Holography

Volume 2

The Wedding Present

Or

The Starling’s Lament

By

Pat Foley

The sound of dawn birds woke Sarek. When he stirred, Amanda, still deeply asleep, snuggled closer in unconscious protest. He looked down at her head pillowed on his shoulder, felt her breath warm against his throat. One of his hands was tangled in her long hair that lay streaming across her back. Whereas she had one arm around his waist, one leg across and between his. Always at the back of his mind when he woke like this, was the nagging thought that Vulcans did not sleep thus, so uncontrolled

He had meant, early in his marriage, to say something to her about this apparently human lack of control in sleep. Perhaps to suggest some Vulcan disciplines. But they had both been reeling from the myriad culture shocks such a union engendered, and it had hardly been an important issue. And before he could even find an opportunity to raise it, he himself had become bowled over, lost, charmed by the absolute, unconscious show of trust and affection her sleeping behavior demonstrated. He had never experienced anything like it.

Not that he had approached his marriage unprepared. They had made a conscious, logical decision to bond, even based on – at least on her part – motivations that had been as much emotional as rational. As a Vulcan, he had expected his wife would honor and respect him. And yield to him – that was a given. Nor did he have any difficulty in understanding, sharing and reciprocating her desire. That was mutual between them. He had even made an intense study of the emotion called love before they bonded, and felt he understood it as well as any Vulcan could, even if he didn’t expect to ever share it.

What he hadn’t expected, what he had somehow overlooked in his research was this – this unconscious, unstudied expression of affection and trust – outside of desire or love --- that she felt for him. Her careless, thoughtless, spontaneous innocence continued long past the point where they could claim any innocence between them -- a behavior undeniably undisciplined and childlike, by Vulcan standards -- even as she demonstrated in every other facet of her life that she was no child. It had struck him to his Vulcan core. And for the first time in his life, he had felt…envy. Most surprisingly, envy of humans. With the specter of Pon Far haunting him as it did every Vulcan male, Amanda’s absolute trust and her conviction that he was worthy of that trust was something no Vulcan wife would so easily feel for a Vulcan husband. But apparently it was something common to Human marriage, and for that he felt himself wanting. He had done nothing yet to ensure her safety in Pon Far; he felt undeserving of such convictions. Yet Amanda felt that for him. He found that …amazing, given she had been well educated as to the nature of Vulcan biology. And captivating. He had become determined to earn that trust, even as he completely reversed his opinion on her sleeping habits. The idea of suggesting any alteration in that behavior was unthinkable. In fact, he would have opposed anyone or anything, Vulcan or human, that suggested it. Deserved or not, deserving or not, he found his desire for it ran a close second to his desire for her.

Though it did have its disadvantages. Small wonder he could hardly keep his hands off his wife when awake, when he was so conditioned to have her in his arms when asleep. But he would never trade a Vulcan marriage now for that as well. With that thought in mind, he shifted to draw her under him. It was when reaching for her hands saw the dark bruises on her arms.

For a moment, he stared at them, chilled, mentally berating himself for forgetting his own strength, inexcusable behavior, regardless of the cause – at least, outside the Time. But then the reasons for his loss of control came back to him, and he shuddered. As far removed from his former chill as if he were suddenly bathed in icy water.

Spock…gone.

He drew back from her as his thoughts congealed, and he tried to push the unpleasant topic away even as he withdrew from his wife’s embrace. He had resolved firmly not to think of his son until the boy repudiated his errant choice and returned to his father’s ways.

But still, the thoughts would come. Sarek found himself returning again and again to the events of the past week, of the past eighteen standard years of his child’s life. Sarek could not see where he had gone wrong. His son’s every choice had been Vulcan. Why would he abandon this choice now?

Spock’s childhood had, to Sarek, been difficult and dangerous sands to navigate. And yet, from his son’s Kahs-Wan to his bonding, to mastery of emotional control, of logic, of psi skills and basic educational requirements, to his final accomplishment of two advanced degrees at the Science Academy and an offer of research and teaching facilities, it had been a series of successes. No small tribute, Sarek believed, to his own patient guidance, his stringent application of discipline -- necessary for the raising of a half Vulcan child as Vulcan in the same home as his human mother -- and his own example. It would have been far too easy to relax his standards. But as the sole Vulcan in his Vulcan home, Sarek had borne the entire responsibility to raise his child within them, as well as to fight long and hard for his son’s acceptance in Vulcan society.

Finally, with the Academy appointment and his son’s passage into an honorable profession, Sarek had looked forward to the thought of welcome relief from his long-held care and struggle. If Spock had failed, that would have been one reason why the child might have abandoned his Vulcan life. But the boy had passed every test. Why, when the pinnacle had finally been reached, when victory was assured, when the long awaited mastery had been achieved would the child …abandon …all of it?

He sat up abruptly, his disquieting thoughts making it impossible for him to remain any longer in bed. Next to him Amanda sighed in her sleep and Sarek looked down at her, his expression dark, a mirror image of the tenderness with which he had regarded her only moments before. He was painfully reminded that she had supported Spock in this, and that she was another riddle he could not solve.

For Amanda was motivated by love. He did not, could not, would not love her.

He tried to understand her human emotions, and he believed he had a fair understanding of them, but they were not his. He knew she loved him. She said it, and he could feel it through their bond. But while he appreciated her emotions on an intellectual level, he found love… painfully wanting.

Before he’d married Amanda, he’d done research on this emotion considered to be so necessary to the union with a human female. That was only logical. And he had not liked what he’d found. Love as a motivation for marriage had been long empirically discovered, even by humans, to be lacking. It was fickle; it could not be trusted. But worst of all, it was not all encompassing.

