"Spock, we have to talk," Sulu said, breaking the day-long silence. Spock continued to stare at the wall of the turbolift that was taking them both to Sickbay.

"I see no profit in renewed discussion," he replied.

"We can't very well go on like this," Sulu rejoined, "Or didn't you feel the morale level sinking like neutronium?"

"I did. Still, what good can come from...?"

"How do we know until we try it? The crew deserves at least that much."

Spock glanced at him. "You have become quite adept at playing on my sense of responsibility, Commander."

Sulu almost grinned. "I learned it from the master." He paused. "Both of them. I don't think either you or Jim would be too happy if you let personal problems get in the way of what's best for the ship."

At the mention of Jim Kirk, Spock stopped the turbolift's progress, turning fully to face Sulu. "Ruth would at this point instruct me to say 'uncle'. I surrender to your bombardment. Let us talk."

"We have to have some privacy. I'd prefer the observation deck. My cabin has too much of Jilla in it, and yours has too much of Ruth."

"Your cabin also has too much of Jith," Spock pointed out. Sulu flushed, but said nothing. Spock frowned at the silence but redirected the turbolift.

When they arrived at the observation deck, they activated the privacy shields which sectioned off a part of the deck. Both took seats facing each other across the small expanse.

"I apologize for last night, Spock," Sulu said.

"Your apology does little to assuage my sense of betrayal," was Spock's reply.

"I know. I'll try to explain." Sulu took a deep breath. "I've told you how I feel. I'm afraid to lose Jilla. That's an emptiness I don't think I could bear. You should understand that. You're Vulcan. You know what the death of a bondmate does to the survivor.” He was quiet for a moment. “Our bond's been completed now - at least as completed as it's possible for it to get. The first time I lost her, it was still only partial, and that damn near killed me." A wry grin came over Sulu's face. "Would have, except for you." He sighed. "Maybe I just can't accept what's happened, so I look at Jith and say 'she's all there is of Jilla'. Maybe you're being more realistic when you say she's neither. But I can't face the thought of not having Jilla, I mean not at all. It's a desperation I can't express, Spock. It was that sense of desperation that made me let Jith in my bed last night. But..." He paused, rubbing his hands over his face. "I have to be honest, and it's going to hurt. I'm sorry, Spock. I really am, but...” He took another deep breath. “Holding Jith last night, feeling her in my arms, knowing the warmth of the bond - remembering all of Jilla and all of Ruth... I realized that I loved her. Jith, Spock, not just the Jilla part or just the Ruth part. I love the combination. Jith gives me everything I've ever wanted in a woman, things - forgive me, Jilla - that I resigned myself to foregoing for Jilla's sake. Things I gave up because what Jilla offered was what I needed. I’m not making excuses,” he added quickly. “Every relationship has compromises, and I made the ones I wanted to make because I wanted Jilla more than the things I’d have to give up. But Jith offers what I need, what I want, without those compromises. I love her. That’s why I made love to her."

Spock was silent, staring at Sulu. Sulu swallowed, lowering his head. Finally Spock took a breath and began speaking.

"I do not understand how you can state that Jith needs no compromises. She requires the largest one of all: that you share her. Do you not consider, Sulu, that she will not grace your bed every night, as Jilla did? Does it escape you that she will share with me, as she did last night, in a way impossible for you to experience?"

"Not impossible, Spock," Sulu interrupted. "She's a strong enough telepath..."

"Can you allow it? Can you let her into your being so completely? You could not allow Ruth that union."

Sulu shifted. "That’s changed, too,” he said softly. “But even if it hadn’t, Jith has an advantage. Jilla feels what I hide, Jilla knows me. Jilla's Indiian, and so she accepts what I was always afraid Ruth couldn't. And Jith has Jilla's acceptance."

"What of The Time, Sulu?" Spock stated, his face and voice rigid with the difficulty of discussing what was never discussed on Vulcan. "Who will she turn to then? You are bonded to Jilla, yet Ruth has pledged herself to me when it comes. Ruth's mind is stronger, my own drives will add to the call. If she chose me, I would destroy you. If she chose you, I might destroy you both." Sulu opened his mouth, but Spock held up a restraining hand. "I know, you will say it is better to be dead than without her. It would not, however, be better for her - or for me. If I were the victor, how could Jilla-in-Jith forgive me? How could I live with myself if, in the madness, I destroyed my wife and my closest friends? Indeed, I have faced that before. My life was not worth living then. To have no logical cause to cling to would render such an action an abomination."

