It was an honest, simple question with staggering truths behind it. Uhura thought she had an easy answer for him.

"Well, I liked you because you reminded me of Jim, of course. Plus, I always loved you for the resilience you showed after all you've been through. You were fun to have around, I...."

Nyota looked at Peter. She had to stop lying to him, at long last.

"My love for you is real. But its basis is the pathetic cloying of a young girl who made a foolish mistake with a young man and then dared to feel betrayed when her parents made her correct that mistake."

He looked up at her.

"Tell me."

She wiped away a tear.

"Peter, I met your father on Tarsus. He rescued me from a group of Kodos' soldiers, and I wanted to be with him from that moment on. When we two had beaten Kodos, and driven him off, we made love. Wildly, repeatedly--and without another thought. I was 13. Then, when I turned 14, a mere three months later--I found out that we should have had thoughts. I was pregnant. Your grandmother Brianna Kirk put Jim in a coma, so he never found out til after Deneva. My parents, fearing this mad woman who would beat her own children, compelled me to---end the pregnancy. You--have always received the love that I would have given my own child. I'm sorry if this story sounds pathetic."

The young man stood up, and hugged her.

"Its not pathetic. But it is incomplete."

She felt his love, his feelings of safety, so long as she held him.

"Incomplete? In what way?"

"Weren't you visited at the clinic?"

She thought back.

"Mom and Dad did say that Aurelan stopped by."

Peter took her hands, and looked in her eyes.

"She did far more than that. It was Aurelan who told Brianna you were pregnant. Out of jealousy. And more -- she came there with a soul jar. A mystic artifact to cage a loose spirit. My spirit."

Uhura got up, and felt the implications overwhelm her.

"But--but--you---"

"She kept me there until she herself was pregnant by Jim. Haven't you noticed how little of her I truly contain? How much of you is a part of me? How it always has been? Did you think that the connection between us was just wishful thinking?"

She grabbed him and held him, now intending to never let him slip away again.

"Then the story was incomplete. Because my son came back--he was stronger than death. No matter what form it takes."

Some bonds exceed those of the flesh, as Peter indicated by his next tearful words. Words that the unstable Aurelan had never really permitted him to say.

"I Love You, Mother."

They were both silent for another hour, for that is how it goes when, after a long absence, the heart returns.