As a Vulcan male, held for life, or for unimaginable death, in the grip of a potentially fatal mating drive, Sarek could not countenance anything less than a tie of marriage that was absolute.

But love was not. Neither was love, according to all his research, single-minded, or selfish. It implied a degree of self-sacrifice Sarek found incomprehensible. It had seemed, based on his reading, that if he really loved his wife, as he understood it, he would be able to hold her desires, her needs, above his. He would be able to have such reasonings stand above passion. That was…unVulcan. Reason had no place in passion, the two were antithetical. In a Vulcan marriage, a Vulcan male’s passion must rule. Any other expectation could lead to death for both parties.

The thing that had horrified him most of all in his research, was discovering that if he really loved his wife, far from challenging for her, far from defending his right to her to the death, he would be expected to…just… let her go. When he had first read this philosophy, he had been sure it must be a mistake. Humans were so prone to them. But the theme was repeated again and again. Love implied the antithesis of possession.

Obviously, that was unworkable for a Vulcan male. Unthinkable. If that was love, then it must be impossible for him to feel.

Logically, based on his findings, he should have not pursued her. But his desire for her was the one area of a Vulcan male’s life where passion should and must eclipse logic, and where reason had no place. He had instead sought to explain to her the biology of a Vulcan male and how it factored in his culture. He had had others, Vulcan healers more qualified than he to teach such subjects, explain it to her. He had told them to spare her nothing. She had been told of the blood fever, of the violent nature of a Vulcan male in his time…and out of it.

And of the permanence of the union. Dissolution was not an option. There would be no letting go here.

True, some few rare Vulcan marriages ended in divorce. Some were even dissolved without murder. But it was exceedingly rare, and mostly in parentally arranged marriages where the parties involved had never been through a Time and agreed beforehand that they were unsuited, incompatible. Sans desire and passion.

That was not the case, had never been the case, with him in this. He had made sure, before they took the virtually irrevocable step of bonding, that she had understood, as well as a human female could, the depth of the commitment they were to make.

Her wife was not Vulcan. But she was intelligent. She was well able to extrapolate possibilities.

As was he.

That being so, the wise course of action would have been not to marry. Amanda had understood, as had he himself, that based on the wide difference in their cultures this was one area in which Humans and Vulcans never could, perhaps never should, meet.

But he had desired her, and she had loved him and they had both put reason aside. That was proper, logical, to do, as regards marriage. She had said yes. It had been a profound relief to him that she had enough appreciation of Vulcan culture and biology to understand where even logic must dictate passion’s rule. He had not been sure, even then, he could have survived her refusal. And he had found it difficult to reason with his passion even enough to patiently see her instructed and informed before she made such a choice.

She had become his with her understanding that however much she might love him, this would be a Vulcan marriage. He was a Vulcan; she was his wife. He agreed to try, to try very hard, as far as he could, to understand and respect her human needs. But it was inherent in their agreement that she had no choice regarding his.

That was the one thing he could not, even remotely, countenance. Even only months from a recent pon far, his mind could not accept the possibility. As a Vulcan male in the prime of life, his … passions… ran high on this. He was Vulcan and she was his wife, his bondmate. She had no right, none, to even consider any desires other than his own.

Not even her son’s.

Not even her own.

She was his.

Sarek forced his racing heart to slow, his sudden short breaths to calm.

Well, he had kept his side of their unlikely bargain. He had promised to consider her needs, and when she had demanded her son’s freedom in payment for her own, he had granted it. But it was a high and dear price. No doubt, in Amanda’s human mind and emotions, she considered she had paid in kind. He understood she was invoking some human ideal of self sacrifice, in her remaining, and that he almost could not bear. It implied she was making a choice and in his mind, even the idea that she had such a choice invoked a kind of madness in him. A barely suppressed wish to challenge against this unnamed foe.

She had no choice.

He refused to acknowledge the sense of purely Vulcan pain and betrayal he felt that a bondmate he had honored so many years and through so many Times still harbored such thoughts.

But, he reminded himself, she was only human. Even as his Vulcan passion rose in fury at such a tacit betrayal, his reason held him barely in check. She was human, not Vulcan. She could not help a culture which had no biological or racial conception of an absolute biological need unto death. She could not comprehend or offer, unknowing, what she did not understand. No more than he could understand love. It was for him to make his demands plain in such a way that even a human female could understand them.

Well he had, years ago, agreed to meet her as well as he could, halfway. And he had let his son leave for Starfleet. And he would see she kept her side of the bargain as well. Which did not imply any half measures. He had lost all of his son, and he would keep all of his wife. Past all letting go.

Fortunately for them both, Amanda was intelligent and honorable enough that when he succeeded in making her understand his requirements, she had never failed to yield to them. Though he admitted to frustration, even occasional fury, that instruction was still sometimes required.

He rose jerkily, unable to stay still any longer, his thoughts too painful to contemplate. His movements jostled Amanda, and she turned over and sat up. Her eyes met his, and something of his thoughts must have showed on his face, must have communicated through the bond, even not touching. The color of her blood rose in her face, washed pink across her bare limbs, and she swallowed hard, her gaze breaking from his, her breath catching in her throat as she stilled under his gaze. His wife had spirit. But, as he reminded himself yet again, she was only human, and female. The enormity of what she had agreed to quailed even her at times. Sarek did not regret seeing that.

It proved she understood her position. Human and flawed as her humanity made her in this regard, she had yet made an agreement. And was honorable enough, after her own fashion, to understand that and keep it. He would see that she did. Even if her love had moments when, as he had long ago expected, even predicted, it might falter. Well, his passion and logic had no such failures, and he would see she did not fail him.