"But you suggest the same thing now," Sulu broke in. "Being without Jilla will destroy me. And we've seen that trying to treat Jith as if she were some stranger destroys her."

"But to what end, Sulu? You will not credit that perhaps only Jith will be destroyed. It is possible that she will disintegrate back into Ruth and Jilla; which will solve the entire dilemma. You are fearful of that risk, I know. Yet if we do not take it, with what are we left? Destruction now, or destruction at The Time with jealousy, envy and possessiveness to mar even those few fleeting years before it." Spock stood, striding to stare out the observation portal. "What must I do to make you understand? I cannot share her!"

Sulu also stood, his frustration evident in his posture and his voice. "You mean you won't. You haven't even tried. For all the embarrassment of this morning, Spock, last night worked!"

Spock turned to him. "You can say that, Sulu? Did I imagine the pain within you, knowing her thoughts were with me?"

"I... I simply hadn't expected it. I didn't know. I could get used to it." Sulu's jaw was tight.

"And what of the times she is with me completely?"

"She'd share her thoughts with me, then..."

"If I allowed it. I would not."

Sulu bristled. "What do you mean, if you allowed it?"

"I have mentioned before, Sulu, I am Vulcan," Spock returned with equal anger. "I can call her, keep her with me, by Ruth's devotion and by Jilla's alteration. I have the advantage. Do you not see that I have no wish to press it? Do you not hear me when I tell you that, wish or no, I would?"

"But why?" Sulu demanded. "Why is there any need to press anything? I don't want to fight for her..."

"And I must! I tell you again, I am Vulcan! Have you forgotten the Guardian, the Challenge, the branding?”

“That was without Surak…” Sulu began uneasily. Spock cut him off.

“No! Surely you have studied it enough to comprehend that even Surakian Vulcans kill for their mates."

Spock fell silent. Sulu closed his eyes. He didn't want Spock to be making sense. Somehow they had gotten off the subject of whether or not Jith was both or neither; whether they were both entitled to her, or neither was.

When he looked up, Spock was staring out at the stars, his face momentarily unguarded. There was raw anguish in the stern features, and a fear-filled loathing of something that, though dreaded, hated, was inevitable. It sounded an answering chord deep within Sulu's being. Without thinking, Sulu reached up to clasp a reassuring, understanding hand to the taller Vulcan's shoulder.

Spock turned. For a moment, all his confused emotion bled through that touch into the Human's awareness. For a moment, all Sulu's thoughts filled him. Spock stared into Sulu's eyes. "You prefer Jith?!" he asked in astonishment.

Sulu drew back, startled. "You fear her?" came his equally surprised question.

"No, I..." Spock began.

"No, It's just that..." Sulu said at the same time.

Silence again fell between them. Then Spock sat down, Sulu taking the seat beside him.

"I do fear her, but not in the way you perceive," Spock said. "She will release all that Vulcan has worked to overcome. Do you wish to serve under Sorrm, my friend? Would you be able to share your wife with one like him? Jith is too easy, too compliant to Vulcan ways, too tempting. I cannot say I find that repellent; I do not. She calls to me, Sulu. She pulls at me. I want to leave her as she is, and I loathe that wanting. I have controlled that savage within me. I fear to have her awaken him."

"You fear you prefer her," Sulu summarized quietly.

Spock sighed. "Yes."

"And that what you prefer will destroy what she loves."

"Yes."

"Which is why you insist you have no right to her."

"Yes.” Spock paused, then looked at his First Officer. “What is your reasoning?"

Sulu forced himself to think about it, even though his mind automatically tried to shy away. It wasn't an easy thing to face. He did prefer Jith, for all the reasons he'd said. No compromises - except one. He'd have to share her. He'd convinced himself, without even thinking about it, that he could. Before Jilla, he'd never been monogamous. Yet he couldn't deny the blazing possessiveness that marked his bond with her. Was it only his desperate fear that made him believe he could cast it off? Did he really prefer Jith to Jilla? Or simply to the risk of nothing?

"I don't know, Spock," he said heavily. "I really don't. All I'm sure of is what I've already told you. I simply can't bear the thought of losing her. Anything, even hell, is preferable. Death is preferable, and I don't really care if that includes you and her. Selfish, I know, and I'm sorry. But you never lost Ruth. Even your fear when the bond with Jilla was severed was tempered by the knowledge that Ruth was there. If I lose Jilla, I lose everything. If I have to lie in torment while she's with you, so be it. If I have to tear us all apart trying to share her, so be it. I can't lose her. Try to understand. I can't."

