Warning: Please do not read any further is you are following Aphrodite420's Unification and have not yet read Chapter 19.

Move, damn it!

"Are you in pain, sir?"

Christopher Pike kept his eyes squeezed shut, his face contorted into a grimace. It would easier if it hurt. Pain would mean all this was working. Pain would mean he was healing. Pain would mean hope. All he felt was pressure — the heavy weight of his right leg against the training table's padding. A good sign, everyone said. But no one would go so far as to say "pressure" could be translated into "You're going to walk again." He couldn't feel his left leg, held aloft in the physical therapist's sturdy hands and pushed back against his chest, at all.

He gritted his teeth against the effort, shaking his head even as the angry thought Move, damn it! refused to make its way from his brain to his thigh and calf muscle. The left leg twitched, its movement involuntary. Useless. Pike knew the feeling. The leg was about as useful as a lame starship captain, and the other one wasn't much better.

Move, you fucker! By now, he was screaming silently, veins popping out in his face and forearms. Nothing happened. He hadn't been expecting it to. Hope was pain and the most he felt was pressure.

After another ten minutes of sweaty frustration, the PT announced the end of their hour. Pike took perverse pleasure in knowing that two months of therapy had thickened the muscles in his arms and shoulders enough so that the stocky therapist had to strain to ease him off the table.

He could have gotten into the chair himself, but regs were regs and he was tired of protesting. Tired of claiming an independence that wasn't much more than show, anyway. Tired of the daily treatments that were supposed to repair his nerves. Tired of training that was supposed to teach him to reuse muscle and bone he could barely feel because the treatments didn't work for him.

He was tired of everything. He was almost tired of living.

"I can get back to my cell — I mean my room — on my own."

The PT didn't protest. But, then, regs were regs and none of them said he couldn't return to the fake Twenty-first Century "luxury suite" that served as his home at the rehabilitation center unescorted.

.

"Chris, it's time to think about a frame."

Pike had come to his room expecting to be alone with his fury and his frustration. He'd wanted a pity party for one that would leave him pissed off enough — at Nero, at Centaurian slugs, at physicians and physical therapists and psychiatrists the universe over... but at himself more than anyone else — to begin the fight against his body all over again in the morning.

He didn't want to be having this conversation.

"No." He refused to look at the earnest young shrink standing in his room, wringing her hands.

"The frame would mean independence. It would mean giving up that chair. Getting on with your life. With a frame, you could even have ship—"

"No," he repeated as he levered himself out of the chair, onto the bed.

Agreeing to the neural-orthotic supporter — commonly called a 'frame'— meant permanently fusing his nerves and bone to a chrytoium cage with electronic sensors that would do his feeling and walking for him. It meant giving up. By winnowing away the need, regenerative medicine had slowed research and progress in the fields of both orthotics and neuroprosthetics. Once the comparatively crude operation was over, there would be no going back.

"Captain…" she began and his head snapped around so fast she swallowed her words. But her eyes were wide and pleading.

"Haven't you heard?" he asked, and the sarcastic snarl made her take a step back. He didn't regret it for a nanosecond. "It's 'Admiral.' Or it will be in a week. No more ships. Frame or no frame. And it's definitely no fucking frame, understand?"

Helen Noel seemed to find her spunk again after his outburst. "Fine, then," she said, smiling and he could tell she meant it. "No frame talk yet. There's something else I'd like you to try if I can convince the nerve jockeys to give it a chance."

Christopher used the bar hanging over his bed to drag himself up. "What do you have up your sleeve, Hel?"

She shook her head, backing out of the room. "Not yet, Old Man. Maybe you want to talk to your other 'orphan' about it," she said cryptically. "I don't want to say more until I understand it better myself."

.

.

T'Shan moved purposefully through the halls of the embassy. They were more crowded now than they once had been. San Francisco was more crowded than it had been twenty-eight years ago. The Earth city had become the main gathering point for the remaining Vulcans and the embassy was its nexus.

She passed clerks armed with PADDs full of—she knew—data considered too sensitive to be sent through the electronic systems. The heavily muscled guards that accompanied one gave them away. While there was little chance that the clerks would be accosted inside the embassy building, the Elders had learned in the most horrifying way possible that there was no such thing as "overly cautious."

Survivors of her world's destruction had been the first, but now — three months later — members of Vulcan's few colonies and the few hundred Vulcan that had been assigned work on various other planets continued to arrive. There were more every day. The High Council's latest report included a calculation that the flow of newcomers would not abate for at least a Sol year.

A long-faced woman in Terran clothing nodded at her. T'Shan silently returned the greeting. There were rumors that even v'tosh ka'tur had heeded the call to unite and were to be made welcome. Though no one spoke of it openly, she did not doubt it. The groups of Vulcans she'd seen in these halls were far more diverse than it had ever been before. It was only logical to accept them all; everyone who was willing was needed.

Most rishsular — survivors — remained in San Francisco. Others who heeded the call settled nearby. All who the Elders did not require to return to their assignments or colonies — and there were very few of those — needed housing and tasks to order their days. They grieved, yes, but it was not the Vulcan way to indulge in it. And it was not the Vulcan way to accept charity in any matter they could tend to themselves.

There was much to accomplish. Already, this other, ancient Spock had found a planet he believed would be appropriate for building a new homeworld. If her people were to be ready to make their new home into a successful reality, everyone must cooperate. No skill, however small, was useless to the future they faced. All Vulcans would be needed to rebuild their race.

Which was why she did not understand what the Elders had asked of her.

She halted before the door to Osu Sarek's office. It was the same office[so she had been told,] he'd occupied before the S'chn T'gai household had returned to Vulcan twenty-eight Solar years ago. Without waiting to announce herself, she entered the code Osu Sarek had given to her alone. If he did not wish to speak with her at this time, the door would not open.