The heavy curtain of her unbound hair had fallen forward, hiding her face from his, but he knew her body as well as his own, and he could see her stillness in her bare unmoving ribs, hear the absence of her respiration as she held her breath. He drew the blond strands behind her round human ears, back from her face, tipped her chin up with strong fingers so her eyes met his. His gaze raked her again from head to feet, possessive, demanding. But then he stepped back.

“You have a class to teach, do you not? You had better get dressed.”

Amanda sat up slowly, drawing a deep breath, looking after her husband as he left the room, his broad shoulders uncompromisingly square. She put her hand to her cheek, thinking of his barely leashed strength as he’d taken her face in his hand.

She sighed settling that same chin in her own hands, thinking about what that meant.

So last night had not quenched his anger. Well she couldn’t suppose the perceived loss of an only son would fade so easily. But Sarek’s anger was going to make her position uncomfortable until it did, particularly as he was no longer shunning her. She sighed again as she thought of dealing with her husband’s formidable temper directly. There were times, like now, when caught unawares by it, she froze like a rabbit in a snare, abruptly reminded anew of why Vulcans strove so hard to control their emotions, and how dangerous they could be when that control slipped. Maybe it would have been easier to stay shunned.

Well, he usually worked through his anger quickly. His swift leave-taking implied some of that. He’d run through his Vulcan disciplines and get over it soon.

She hoped.

But he was right. She had classes to teach. Time to deal with Sarek’s misplaced sense of pride and anger later.

But later came and went, and the right time to reach Sarek didn’t seemed to come. Day after day they rose, worked, came home, shared a meal – though neither one of them were eating much – and neither one of them were saying much. She couldn’t seem to find a way or a time to broach the topic. Sarek kept a distance between them – and no one could put up a wall like a Vulcan -- that she struggled to figure out how to broach without arousing his temper. A temper still so barely leashed, and a veneer of self control so thin and hard won, that she didn’t dare force a confrontation. And more, that wall, that distance, implied he was not ready. She had expected he would need some time to reconcile himself. But as Spock’s absence stretched into days, when it became obvious that he was not going to return home, and Sarek faced the reality of his loss in full, his anger seemed to grow, not lessen. She grew confused about what to do.

When she pushed too hard, Sarek would demand her attendance and take her to bed. When she didn’t push too hard he would often do the same. Even there, he kept the same distance between them, in spite of his persistent attentions. He didn’t sleep until he was tired, which meant she didn’t sleep until she was exhausted. And he never softened his cold, demanding stance. She had never seen Sarek like this. Behind that wall of rigid control a terrible fury was barely leashed. She was coming to realize Sarek wasn’t just going to get over his anger, that all the emotions he had repressed and walled up in his confrontation with his son were now falling onto her.

She wasn’t used to being the object of his displeasure. Far rather the opposite, his regard for her had long been one of the cornerstones of her life, and it was unsettling to find it absent. Dealing with her husband in this state made her realize some of what Spock had endured through his childhood. But she wasn’t a child, but Sarek’s wife. And only human. While Sarek wasn’t…technically…hurting her, she was finding his attentions harder and harder to bear. Even Pon Far was more personal than this. She was starting to feel like a kidnap victim – or some kind of victim. She couldn’t say no, and he would not let her say, or even feel yes. He was deliberately punishing her, both of them. And she was beginning to wonder if it would last as long as Spock’s absence.

One day was marked by another message from Spock. It was exactly one Vulcan week since the last one, he was apparently taking her literally. She wondered if he would switch to human weeks once he got settled, but rather hoped he didn’t, Vulcan weeks were shorter and she’d hear from him more often. She hit the play button, grateful Sarek wasn’t home, and sat back.

“Greetings, mother.” He looked different already to her discerning eyes. He was wearing a Starfleet cadet uniform, and his hair was a little shorter than she remembered, but other than that he looked physically the same, though seemingly puzzled and searching for words. “I am … I supposed you would say settling in. Classes have commenced. The students are mostly Terran, but there are some humans from other colonies and a few non-humans. My course of study is meant to be Sciences, but as I have passed out of many of the science courses for prior mastery, I am being prevailed upon to also take Command. Apparently on starships, the sciences lead one to Command at the higher ranks. As I wish to serve on a starship, such a combination is considered a logical course of study for me. I have…” he hesitated. “Agreed to try it. I realize this decision may be considered even less acceptable to those in my family than what I had previously planned, since Command will also lead to decisions and actions contrary to Vulcan philosophy.” His eyes lifted briefly, to meet hers directly as if he could actually see her, as if this were not a previously taped message transmitted by subspace. “But,” he shrugged, “some of those concerns are perhaps not as relevant, given my acknowledged family is smaller now. As my only parent, I would be interested in your opinion.”

Amanda snorted. “If you could see how your father is storming around the house like a lematya with a sore paw since you left, you’d see the lie in that, regardless of what words your father has spoken.”

Spock paused and then went on, “I am in several peer groups. There is a certain amount of illogical aggression from the students in the upperclasses. It is not directly to me primarily as a Vulcan but appears a general wave of such against all new students. This has yet to be a problem for me, as most of this occurs after lights out, and as I have excellent hearing, sleep little, compared to humans, and that lightly, I am never caught unawares. And Vulcans are much stronger than humans, so what aggression I have encountered I have been able to answer without excessive force. However, I would be interested in knowing if you have an opinion on how to handle this situation. I am unsure of the correct cultural response.”