"Then we are at an impasse, as I said before we began this talk." Spock stood. "I cannot share her. You cannot risk her. What more is there to say?"

"There has to be more!" Sulu exclaimed. "We can't go to Jith with this unsettled."

"I can see no settlement possible."

"Damn it...!" Sulu paced, then faced Spock again. "Convince me I won't lose her!"

Spock blinked. "I cannot..."

"I don't care if you can't, do it anyway!"

"You are behaving most..."

"I know! But... damn it, Spock, if this isn't settled, you win by default! Our bickering will tear her apart and eventually you won't give in to my emotional pleas and the thing will happen."

"Sulu, this is not a matter of winning or losing..."

"Forget the damn words! I know what it feels like! At least help me believe I'll get Jilla back.... even if you don't."

"You will allow a disintegration to progress..."

"NO! Not if I can help it. I just... god, I just want something to hang on to when it happens."

Spock was silent for a moment. "You called yourself selfish, Sulu. You were wrong. It is madness and worse you fear, and you acquiesce. I fear only my beast, yet I cannot."

"If it was my beast I was fearing, I couldn't either," Sulu mumbled. Spock reached out a hand to him.

"I will help you however I can," he said.

Sulu looked him in the eye. "Tell me Ruth can disintegrate Jith and keep Jilla whole."

"I do not doubt my wife's abilities."

"Tell me there's enough of Ruth in Jith to be able to remember what's Jilla and what's not."

"Jith is keheil."

“Tell me Valjiir won't try to hold onto this much more efficient way to handle design work."

"Jith has only two hands; engineers often require three."

"Tell me Jilla will let go of a form that could let her have you."

"Only if you can assure me that Ruth will forego a way to recapture the passion she shared with you."

"Explain to me how you can bear the thought of Jith disintegrating into nothing."

"I hold within my mind the thought of Ruth's body awakening."

"I'm scared, Spock."

"As am I, Sulu."

"If you're wrong, this time let me kill you."

"I will give you the sword myself, D'Artagnan."

Jith had a headache. She was sitting on a diagnostic bed in Sickbay, where she'd spent most of the day. She was sick of undergoing tests and answering obvious questions. She was trying very hard to believe what they told her about the two bodies in Sickbay, but it simply made no sense.

Keheil or not, even l couldn't've done this, she told herself. Combining two beings I can understand - that's a salish after all. But to do so and create a third body that's part of each of the original two? And one that doesn't know it was ever separate? And on top of all that, maintain the life functions of the two bodies?

She shook her head, sighing. "Bones," she complained to the empty room, "why do you keep me here? Why hasn't Spock or Sulu come to see me?"

She rubbed her hands over her arms, shifting on the bed, nervously swinging her legs. She didn't dare leave again without permission. Bones had, quite rightly, reprimanded her sharply for her escape of the night before. "But I had to go to my husband," she said, again aloud. "I was cold and lonely, and he’s the only one who can warm me."

"He?" came a sudden response. Jith started and turned toward the door. McCoy stood there, his arms folded. "What happened to 'they'?"

"You know very well what I meant," she scolded. "And don't sneak up on me like that."

"It's my Sickbay, I'll sneak if I want to. Besides," McCoy grinned, coming over to the bed, sitting next to her, "that's the only way I'm gonna get any real information out of you."

"You, Bones, are more than infuriating."

"That's my job, Jith-girl - oops." He interrupted himself at Jith's glare. "Jith. Now, you were sayin'?"

"Nothing of interest," Jith replied sullenly.

"Oh, we're gonna play it that way, are we?" McCoy chuckled, then grew stern. "Why did you go to Sulu's cabin?"

"I live there!" Jith answered indignantly.

"You live there?" McCoy returned. "What of Spock? Don't you also live with him?"

"Yes, of course, but..."

"But...?"

Jith swallowed uncomfortably. "It seemed at the time the logical thing to do?" she tried.

"The logical thing to do?"

"Stop repeating what I say!" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Honestly, you're as bad as.... as I was when Sulu was first..."

"You didn't think 'as I was'."

Tossing her hair, Jith snapped, "How do you know what I'm thinking?" She laced her fingers together, then reached up, rubbing her temples with her thumbs. "I'm simply tired from all the tests, and...."

