EVER AND ALWAYS

        It was over. Spock was back and in his right mind. Jim Kirk thought he might be losing his own.

        He straightened his dress tunic. A couple of hours, that was all. He could make it that long. Hail to the new president of Altair.

        Spock joined him at the entrance to the banquet hall, aloof and silent.

        Incandescently joyous. His hands so hot. "Jim!".

        They ate, side by side. They listened, they clapped, they stood, they bowed. Spock said distantly that matters on the ship required his attention. Jim excused him.

        The ahn-woon. Spock's body fiercely aroused. Mouths close enough to touch.

        "Captain, have you a moment?"

        He came back with a jolt. "Excuse me?"

        A woman from the Vulcan delegation, exquisite in bright silk. Nothing at all like T'Pring. Pleasant face, hair drawn back in two silver combs, spilling to her shoulders like a lava tide.

        "What you did for our kinsman is known, Captain. Sarek will perhaps never acknowledge it, but others are not so stubborn. Your courage honors you."

        "Spock is my best officer." Unsure what response was appropriate. "And my friend. My brother."

        I choose Kirk! Horror on his face. Not him, T'Pau!

        A quizzical glance. He didn't know what it meant. Didn't care. Ten steps to the door.

        Her hand hot on his arm, hot through his tunic to his skin. "Are you engaged tonight, Captain?"

        "What?" He couldn't have misinterpreted that. She regarded him quietly. Not flirting. Offering, her head tilted gravely to one side.

        "You are unused to such questions?" Now she was teasing after all.

        It is something which no out-worlder must know.

        "I thought––"

        Her near-smile faded. "That Vulcan women were all like T'Pring, and T'Pau? I assure you that we are not. T'Pau is a traditionalist of the most narrow kind, and T'Pring's behavior dishonored us all."

        He blurted out stupidly, "I thought you only––during pon farr . . . after you were bonded––"

        She had an astonishing musical laugh. "No sex before marriage? And only on Saturday nights? No more so on Vulcan than on Earth, Captain. Pon farr is a reproductive cycle, nothing more."

        Never and always, touching and touched.

        "Are you unwell?"

        "Forgive me," he said desperately. "I have to find Spock."

        I await thee, at the appointed place.

        Not on the bridge. Not in his cabin. Not on the Observation Deck. Kirk stopped, tugging at his tight collor. I await thee . . . As a moth drawn to the flame, he turned back to his quarters.

        Spock stood by the divider, eyes hooded.

        "Why am I feeling like this?" Kirk demanded. "What's happening to me?"

        "You are affected by my condition. I tried to shield you."

        Spock in his mind. Spock in his arms. No lirpa this time, no bells, no strangers. No firepit, but a bed. Hands on his sex, not his throat. Spock's ragged voice in passion, not denial. Their minds in effortless synchrony, expanding out into the stars.

        They whispered, too awed to speak aloud and unused yet to mindtalk. "I thought you were dead. I couldn't believe you were dead and I lived."

        "I kept trying to go back and Bones wouldn't let me. I knew you needed me. I was frantic to get back to you."

        "Forgive me . . . " A mental image of themselves on the bridge, in the reception hall. "I thought I could protect you from––"

        Jim laughed softly. "From yourself? Not a chance. You hooked me and reeled me in a long time ago. Just took a while to figure it out."

        In the dark they found each other's lips. Ever and always, touching and touched, and the flame burned brightly once more. All over Enterprise folk rustled and smiled in their sleep, and the ship hummed softly to itself as it sailed on into the silent depths of space.

Challenge:
Kirk is seduced by a Vulcan woman and realize that Vulcans do have the capacity to love outside their Mating Time.