He paused again. “Other than that, I find my classes satisfactory. The material is rather basic, but the mix of students and teachers from many worlds makes it more interesting. I am learning to deal with Terra’s ambient temperatures – though it is very cold here. San Francisco is grey and damp. Even when it doesn’t rain, and mother,” she could hear the astonishment in his voice, poor child of a desert world, even as controlled as he could be, “it rains very frequently -- but even when it does not, the air is frequently laden with a mist of water, called fog. An interesting phenomenon. But chilly. However, when the sun shines, the bay is quite stunning. One tends to overlook, given Terra’s name, how much of your world is covered by ocean.” He was quiet for a moment. “I suppose I must begin to start considering it my world as well. Though that is still difficult. He then added, “I trust you are well, Mother, and the same with such family as I can properly ask after.” He looked up. “I am also well, and I bid you goodbye.”

Amanda froze the message, examining her son again with the keen eyes of a mother. No, she didn’t see any marks on him, and he looked well. Spock perhaps understood bullying and aggression better than most human children; he’d suffered from it on Vulcan, from Vulcans. There his hands had been largely tied lest any retaliatory behavior mark him as human. But those restrictions didn’t apply and wouldn’t work on Terra. She doubted her son had any real comprehension with how to deal with Terran bullies, or understanding of military style hazing. Not that she knew much of that herself, but she knew a darn sight more than her Vulcan son. She hit the reply button. After the preliminaries, she got down to business.

“One rule of dealing with bullies – don’t back down. They are not interested in the search for peace, they are interested in the search for you -- for someone to dominate. If you stand up to them, they’ll move on and find someone else. That doesn’t mean you have to go after them. But if they are going to come after you, and it sounds like that is happening, then you need to set up a scenario where this confrontation happens sooner rather than later … and on your terms. Figure out who the ring leader is. Then engineer the situation so that you get caught in a place where you can control the outcome. You know how to defend yourself,” she added, for Spock had been taught defensive tactics for his Kahs Wan, and anything that would work against a lematya would work against a human. “And make sure you get caught alone, that this confrontation is private. Bullies don’t like to be publicly humiliated. Just… put them on the ground. Once they see you can stand up for yourself, they’ll move on. It’s a form of …weeding out, Spock.”

“Another thing, if you treat them the next day as if nothing happened, you’ll probably end up with them being friends. I know it’s illogical Spock, but often true. Think of chakas – if you put a new one into the herd, the others will chase him. If he always runs, they’ll always chase him. And make his life miserable. If he stands his ground and kicks out, they’ll soon leave him alone. I’m afraid some Humans haven’t matured above animals in this regard. Believe me, it won’t be a constant thing. You won’t have to go after others in turn, pursue anyone aggressively yourself, as they are doing. Just engineer a defense where you come out well ahead, and they’ll stop. Humans are emotional at times, but they are not stupid. I have a feeling anyone who can stand up to T’Pau and Sarek won’t have any trouble, if you can bring yourself to get a little physical.” She hesitated, thinking of Vulcan strength. Even Sarek forgot his own strength, and being only a growing kid, her son had much less control. “Remember, a little physical, my son. No broken bones.” But then she added maliciously, “but if you care to, you can give them an extra bruise from me.”

She raised her head, hearing Sarek come into the front hall, and paused the message. Best to finish it later. Her husband’s temper wouldn’t countenance hearing her dictating a message to Spock at this time.

Later that evening, Sarek would have concurred with his wife’s estimation, had he known it. He was standing at his favorite sentry port, looking at the section of sky where the dim star Sol was, if it could be seen from Eridani. But he was not at present thinking of his son. He was thinking of his wife.

His behavior to her was bordering on the inexcusable. And bordering only in the sense that 5000 Vulcan years ago, it might be considered partially acceptable. But this was not Pre-Reform Vulcan, and further, his wife was human. Behavior a Vulcan woman would excuse or ignore would not receive the same license from Amanda. Already he could see it in her eyes, sense it in her manner. He was damaging their relationship – and to a closely bonded Vulcan male in the prime of life, who could expect regular frequent returns of Pon Far, that was the height of madness.

This was not her fault.

If it was anyone’s, it was his own. He had held sole responsibility for his son’s training for the past ten years. And he had, so he thought, been a close and painstaking guardian of his child. Every school, every instructor, every course of study, had been personally selected by him – and he had demanded regular private reports on his son’s progress, and made it clear to both instructor and student that this was no ordinary tuition. That he was setting the highest standards of Vulcan excellence, and would not tolerate anything less. Every activity, every interest – or so he had thought – required pre-approval by him, and if not approved, such was stringently forbidden. He had chosen suitable companions and disallowed unsuitable ones. He had limited his son’s access – so far as he was able to in an information free society – to such materials and subjects as he felt were appropriate to the boy’s development. He had set up the child for success, on a straight and narrow Vulcan path, as no child surely could ever claim before – even to limiting the boy’s relationship with his mother. Spock may have held half his mother’s genes, but to Sarek, Spock had been his creation. Pure Vulcan in spite of his genetic heritage. His son. And the boy had …nearly…done it. Even now Sarek was receiving interested queries regarding Spock’s last research dissertation that led to his mren-to in astrophysics. In a few weeks, his son would have been a researcher and instructor at the Vulcan Science Academy, a proven and sealed clan heir, his future life bonded to a Vulcan female. Done. Sarek had been looking forward, pleasurably, to the surcease from care that would have brought, and, eventually, the prospect of making his child’s acquaintance as he had not been able to while he held him under such strict standards.

Even when Spock had left, Sarek had not truly believed it. The knowledge that his son had gone off planet was not yet circulated, nor had Sarek circulated it, not until he could be sure the child would not swiftly return. He had honestly expected the boy to rethink his decision. When he left anyway, Sarek had expected him back on a return ship.

