Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

long as you go directly from that bed to your bed, you should be fine. The brief walk won't hurt you, and actually would be good for you. But if you start feeling weak, let me know at once, and don't overtire yourself.”
    “Believe me, I won't,” said Torres. She eased out of bed, tapped her combadge, and, cradling the infant, headed out of sickbay while talking. “Tom, can you meet us in our quarters? I'm getting very tired of sickbay. . . .”
    Tuvok gazed after her, thankful for her discretion. The Doctor brought a chair for Sek, then placed cortical monitors on both Vulcans' heads. Discreetly, he stepped as far away as possible.
    Tuvok looked up at his son. To his consternation, he felt a rush of emotion. He had missed his family so much. Sek saw the reaction and recognized it for what it was: a sign that the disease was progressing.
    “Do not worry, Father,” he said gently. “Soon, these distractions will be gone.” Sek closed his eyes, calming himself, then reached and placed his long, slim fingers on his father's brow. “My mind to your mind . . . your thoughts to my thoughts . . .”
    Sek's presence in his mind was like oil poured on churning water to Tuvok. At first, there was only a surface calm; then, gradually, Sek's thoughts penetrated deeper. He felt the young man's mind traversing his own, finding and searching out the synapses that carried the destructive virus.
    He and his son had not melded since Sek was an infant. Tuvok, T'Pel, and Sek had bonded then in an extremely deep and profound union of minds. It was an ancient rite that dated back to when Vulcans first began to harness the incredible powers of the mind. It had been easiest to meld with family members with whom one shared blood, then with more distant relatives, then strangers and, finally in recent history, members of other species. But the initial bonding, established so that the helpless infant could be linked to his parents more firmly, had always been sacred and powerful.
    It was this familiarity that swept through Tuvok now. The irony was not lost on him that this time, it was his son who was nurturing him, not the other way around. The bonding was to protect father, not child.
    Sek's thoughts raced through Tuvok's mind, finding the damaged part of the older Vulcan's brain. There they were, the mutated cells, and Tuvok could see in his mind's eye that they were unnatural and out of harmony with the complex, delicate balance that was the Vulcan brain. The disease was spread through the neurological pathways. Tuvok knew that Sek, whose mind was undamaged, would be instructing his father's own cells to protect the uninfected part of the brain. The blood bond between them magnified the intimacy of the connection. It was the only way the condition could have been treated. Reaching so deeply would not have been possible without that link.
    On a cellular level, Sek began to “speak” to Tuvok's brain.
There has been damage here. These cells are dangerous. You are not to access them any longer.
Gently, but firmly, Sek urged the cells to put up their own barriers. Information and stimuli were henceforth to bypass these areas. They were to become inert. Tuvok felt a strange rush, an imaginary tingling sensation as, under Sek's gentle urging, areas of his brain that had hitherto never been used opened up and responded to stimuli. Cell by cell, Sek isolated and rerouted the way Tuvok's brain would function. For several long minutes, Sek gently disentangled his own thoughts from Tuvok's.
    Just before Sek withdrew, Tuvok felt a powerful, joyful wave wash through him. It was the love that his son felt for his father, the delight at being able to help him. Tuvok saw a small Vulcan child, and knew it to be his granddaughter T'meni, named for Tuvok's own mother. They would not speak of it, but here, in the most intimate joining that was possible for any two Vulcans, Tuvok accepted that love and returned it as passionately.
    Then his thoughts were his alone. He opened his eyes and gazed up into the impassive visage of Sek.
    “How do you feel?” asked the Doctor.
    Tuvok sat up, looked from his son to the Doctor, and announced, “I believe am cured.”
    When the door hissed open, B'Elanna tried hard not to look as worried and apprehensive as she felt. Tom had told her only that he and Admiral Paris were coming down to meet her and Miral. He had told her nothing of how their own meeting went. She had guessed it had gone well because of the