"Confused."

"Yes."

"Maybe you're confused because what we're tellin' you is the truth."

Jith got off the bed, pacing away from McCoy. "How can that be? I know who I am, I know my whole life....”

McCoy followed her. "Do you, Jith? How did your mother and father meet?"

"That's not my life," Jith pointed out.

"Do you know? Jilla did. Ruth did."

Gritting her teeth, Jith said, "I assume they met through my father's ambassadorial travels."

"Do you have any brother or sisters?"

"I told you, my mother died in the crash of the Blakely."

"How about before you?"

"I had one older sister who died in the keheil training, and an older brother, Liore."

"Where is Liore?"

"On Indi with my father, where else?"

"What was your mother doing on the Blakely?”

"Serving as an officer on its exploration run."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I suppose it was what she wanted to do."

"With a fifteen year old daughter?"

"She knew how much I loved engineering, and she wanted to give me some actual experience aboard a ship before I entered Starfleet."

"Where was your father during this exploration run?"

"On Federation business elsewhere." Jith turned to face him, her eyes blazing. "So there!"

McCoy was undaunted. "Tell me about DelMonde, Jith. How could you have an affair with him at the Academy when you were in mourning for Selar?"

"That was a healing," Jith said decisively. "I gave him what he needed to save his sanity."

"And Aema overlooks adultery when it’s a healing?"

"Of... of course," Jith faltered. "She has to. That is the province of Zehara."

"You don't sound so sure."

"It must be, for I was not damned for him." Jith drew herself up stiffly. "I do not question Aema."

"Wasn't your pon farr a healing? Or doesn't Aema count healing yourself?"

"I... I should have died, McCoy, rather than..."

"Then why didn't you die with DelMonde?"

"It was his sanity that was threatened. Had he been..."

"Then you're saying," McCoy pressed on relentlessly, "that you can't heal anymore, because you should die."

"No... that makes no.... my vow to heal at all costs..."

"Even unto your death, I know. So you shouldn’t survive any more healings. You have to heal and have to die, therefore..."

"NO!" Jith cried out, burying her face in her hands. Then her head came abruptly up. "This is your doing, McCoy. Your serum saved me when I should have died and created this dilemma. I live because of Sulu's tia, because of the bond, because he wishes me to!"

McCoy took a deep breath, waiting for Jith to calm herself. "Now, Jith, if this is all your own memories, why is it so hard to force it to all make sense?"

"It's you!" Jith cried. "You confuse me. Terrans always confuse me."

"Why did you stop calling me 'Bones?'"

"When did I...?"

"You said, 'I should have died, McCoy', 'this is your doing, McCoy.'"

Again Jith rubbed her temples, turning from him. "I don't know. I was angry."

"Ruth calls me Bones. Jilla calls me McCoy."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Jith whispered to herself.

"Tell me about Spock's first year as Captain."

"I don't want to," was the stubborn reply.

"You mean you can't."

"I mean leave me alone."

"Jith, explain those two bodies. Explain why Spock and Sulu fight over you. Explain why no one else knows you, but everyone else knows Ruth and Jilla. Explain why..."

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Jith shrieked and dashed toward the Sickbay door, just as it opened.

The Sickbay door opened as Spock reached it. He took a step forward and Jith came suddenly barreling into his arms. He stumbled back a few steps, nearly knocking over Sulu, who was behind him. Jith was sobbing uncontrollably, her fingers digging fiercely into his arms as she burled her face against his chest.

"Make him stop, make him STOP!" she cried.

Spock looked up at McCoy, who was approaching the doorway. "Questions she can't answer, Captain," was McCoy's explanation.

"Jith," Spock began, attempting to put her away from him. She only clutched more tightly. "They are only questions, only words," he continued. "Surely, if you are as you claim, words cannot harm you."

"Spock, what are you telling her!" Sulu broke in. Spock turned his head to face Sulu. The dark eyes, the controlled features answered plainly: Do not doubt my wife's abilities; Jith is keheil; I hold in my mind the thought of Ruth's body awakening.

Sulu's voice was almost a whisper. "No, not now. Not yet. Please."

Spock turned from him, taking the few steps into Sickbay, bringing Jith with him. "Continue your questions, Doctor," he said to McCoy.

Jith began to pull away from him, her eyes wide, her body trembling. He held fast to her arms.