He had even done something ignoble to help ensure that. As clan heir, Spock’s training had been painstaking and arduous, and as such compensation in property was part of his hereditary right. It had been granted him upon first being sealed as heir, and regularly since. Thus the boy had extensive funds at his disposal, though he had never used any without Sarek’s permission. But the funds were his, not his father’s. And, when Sarek had known his son was leaving, he had blocked the boy’s access to that property with one communication. His action was highly irregular, and would not stand up to a legal challenge, but Sarek had not expected Spock would be gone long enough that it would become an issue. And yet it had been two weeks, and still Spock had not come home. Nor had he touched or tried to use the funds Sarek had denied him.

He had discovered Spock had traveled to Starfleet on a standard deadhead policy that allowed Starfleet recruits basic transportation to the Academy and other required destinations. And once he had enrolled, joined, Starfleet, Starfleet standard issue would cover his essential needs. He essentially had no urgent need and no immediate or pressing use for the funds Sarek had blocked. It had been a petty and useless gesture. But Sarek did not regret it. He’d had few weapons at his disposal to influence Spock, and he had used what was available. And it had to be daunting to the boy, who had not been off planet in years and never without the strict guardianship of his parents, to be alone in an alien society and completely without resources. How could he not use such an advantage to dissuade his errant child?

But it had not worked. And his son, whom he had had painstakingly raised and trained and nurtured and guarded was out there, with nothing but a few clothes to his name, and Starfleet—Starfleet! had assumed his guardianship, would feed and clothe him, educate his child and train him in unimaginable philosophies, choose for him companions such as Sarek would never had allowed, and instructors Sarek would not have seen set foot inside any educational institution. After eighteen years of setting the most rigid Vulcan standards for his son, now humans would set him requirements. Humans, Starfleet Officers, would dictate his actions, define his goals, evaluate his abilities.

For Sarek, this was unimaginable.

He knew his son had gone to Starfleet willingly, but it was difficult not to feel that Starfleet had stolen his child. His child. The habits and thoughts of eighteen years were not easy to eradicate. He’d had sole control of his son for too long to be able to easily comprehend that any other had a right to his association, much less his training.

He wanted Spock home.

Even now he did not understand how Spock had made it as far as he had in such an alien society. And alien it had to be, in spite of Amanda. Sarek had worked hard to keep his wife’s influence on their child necessarily small. Other than family conversation, and even that Sarek had done his best to monitor, the only influence his wife had had in the last ten years had been to teach the boy piano. And that had been, Sarek admitted, mostly because he enjoyed hearing her play and her Academy teaching duties had made those instances when she had chosen to do so vanishingly small. But Spock was musically gifted, and he knew the lyre well, and Sarek had seen no logical reason why he should not learn another instrument, even if a Terran one. And surely that small indulgence on Sarek’s part had played no part in Spock’s decision to embrace Starfleet.

He had kept the boy from his mother, had denied the mother much access to his child. Partly due to the necessary concentration on his son’s Vulcan training. But also, out of concern for his future. Spock had to be bonded to a Vulcan female, even as Sarek had rejected that choice for himself. There was no sense torturing the boy with what he could never have. Amanda loved him so much, as mother to child, that Sarek wondered how Spock would ever find contentment in a marriage that would offer him none of that. It could not be helped.

But even as he denied Spock access to virtually everything regarding Terrans, fearing the effect of such contamination in Spock’s Vulcan training, his rigid control of so much of his son’s life meant that his son was less mature, in some respects, less experienced with choices, and diversity, than a Vulcan child of his age. The boy had no experience with such on Vulcan, and his off planet experience was as nothing. He had had no exposure to guile, to enmity, to violence. He knew only his mother, nothing of the true range of Terran character. He might well be as trusting of all Terrans as he was of her. Sarek had never thought to teach him anything else. And now his innocent child was off on his own, as ignorant and defenseless as Sarek had made him, in a Terran dominated Federation, on Terra itself, with all its license, self interest and evil, far outweighing any individual good. Anything could happen.

Before his first Federation assignment, Sarek had been fully mature, well trained to evaluate and understand Terra’s dubious varieties of cultures and values, at least in so far as a Vulcan could. He’d gone with advisors, counselors, an entire embassy staff, which had done its best to create a small Vulcan haven on Earth. And even with a full Embassy team, Sarek had found the experience …extremely difficult. In fact, he had disliked it. He did not regret the time he had spent there; it had availed him of his wife. He had never chosen to return as Ambassador to Terra, even though it would take Amanda back to Earth, seen lesser, others assigned in that place. He had taken the more difficult, more dangerous assignments as Federation ambassador when duty required. But he had never returned to Terra to the relative ease of a regular undemanding stint there. Amanda had never asked him to return either. Perhaps she knew.

And Spock was out there, alone. Subject to the demands, disciplines and training of humans Starfleet officers who now had him in thrall and who knew nothing of Vulcans.

If someone had asked him to imagine the worst scenario he could, he would never have been able to conceive a horror such as Spock had chosen for himself.

And even as he shuddered for what Spock would endure, he still judged him.

How could he not now consider his son … incompetent… to have made such a flawed choice. It was a bitter thought, but it had to be acknowledged. As well as hopelessly immature and naïve. It was a fact that skill in sciences did not necessarily imply wisdom in other areas. His son might have achieved advanced degrees in computer science and astrophysics, but he was obviously backwards as regard life choices. Some of this, Sarek admitted, was due to his own educational restrictions. He had never allowed Spock to make them. But even when Sarek subtracted the blame that was his own, the remainder that was his son’s responsibility was beyond all reason.

