"Easier said than done" was the common phrase, and Spock was far too wise to even make an attempt at postponing his efforts to do. A century and more of longing was not a simple thing to dismiss, and he had no desire to make his life any more complicated than it already was. He had wasted too much time in the past, in another universe; he would not make that mistake now, in this reality.

She stood by the window, watching Luna rise. As had become her habit, she raised a finger to chart its shape on the glass.

"I am grateful for the time you have given me, Ms. Boipuso," he said without preamble. "I do not wish for our association to end."

"And yet tomorrow you will be gone, Mr. Spock." She didn't turn from the view, or from her languid tracing of the moon.

He stepped closer, but she was still too far away.

"I have commitments I cannot ignore at this time."

He moved forward again.

"As do I." Her hand fluttered down to her side, and in that small gesture he read decades of despair and defeat.

His next step took him to her side.

"But when we have both fulfilled our obligations?" He watched the rising moon instead of her face, illogically afraid of what he might see if he looked at her.

As the silence began to lengthened beyond what most humans would consider polite — or even comfortable — he felt his fear stretch and grow. Just because he had believed there was a connection, no matter that she had agreed that what they had found was enough… he was not him and she was not her and sometimes humans needed a great deal more time to decide what they found acceptable.

Lost in trepidation, he had long since lost awareness of his internal sense of the passage of time when he felt her half turn towards him, canting her head twenty-seven degrees away from where he stood as his eyes finally braved her face.

"The bride's parents seemed very much in love," she said.

Her non sequitur was jarring and he took no small measure of time — time he found he was still incapable of accounting for — to respond.

"I did not spend much time observing them, but they did appear content in their union," he conceded rather than probing the direction of her thoughts.

She turned away again, her eyes quickly finding the moon again, her hand automatically rising to the glass in pursuit of its course.

"Did she ever speak about them?"

Ahh, he thought, suspecting he was beginning to understand.

"Only twice. She was sixteen when M'Umbha died. The memories she shared with me were more often of Benjamin alone."

The woman at his side nodded slowly, the motion of her head matching the speed of her finger on the glass.

"It was a love match, she told me," he continued. "Unexpected. Forbidden, actually. He grieved for her until he also died."

"My parents also loved," Astra said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. It was lower still when she added, "But their… union was not unexpected or forbidden. They were brought together by design. The love they bore one another was inconsequential to anyone beyond themselves. And their children."

He wrapped himself around her, hoping his heat and presence would soothe the infinitesimal shaking of her body.

"I think he and I were brought together by design, although we didn't love before I met you and he met her," she said. A choked sob punctuated her words. "Our love was not inconsequential. He paid for it with his life."

Spock held her close as sorrow and fear wracked her small form. Then, when it seemed as if the outpouring of grief would not end quickly, he lifted her in his arms and carried her over to a chair by the bed.

She wept, and acting on a memory from his long ago childhood, he rocked back and forth until she quieted and the trembling abated.

The moon had moved beyond the view of the window before he spoke again.

"We are neither of us in the worlds we once knew," he said, hoping she would understand his meaning. Wishing to know that his words brought her comfort.

"When our obligations have been fulfilled," she said, "you must ask me to come to you."

A/N: There is only one chapter after this one, and even that might seem a little familiar to those of you who are familiar with my other fics.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of its characters and concepts. Not even Astra Boipuso.