.

"Osu," she said, "I am not unwilling to do as the Elders have ordered; I merely wish to better understand why I have been chosen, and what, precisely, is expected of me."

Sarek raised an eyebrow. His gaze remained steady. "You are mistaken," he told her. "I and Spock chose you for this task, but it is a request. You have not been ordered to do anything."

T'Shan did not make any outward sign of acknowledgment at this clarification, but her mind was still filled with questions. Some of them, she realized, must be asked and answered before she could accept.

"Why this human?" she wanted to know. "And why me instead of a healer?"

Sarek answered her second question first. "In our time of need, it would be illogical to ask one of our healers to attempt to guide a human through a process that differs very little from what any Vulcan parent should be able to teach his or her child."

She did not wince at the word "parent" or "child", though a pang lanced her side. But a sudden memory of Satuvek as she had last seen him alive, eight years old and leaving for his kahs'wan was nearly her undoing.

"Furthermore," the ambassador continued in a gentler tone, as if he sensed her distress, "your experience with both my wife and my son make you a more reasonable choice."

There was another long pause. The memory of Amanda, so recently lost, was as painful for both of them as Satuvek's death had been for T'Shan and Selenik.

Sarek recovered first, straightening his shoulders and leaning forward. "Our people owe this man a great deal. If it was not for Christopher Pike's decision — based almost solely on the deductions of a disgraced cadet he himself recruited for Starfleet — to approach our planet with a caution his counterparts in Starfleet lacked, it is unlikely that I or any of the Elders would have survived. The Katric Arch would most certainly have been lost. We are in this man's debt."

"He also guided Spock through his first years at the Academy." Sarek did not speak again for half a minute. "My desire to help this man is based in emotion, T'Shan. I will understand if you choose to have no part in this."

The admission was a weighty one, she knew. He could have omitted his confession. He could have ordered her to do as she was bidden. Clearly, Osu Sarek wanted her to aid this human willingly. It was also the desire of young Spock. T'Shan realized there was no real choice in the matter.

"It will be as you wish, Osu," she said quietly.

.

.

"Son, why do I get the feeling I'm missing something here? A housekeeper is your big solution? I mean, I know she was something like a grandmother to you, but still. What makes you think she'll succeed where the best doctors Starfleet has to offer have failed?"

"As I have already explained, sir, T'Shan's duties extended well beyond directing my father's servants in the care of his household. She—" The admiral's expression told Spock another argument was needed. He began again. "Of the remaining Vulcans, T'Shan is perhaps the most qualified person for the task. This method employs basic healing techniques that are known to almost all of my people. Very little formal medical training is necessary. T'Shan, however, has extensive experience dealing with humans. Therein lies her expertise."

"Dealing with humans, huh?"

"My mother was quite… fond of her, sir. T'Shan was of great assistance to her not only during her adjustment to marriage to a Vulcan, but also during her pregnancy with me."

"Spock, correct me if I'm wrong, but by the time your mother met your father, she'd already lost her parents, right?"

"That is correct. However, if you mean to suggest that Mother's affection for T'Shan lay only in her own motherless state, I should let you know that Lieutenant Uhura also holds T'Shan in high esteem. And M'Umbha Uhura, as you know, is very much alive."

Christopher started to point out that Amanda Grayson and Nyota Uhura were both women who'd chosen Vulcan mates, but decided against it.

"Never mind, Spock," he said. "Do you think it will work?"

The young commander stared at the floor a moment before meeting Pike's eyes. "I do not know, but evidence suggests that before humans became so entirely dependent on what is called modern medicine, traditional healers had some success employing similar methods in the treatment of their patients."

Pike held Spock's determined gaze for a long time before coming to a decision. "Fine," he said. "Tell Granny I'm willing to give her a try."

.

.

Spock was quiet as he walked beside T'Shan. He had already answered what questions he could. More answers would have to wait for Helen and for Christopher himself. He paused before his former captain's door, motioning for T'Shan to halt, as well.

"His temperament is quite... different from Mother's and Nyota's."

T'Shan raised a brow, but said nothing.

"Doctor Noel knows him as well as I do and will do what she can to assist you — not only with any questions you might have about human physiology or psychology, but also with anything you might wish to know about the man, himself."

This time, she nodded. "Shall we enter, nu'ri-veh?"

A wave of affection swept over Spock at being called "young one." After one more glance at the older Vulcan, he pushed open the door.

.

The man called Christopher was lying back against his pillows, hands clutching a bar suspended above his bed. T'Shan watched as he slowly pulled his torso up, then lowered it down again. From the waist up, he appeared impressively fit. His muscles flexed and relaxed as he repeated these actions another six times before he spoke.

"Spock," he said without looking towards the door. "I guess you're here to tell me when you'll be bringing Granny to meet me."

The young one opened his mouth to speak, but T'Shan held up a hand to silence him.

"'Granny' is here now, Admiral Pike," she said as she stepped forward. "If you are finished exercising your body, perhaps we can commence exercising your mind."

At last the man turned to look at them. His face, though covered in alien perspiration, was intriguing. The irregular features were arranged in an oddly pleasing manner. His expression, mouth slightly agape, dark eyes moving back and forth between her and Spock, was unreadable.

"Fascinating," Spock murmured beside her.

A/N: T'Shan is an original character created by Aphrodite420. With her permission (and close supervision!) , I'm attempting to give her greatest creation the story such a wonder character deserves. For more T'Shan goodness, read Aphrodite420's Unification at /s/5681535/1/Unification.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, any of its characters and T'Shan is solely the creation of the fic writer known as Aphrodite420.