Part of him simply wanted to welcome his child home, set some reasonable discipline (though Sarek could not imagine what that could be and was still struggling to conceive of one) and say no more of it. But there was still the undeniable fact that Spock had made this nightmarish decision based on what could only be considered seriously flawed logic. When he got the boy back, what could he do but rigorously remap his training, reassess his true abilities. Re-educate him in true logical thinking. Teach him never to stray so again.

But that was when, and it had to be said, if, the boy returned. Sarek admitted to himself his stringent attempts to prevent Spock from leaving were an equal deterrent in bringing the child home again.

And Spock had already been gone far longer than Sarek had anticipated.

What if the boy did not return? It was inconceivable, but …what if? His carefully trained heir would be redefined by the Starfleet Sarek abhorred.

Never. No child he had so raised and trained would stay in Starfleet. Sarek believed that firmly. And while he had initially opposed Amanda’s lenient attitude toward Spock’s choice, now he could see she had a purpose to her actions. When Spock encountered the true nature of Starfleet, and recoiled from it as he must, Amanda would provide the encouragement and mediation for him to return to his family and his people.

Amanda closed the door of their private suite behind her, and deliberately relaxed. Sarek was off meditating in his usual spot, and she hoped he’d finally find some sort of peace with Spock’s choice. In the meantime, she would finish her message to Spock, and with luck, she’d have time to review tomorrow’s teaching before Sarek returned.

She crossed to the sitting room she used as a study. The suite was large, a residence in itself, meant to be so in the days when many had lived in this ancient fortress. Beside the outer reception rooms and their bedroom, there was her sitting room and a private den for Sarek, though he never worked in it, keeping a more public office on the ground floor, where he received others. She kept her office up here, because the Vulcan staff who maintained the building and grounds never entered their private suite. And she didn’t want Vulcan eyes raised askance at her things. She wasn’t messy by human standards, and Sarek never complained, though he sometimes picked up after her reflexively. More than once she had told him to leave her things alone, startling both of them, for she rarely raised her voice to him, and he did it largely unconsciously. Vulcans were nothing but neat, neat, neat in their habits. But he had seemed amused by her little flares of temper, as if she were nothing more than a kitten baring its claws before a lematya, and considering the huge difference between human emotions and what she had come to recognize of Vulcan passions, the analogy probably was a good one. At least he had never seemed displeased or taken aback by her temper. He only expected and demanded her obedience in one area, one dictated by Vulcan biology, and reinforced by Vulcan tradition. And that she had been well warned of before their marriage. The rest of the time, he was so indulgent with her she had to discipline herself not to end up absolutely spoiled.

At times like these, when he was in a temper, she reminded herself of that. He’d defied his mother, the matriarch of his clan to marry her, had allowed her to bring anything she’d wanted to Vulcan with her, including priceless starship cargo space for her huge library of books, had, on his own, expedited the import, long requested by the Terran delegations on Vulcan but now of personal interest to Sarek , of dozens of varieties of fruits, vegetables and grains that would be familiar to her – and had set up a Terran garden and greenhouse on the grounds of their home, terraforming the desert to do it and covering it to ensure a climate where such would thrive. She had dozens of her own fruit trees now, oranges and lemons, limes and bananas, plums and peaches and even apples though it had been hard to find a variety that would grow well without a good cold snap. Sarek found many Terran fruits too sweet, actually after years on Vulcan, she found many of them too sweet too. But he was actually rather fond of apples. Vulcan gardeners now grew snow and sugar snap peas and lettuce for their table, and a host of other vegetables, and what she and Sarek didn’t eat, and they didn’t eat a fraction of it, was sold to Terran markets on Vulcan for what was probably a huge profit. And he’d added flowers too. She had breathtaking gardens, which she hardly had leisure to enjoy, including an acre of roses. Roses actually grew rather well here. Her own enchanted bower. On Vulcan.

After rumors of the gardens had spread, and he grew weary of refusing the constant requests for special visits, Sarek had finally relented on part of his carefully guarded privacy and allowed the staff to take well shepherded tour groups through it, one hour, twice a week, when he was sure not to be home. She always wondered, with a trace of amusement, if the guides realized they were showing off not just flowers and fruit, but an expression of devotion to their wide-eyed visitors, many of them Terran tourists: Here are Amanda’s gardens. See a living expression of Vulcan devotion. Pick a rose. Have a raspberry, a new hybrid we’re having particular luck with. And while you’re nibbling on that, girls, eat your heart out.

And don’t you wish you could be a fly on the wall of their bedroom.

She always avoided the gardens where the tourists were there. It was too embarrassing.

He’d done more than that, too. He’d fought to have her academic degrees and teaching credentials recognized on Vulcan. There had already been an active petition from Terrans to trade research and teachers from the Vulcan Science Academy with Federation universities, but it had been stalled from lack of interest on the Vulcan side. Sarek had pushed through such academic exchanges, and quickly, so that by the time his assignment on Terra was over, not only was she able to teach at the VSA, she was neither the first nor the only human there. He’d made sure she had a place on Vulcan for that part of her life. And that too, he’d done without her prompting.

She had never to ask for anything, indeed, she had to be careful to admire little, to regard everything with Vulcan restraint, because anything she didn’t appear indifferent to was liable to end up in her possession. She sometimes thought Sarek would have brought down the Terran moon to Vulcan, if he’d thought it would please her. And he claimed he didn’t love her. Well, perhaps it was just as well. If this was how he treated an unloved wife, heaven help her the day he decided that he did.

Well, given his current state of displeasure with her, there wasn’t much chance of that now, she thought.

