At the end of the five-year mission.  Another story of why Spock left?

What else did Dr McCoy buy on Luco?

From the stable who brought you, "Saving the Captain's Arse."

It’s a question of biology. Vulcan biology.

The problem with falling in love with a member of an insanely private species is that it just might take you the best part of a five year mission to work out that the feelings are requited. And then you might discover that he’s already decided that the two of you can never be together.

And what are you supposed to do if he won’t tell you why?

~*~

Written as a response to T'Lara’s ingenious challenge, which I’m not going to reproduce here but I’ll add as a chapter end note when it makes an appearance in-text. Not that it’s a big secret (there are some other writers preparing to take up the challenge as I write this) but just because I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who doesn’t want it to be spoiled.

Thanks to my fantastic betas Frodolass and penguin_attie for being, well, fantastic. Any mistakes that remain are all mine.

Also, the talented veta_black has created a fanmix for the fic, which you can access here.