"Spock..." she begged, "...help me!"

He simply stared at her with eyes cool and aloof. Sulu moved past him, attempting to pull Jith from his grasp.

"Stop this, Spock," Sulu said. "I said not now."

Spock ignored him. "Your question, Doctor?"

McCoy's blue eyes studied Spock warily, but he repeated, "Explain Spock's first year as Captain, Jith," he said.

"Spock, please...!" Jith gasped.

"Explain, Jith," Spock repeated.

"Stop it!" Sulu snapped, and pulled harder. Spock did not release his hold. Jith began to struggle.

"Sulu... help me!" she cried.

"Let her go!" Sulu demanded.

"I will not!" Spock thundered. "As we discussed, I will not!"

"You bastard!" Sulu seethed. "I won't lose her, I won't! Not to you, not again! Let her go!"

"What the devil are you doing?" McCoy broke in, corning to Sulu's aid. Spock froze him with one look, entreating and desperate. Jith's crying took on a panicked tone, her struggles becoming stronger, yet less effective. She twisted in Spock's grasp, trying to turn to Sulu, the color of her eyes flashing and changing.

Spock stared down into her eyes. "Did I force you, command you, Jith?" he said, "Or did I turn from you? Was I fire, my wife, or ice? Was there Vulcan power in me, rilain, or only control? Was there between us nothing more than passion, or simply nothing?" He shook her once, savagely. "Answer me, Jith!"

She screamed in horror, collapsing. At the same time, Sulu shouted, "NO!" Only Spock's strong grip on her arms kept her from falling. Sulu knelt as Spock lowered her to the deck, nearly into the Human's arms, but the Vulcan did not let go. Beside her, Sulu's face was anguished, his voice hoarse.

"Please, stop it. Jith, hon, it's alright..."

"It is not," Spock stated. "You will answer me, wife."

"She can't, you know she can't..."

"Yet she will if I command it. I do. Jith, explain."

Sulu looked up at McCoy. "Doc, help me! Can't you see what this will do to her?!"

McCoy shook his head.

Jith struggled feebly now, gasping and incoherent. Sulu again began pleading with Spock. "I can't face it," he begged. "Please, Spock, I'm not ready! Don't do this, please; I can't lose her.... I'll agree to anything else! Please, Spock!"

"You give her to me?" Spock growled.

Fury rose in Sulu's face. "NO!"

Spock again shook Jith's body. "Answer me, wife!" he demanded.

"SPOCK, STOP IT!"

Jith screamed, "SULU!!" reaching for him. Sulu's answering cry was one of rage and hopelessness as he desperately tried to enfold her in a protective embrace. Her sobbing faded as her body began to swoon. Again Spock shook her.

"No!" he said, "You will not escape me that way!"

Her eyes snapped open, wildly fluctuating now: deep, violet blue... pale slate blue.... back and back and back again. She tried to speak, but her voice came out in grotesque distortions. Words there were, but unintelligible; sounds mixing in incomprehensible syllables. She writhed in Spock's gripping hands, reaching futilely for the comfort of Sulu's arms. Sulu stared, his own cries lost, his breath held in agony. At each repeated "Answer me," from Spock, Jith's body convulsed. Her face began to distort, its color shifting like the color of her eyes, from honey gold to pale silver. The features changed, lips full, then thinner; eyes large, then again Human sized; high cheek-boned rnischievousness giving way to the picture of innocence. The delicate points of her ears vanished, only to reappear. Her hair rapidly grew, then shrank back, altering in color from sun-ripened wheat to wine red. Her body, too, changed beneath the Sickbay gown; the limbs growing and shrinking with her hair, its form now thin and curving, now voluptuously full. Time seemed to stand still, the changes in her eternal, as Spock's voice demanded and Sulu's heart thundered.

McCoy quickly understood exactly what Spock was doing. It had been, after all, what he was attempting with his questioning. His medical evaluations had convinced him that it was the only answer. Jith Valjiir was not a stable entity, nor could she be. The repeated testing had shown a definite progression toward dissolution within Jith's being. McCoy feared, however, that simply waiting for the inevitable would result in a fading of Jith with no catalyst to reform into Jilla and Ruth. Spock's solution was the only one.