She sat down at her desk, reminding herself she had to continue her message to Spock. No wonder she had trusted Sarek so absolutely in the raising of their son, when he had been such an indulgent husband to her. He gave her anything she might possibly want, all he asked of her was to meet his needs, needs that were an intrinsic fact of his biology. Why wouldn’t she have trusted him with Spock? How had it happened that Spock and his father had ended up so estranged?

She sighed and replayed Spock’s message and the reply she’d recorded up till now. She sat back in her chair, drawing her knees up to her chin, sad and wishing things were otherwise. Her husband was furious at her son, furious at her, and her son was off on Earth, being harassed by stupid thugs, when he could be home on Vulcan, a researcher and teacher himself, an honored and sealed clan heir. “What I really want, honey, is you home right now,” she told the frozen image of her beloved son. But she’d left the recording button off and he’d never hear that.

It isn’t what you want, it’s what he wants that matters. Would you keep him tied to your apron strings forever?

I don’t even own an apron, she told herself crossly.

Oh give it up, Amanda. Tell him you love him and miss him, and that his father does too, though he will never admit it. And then say goodbye. And whatever you do, you silly fool, don’t lose it. He has enough to deal with.

She recorded the message, put it in the queue to be sent by subspace squirt, and began to review her lectures for the next day. She had gotten through most of them when she heard the click of the door to their outer suite. After a moment, Sarek appeared at her door.

She sat back from her work smiling a tentative welcome and Sarek crossed to her. “You are working very late, my wife.”

“I’m pretty much done.”

“Indeed.”

“Did you meditations go well?”

“Perhaps.”

Amanda hoped that were true, and Sarek was being reconciled. At that moment, the subspace queue activated and her message to Spock began to encode, feeding through the system, with a muted squeal.

And Sarek suddenly tipped his head. His eyes widened and his gaze locked on hers.

She blanched under the dawning realization that he could hear and decode subspace squirts.

“You are aware of my opposition to Starfleet and instead of facilitating his return you are counseling him on how to succeed within it? To use violence to do so? In opposition to all my teachings and that of the Vulcan heritage he has chosen?”

“Don’t take something you might have thought you heard out of context--”

“I heard everything, my wife.”

“Eavesdropping on private messages is hardly ethical behavior, my husband.”

Sarek drew himself up, well and truly caught by that. His own culture revered privacy and he had, even if inadvertently, just broached that precept inexcusably. For a moment he stared at her, betrayal in his black eyes.

She lowered her head before that accusatory gaze. “Sarek, I’m just trying--”

“No.” He gestured sharply. “I do not want to hear of it, Amanda.”

“You can listen to my message and judge me, but you won’t let me talk to you about it?”

“You have already dispensed your flawed advise without seeking my counsel before doing so. There is thus no point discussing it now.”

She drew a breath at the injustice of this. “Don’t blame me for that. What other choice do you leave me? You’re the one who told me I couldn’t speak to you of Spock!”

“And I don’t want to speak of him now.”

“It isn’t too late for you to counsel him yourself. Please, Sarek..” She held out her hands to him, but he drew back a pace, obdurate, intractable. She drew her own arms back, hugging herself in frustration. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you stop this ridiculous silence of yours and just talk to him.” She stared at him, furious. “How can you refuse to do that? You’re the adult in this equation. He’s the child. He misses you. He loves you, though he’ll never say it, because you won’t let him. But I know he does, that he’d do anything to please you, if you would just try to meet him half way. How can you let him go, abandon him like this?”

“That is enough.”

“No, it’s not. I refuse to let it be enough. How can it be possible that someone revered for his negotiating skills throughout the Federation has such a reputation for intractability at home?”

“Kroykah!”

She froze at the sound of his raised voice, shocked as he took a furious step toward her before halting by main force of will. For a moment, there was no sound in the small room but their ragged breathing. Then, to her disbelief, Sarek extended a hand to her.

Oh, no! Please don’t, please don’t, please…

“My wife, attend.”

There was no response possible to this but acquiescence.

Her silent litany froze in her mind and faded as Sarek crossed to her, offering her the two fingered touch of bondmates. She joined her fingers to his, numb and disbelieving, and followed him.

Why is he ending every argument like this? Why are we even arguing like this?

It took her real effort to take her hair down. She ran her fingers through the unbound strands, putting off disrobing a few seconds more. Across the room, Sarek was shedding his clothes, then pulled the covering off the bed, and tossed it on the floor with a complete disregard for the priceless antique that it was. She couldn’t seem to move, and was amazed after all these times and all these Times, that she was finding this so difficult. You have no choice, you have no choice, ran through her mind, like a litany. She had learned her Pon Far lessons, or thought she had. What was wrong with her?

The difference was, she thought, that she wasn’t unwilling then. Even though at those times Sarek was in the grip of the Fever, even when he sometimes forgot his own strength, and took her past her own, she wasn’t, at heart, unwilling.

At heart.

“Amanda.”

Sarek came up behind her. She met his eyes in the mirror. She realized she still hadn’t undone her dress. She told herself, told her fingers to do it, but they still didn’t move.

Frowning, Sarek reached over and taking a handful of material in each hand, simply shredded it in half.

She closed her eyes as the protesting shriek of the material seemed to echo her own internal one. This wasn’t Sarek’s way. He understood foreplay; he understood and shared in, the pleasurable tension of undoing garments slowly.

Why is he doing this to me? To us?

She stood silently as he tossed the remnants of the garment to the floor. Another litany was beginning in her head, a litany dimly remembered from the worst of pon fars, a tiny thread in her mind

Just bear it, bear it, bear

She tensed but didn’t resist when he picked her up, carried her to the bed, laid her on the sheets she had changed that morning.

