Mentiri Et Veritas

Noel DelMonde was drunk. He was lying on his bunk in his cabin, preparing to let the bottle of bourbon in his hand join its empty brothers on the floor next to the bed. He debated briefly getting up to get another, but he knew that with the sapphire in his system, if he moved, he’d likely be vomiting before he could make it to the head.

“An’ why waste all that good alcohol,” he muttered to himself. “’Sides, is any more gonna get you any number?”

The answer to that, of course, was no. It didn’t matter how much he drank, or how much sapphire he took. He never got numb enough, not even when the blue claimed his consciousness. Pain always waited just behind his eyes, filling his dreams, his visions, every moment of his existence.

He’d thought he’d achieved some peace while at San Francisco. He’d thrown himself into his work, his anger a shield for the wounds that were then fresh. He had most definitely re-earned the appellation of ‘foul-tempered-son-of-a-bitch,’ but his engineering talents were, as they’d been at the Clave, enough to make all but the most jacketed of herberts ignore his moods.

Jacketed. Herberts. The words conjured pictures in his mind, kaleidoscopic images from both his Making days and the undercover Loonie mission: Kam and Cobra, Gypsy and Daffy, even his former roommate, Pavel Chekov, and –

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Non, non, leave me, cher! he screamed into the crowded cacophony of his brain. At the Shipyards, it had been different. There had been no sense of her, no ghost-presence to burn its essence into his awareness. But here, back on the Enterprise where they had shared so much – and destroyed so much – here, it was all around him. It permeated every corridor, every bulkhead. No amount of bourbon, no amount of sapphire erased her. Her face, her eyes, her voice, the feel of her hair, the smell of her skin, the sweetness of her body under his, her mind enveloping his in warm, liquid gold…

Raw-eth! he cried, and the tears of anguish flooded from his eyes and down his care-worn cheeks.

The reaction was stiff and angry, though, of course, it was expressed in only two calm, logical words.

Not again.

Spock opened his eyes in the darkness of his cabin, forcing calm into his mind. The phenomenon was a most annoying one, and while he understood its genesis, and accepted it as his due, he never got used to it. While DelMonde had been at the Shipyards, it went unnoticed. Or maybe, due to the distance, it had not yet manifested. But since the engineer had returned to the Enterprise, Spock could, when in a relaxed state such as sleep or meditation, hear the wordless cries and feel the dull agony that emanated from the mind of his wife’s ex-lover.

He had determined to speak to DelMonde any number of times, but when confronted with the actual opportunity, always decided otherwise. Chickened out, you mean, came the words Ruth would have said. The truth of the matter was that he simply didn’t know what he would say. To apologize seemed futile, worthless at best. And there was the fact that, deep inside, he felt that it was DelMonde who owed him an apology. The engineer had, after all, known Ruth was married…

And was he wrong when he accused you of pushing her into his arms?

Yes. My actions cannot be excused, but that was never my intention. Had I, at the crucial moment, been aware of her need, the thing never would have happened.

That truth was a comforting one, and Spock found himself reaching out across the vast distance between them to his wife – then thought better of it. While he was so acutely aware of DelMonde, would she not, if he contacted her, also share that awareness? He did not wish to cause her that pain – and, he ruefully admitted, he could not bear to share her with even the thought of the engineer. The knowledge of what DelMonde was feeling was quite distressing enough.

She is mine! he wanted to shout at the unsuspecting mind. She loves you still, but she is mine!

I know that, you bastard.

Spock startled. Surely he had not sent the thoughts. The answer must be only his own guilt, his own regret. He had never before sensed any awareness from the engineer, had never had any reason to think the communication was more than a one-way contact, caused by the fact that his mind was so attuned to Ruth’s that it bled over into her long-standing communion with the Terran.

Tentatively, Spock opened his mind, listening for any echoes or realizations from the disordered anguish that poured from the cabin a deck below his own. There was only the silent cry, his wife’s name colored in deep blue and alcoholic haze.

Sighing, Spock got out of bed. He would engage his mind with work and duty. Then the unwanted awareness would fade. And perhaps, when the next opportunity presented itself, he would speak to Noel DelMonde.

No, you won’t, you coward, Del thought bitterly. He rolled over just enough to drop the empty bottle to the deck, then reached over his head to the bulkhead over the bed. He fumbled with the vial there, emptying more blue capsules into his hand and brought them to his mouth. He’d fall into azure unconsciousness, he knew, but then, at least, his nightmares would be his own.