It was painful to watch, but McCoy found he couldn't look away. The process was undeniably horrible, and undeniably fascinating. From the erratic changes in coloring, the disintegration moved to a more ordered, yet more grotesque pattern: the left half of Jith slowly, gradually became Jilla, the right half, Ruth. The division was as sharp as if someone had made a canvas of some featureless android body. Spock's demands had ceased, as well as Jith's incoherent moans. As McCoy watched, as Sulu and Spock held onto the being who now was no longer Jith, the two halves began to steadily, gently separate.

Sulu cried out once; a strangled cry of "Jith!" It was quickly countered by Spock's more certain call of, "Ruth, my wife." The solidity of the body they both held began to fade, their fingers and arms closing on air. The likenesses of Ruth and Jilla, too, faded as they floated farther and farther apart. When they were transparent, Sulu bowed his head to the deck. When they disappeared, he softly began to cry.

Spock closed his eyes, controlling his breathing and the emotions beating within him. I hold in my mind the thought of Ruth's body awakening, he repeated, then took a deep breath and turned to the diagnostic beds on which Ruth and Jilla's bodies lay.

The panels showed heartbeat, and respiration - and no brainwave activity.

Hope crashed around him, turning to bitterest despair. He moved like one dead to Ruth's bed, staring down at the pale, golden face that was still scarred by the lacerations from the explosion. Gently, he took one cool hand in his, closing his eyes. Forgive me, Del'larr'ei, he told her silently. I could not share you, and so lost you your life. And lost Jilla hers, and so Sulu his. Can you forgive me so much?

He became aware of Sulu moving to Jilla's bed, aware of the soft, pleading voice that called her name, and did not have the heart to tell him the gamble had failed. He will discover it soon enough, came the sorrowing thought.

In that case, don't you owe him a sword?

Spock started violently at the sardonic voice in his head. Jith?

Who?

His eyes flew open. The cuts on Ruth's face were gone. He swiftly stared up at the scanner. Heartbeat normal, respiration normal... brainwave activity normal - yet only for an instant. They rapidly began to register cacophony.

"Enough of that, Ruthie," McCoy's voice said gruffly from behind Spock's shoulder. On the bed, eyes still closed, Ruth shrugged and smiled faintly. The readings returned to those normal for an Antari/Human hybrid.

Spock glanced at Jilla's bed. Sulu was bent over her, hugging her fiercely. Spock could see one pale arm coming up to return the embrace.

Spock?

He turned back to Ruth. Yes, beloved?

What hit me?

Irreconcilable differences, my wife.

What?

Irreconcilable differences, he repeated. For which I am, after all, most grateful.

Ruth and Jilla recovered quickly. Jilla retained no memory of having been Jith. Ruth did, but she refused to discuss it with anyone except Spock. Spock, seated in McCoy's office with his First Officer, assured Sulu that the indiscretion with Jith would not be mentioned, though he did not agree with Ruth that this was the wisest course of action. Sulu had decided that he would not discuss the experience with Jilla just yet. He would, he explained, deal with any comments she might overhear when they came up.

McCoy chuckled. "I think you just don't want her to know the shameful way y'all behaved. Jealous, possessive..." he tsked at Sulu, wagging his finger. "Especially at the end, there." He shook his head. "That goes for you, too, Captain. The two of you sparrin' like a pair of treed cats..."

"It was necessary, Doctor," Spock said calmly. "There was no other way to force Jith's disintegration."

"Didn't seem like Sulu agreed to it, though," Me Coy commented.

"No, I didn't. But once I knew what Spock was doing..."

"You fought it tooth and nail,” McCoy broke in.

"Yes and no. I didn't want to risk it, but I knew I had to. And I knew that my fighting it was the only way to give in to it."

"You lost me, Sulu."

"Doc, if I had joined in with Spock, demanding Jith answer, she would have come up with a solution."

"Yeah? How?"

"I don't know. But if it was what both of her husbands wanted, she would have, believe me. It was only my trying to protect her from Spock’s badgering that forced the disintegration. She couldn't please both of us, and she had to."

"Clever," McCoy nodded. "How did you know it would work?"

"He did not,” Spock replied, one eyebrow rising. "But we agreed it was our only option."

"You planned it out ahead of tine."

"No," Sulu rejoined. He glanced at Spock, his eyes warm with regard. "It just seemed to work out that way. I'm told Captain/First Officer teams often develop a rapport like that."

"Indeed," Spock put in. "Some have referred to it as 'magic'."

McCoy grinned meaningfully. "Still others call it friendship," he said.

Spock inclined his head in deference, and Sulu smiled.

The End