyond two hundred years. He did not have enough information to calculate it precisely, but he knew that the probability that Jim would outlive him could not be more than 5.7%. So, at one time he had been willing to face almost certain suffering so that he could experience the joy of friendship before Jim died. How much suffering? How long had the pain had lasted after his sehlat - I-Chaya was its name - died? He seemed to recall feeling the pain as a small child and as an adult. A long time, then. And it was only logical that losing a human friend was more painful than losing a friendly animal. So that was who he was before? He had been courageous. But could he be that courageous now? He was not at all sure that he could . . . that he even wanted to. He would have to consider it more after he meditated and slept.
One thing he was sure of - if his mother or Jim offered him another sehlat, he would refuse. He had not made a final decision about friendship with Jim, but the affection of a sehlat was not worth the inevitable pain of losing it.
Part 5
Part 6