Disclaimer:

	Paramount owns these characters, except for the young doctor.

	This was written in reponse to the "Gift Challenge."



---



My mother had a saying for everything.  My first lessons in the

adaptability of the human species came when she could fit her sayings

to almost any Vulcan situation.  I remember once, when I was almost

eight and very full of myself, I tried to teach her how to control her

emotions. She listened to me gravely, and then said, "Spock, don't

teach grandma how to suck eggs."  Then she got up and left.



It was many years and many humans later before I figured out what she

meant.  Now I was caught in another puzzler -- "It's the thought that

counts."  



I have learned some Terran habits, including holiday gift-giving. 

This year, I have given Mister Scott some fine Scotch, Uhura the words

and music to some of Vulcan's oldest songs and lessons in how to sing

them, Doctor McCoy some Romulan ale that I had picked up from a rather

shady character.  Jim I gave a heavy silk tunic, and he was wearing it

tonight, the rich rust and green picking out highlights in his hair

and eyes.



I sheltered his gift to me from the eyes of the world, hiding it in

the curve of my hand.  He had walked up to me an hour before and

handed it to me.  "You know what it means, Spock," he said, and moved

away from me, light on his feet.



It was a ring, rose-gold and jade, intricately carved.  I did know

what it meant, as surely as Jim knew I loved him--as surely as I knew

he loved me back, though we had never been able to tell each other.



"It's the thought that counts."  I could pretend the ring was just

another gift from a friend, like the bagpipes Scott had given me--"So

ye dinna forget yer human blood, lad!"  I knew the thought behind the

ring, the thought that needed to be considered here--I couldn't accept

this gift without accepting the thought.  "It's the thought that

counts."  You accept the gift as a symbol of the thought, whether the

gift itself is something you desire or not.  And how I desired this

one, this symbol, this thought--I felt a quivering in my legs and

belly and couldn't bring myself to control it.



I looked up, across the room, and found Jim watching me.  I dropped my

eyes almost as soon as they met his, but not quickly enough to avoid

seeing the desire and love warming those hazel depths.



I thought of something else Mother had said, drew a deep breath, and

slipped the ring onto the index finger of my left hand.  It was a

perfect fit.  Jim must have researched both Vulcan custom and my

measurements.



I stood up and crossed the room.  I knew what I would do.  Jim was

talking to a beautiful young woman from Medical--and if I did not take

him home, he would take her.  I could see it in the tense lines of his

shoulders, in the way he smiled at her but never quite met her eyes. 

Jim was lonely, as lonely as I, but without the friendships I had made

through Vulcan sexual bonding.  If I did not take him home, he would

pull her down on top of him, thrust into her, kiss her breasts and run

his hands over her skin, and call out in his mind to me when he came. 

I always felt that, the ringing "Spock!" echoing in my head.  Over and

over, with different men and women, for nearly two years.  Never their

names...always mine.



And still I had not spoken.  My mother would be ashamed of me if she

knew. 



I reached him.  "Jim."  I laid my hand on his, the ring already warmed

through from my body heat.  The young doctor startled slightly, and I

watched her as she realized why Jim never quite met her eyes.  They

were lovely eyes, but there were green and gold bubbles rising in the

hazel ones next to me, so I smiled at her, very slightly, and pulled

Jim away. I released his hand and placed my own at the small of his

back, just barely touching him.  He was trembling as I steered him out

of the rec room into the corridor, and down to the turbolift.



Once inside, I started it on its way to Deck Five, but he stopped it

partway there.  He looked vulnerable as he stood there, and perhaps he

couldn't believe what I was doing.



Vulcans can move faster than humans, almost too fast for the eye to

follow, like a snake striking.  We do not do it often, but I did it

then. I pressed him to the wall of the lift and claimed his mouth,

feeling the length of his body against me, the sudden surge of fear

quickly replaced by arousal.  He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me

closer, rubbed his groin against me.  I was hard, and it hurt.  I

wanted to take him then, but instead I backed off slightly and started

the lift again.  I had waited for two years--I could wait another few

minutes.  I hoped.



We tumbled onto my bunk.  I had already stripped his tunic off, and

the bare warm scent of him was driving me insane.  I dropped my

shields and laid my left hand, the ring still on my finger, against

his chest.  I wanted to feel him.  He felt my mind within him, and

took my hand and pressed it to him.  "You do realize that if you sleep

with me you have to marry me," he whispered. 



"I intend to," I said, through clenched teeth, and started to remove

his trousers with my free hand.



When he came, for the first time in two years what he said in his mind

and what he cried out loud were the same thing.



Now he is sleeping against me, and I can feel the slow thump of his

heartbeat against my side.  I think again about my mother, and what my

memories of her whispered to me in the rec room.  "You can't start a

fire without a spark."  Jim and I had been living without a spark. 

Now we are a flame, burning steadily in the darkness.  I close my eyes

and let myself drift to sleep.





---

End