I’ve made my bed and I must lie in it, she remembered herself telling T’Pau, and heard the old woman’s echoed, yes.

Humans are infinitely adaptable, she reminded herself as Sarek covered her, the most adaptable species in the universe. We can get used to anything. But she drew breath in dismay as Sarek took her wrists in his hand. And resistance. She wanted that much at least. She didn’t care about the rest of it, if he just would leave her at least the illusion of choice. But she swallowed the protest as his grip tightened.

That was the worst of all of it, somehow. Even worse than his callous use of her body. He did not caress her, he would not let her touch him. It somehow made it so much worse.

For the first time in her husband’s arms, the first time in eighteen years, he could not evoke a response from her.

It took him a while to realize that.

When they’d first married, he’d taken painstaking inventory of her body as they made love, her responses, her likes and dislikes. What made her sigh, what made her shiver, what made her clutch him closer. He studied them, and her, and then he studied her again. And again. And then he started combining them and reinventing them in ways that made her almost shy about appearing in public with him, sure the responses he could invoke in her must somehow show. In the months after their marriage she’d been amazed and a little confused by her supposedly logical husband’s intense interest, fascination, near compulsion to explore her sexually. Thinking he was laboring under the typical misunderstanding that humans were the sexual rabbits of the known species in the universe, she tried to reassure him on that regard. He’d merely looked at her, an impatient frown between his brows, unimpressed and uncomprehending.

“I would not hurt you, my wife.”

“You’re not.”

Sarek simply shrugged, and renewed his research efforts. It had taken a few Pon Fars before she really understood what he was after. He’d needed to know all the methods and ways to evoke a response in her regardless of her physical or emotional condition. That covered a lot of ground. And Sarek was nothing if not thorough. He’d learned, and she’d learned, to return that response regardless of whether she was hungry or thirsty, tired or aching, frightened or in pain, furious or resistant. It was the only way to guarantee she’d survive those Times. And he’d learned how to do it too. At times she felt he owned her body more than she did, commanding that response in spite of, or even against her will. He could play her like a lyre. Sarek, of course, regarded this as logically necessary, and grew as casual about this ability, even smug if that could be said of a Vulcan, as if the skill were little different.

She, on the other hand, preferred not to think about it. Odd that she accepted with relative equanimity so many other of the strangenesses of her Vulcan marriage: a mental bonding, a fatal mating compulsion, a marriage worked out in strange juxtaposition to the twin gods of logic and passion. But it was Sarek’s casual control of her responses past her own will, that if she had to think about it, gave her the most pause, more even than an alien mental bond or a culture that considered her an equal in some respects and little more than property in others.

She loved her husband, and she was in love with him. She welcomed showing that to him, but she had never much cared for having that response taken from her, however easily he could command it. But that was something best left unspoken, unthought and unfelt. Sarek wouldn’t be able to handle it. And because it was logically necessary that he could do it, she suppressed her emotions about his casual assumption of those skills.

But now those skills were failing him. Failing them both. He tried every thing in his repertoire of tricks. He unbent his indomitable disapproval to use all the touches, all the caresses, one handed, that he could. But he kept her wrists always firmly pinned in one hand and he would not let her touch him.

That had never been a problem before. Vulcans in pon far were interested in sex, not lovemaking, and Sarek typically pinned her then, and she’d never had trouble responding. But now she could not. He looked at her, betrayal plain in his furious eyes, and then, for the first time, he …left her behind.

Amazing how cold one could feel, even on Vulcan, even with her husband’s fever hot skin against her own. Cold and empty.

She was thinking about that the next day in her office at the Academy, worrying about it, trying to puzzle her responses through, his responses through, even though thinking about sex gave her a headache. And she probably spent more time thinking about it than most of her married human friends, blissfully married to human men, who didn’t bring 5000 years of Vulcan hang-ups to bed with them as her husband did. Too bad Sarek couldn’t just leave all that behind, instead of her.

She understood that Sarek was angry with his son. She didn’t understand why his anger was causing this particular response. It didn’t make sense to her, but as it kept happening, it had to be based in some sort of reason. Though Sarek was so angry, beyond all reason, perhaps none of this made any sense. At times like these, she felt lost, at sea, in an incomprehensible culture. And with Sarek at the heart of her confusion, she had no one to ask.

She adored her husband when he wasn’t in a temper; he sometimes reminded her of the best of Jane Austen’s heroes combined. Behind all that strict Vulcan propriety he kept for the world, was a passion he kept only for her. No matter what he said, she knew he loved her. And as for her. Well. He was handsome, charming when he wanted to be, devoted to her, ardent past all human standards. She still could shiver at the sound of his voice, tremble at his touch. All that and he loved and desired her with a passion undimmed even by twenty years of marriage. And rarely let a day or a night go by without showing it. And, he made her laugh too. No one could be so mischievous in the rare times he unbent, though perhaps he just seemed more so in contrast to his usual staid control. They could and did have great fun when he let his precious Vulcan traditions go for an hour. She missed that in him now.

She didn’t even mind Pon Far – how could she? Her husband was ill, desperate and she was just as desperate to do whatever she could for him. She was his only help then. It was a responsibility she took very seriously.

Even when he was in a temper, even now, god help her, he had a Heathcliff-like quality that she still found irresistible. For in spite of all this prating about Vulcan controls, no one could fly into a temper, scowl – even sulk -- like Sarek.. And his possessive desire for her, even though it was a natural effect of a Vulcan bonding, was right out of a Bronte novel. She loved him for that too, fool that she was.

You, Amanda Grayson, have a permanent case of arrested development. Falling in love with eighteenth and nineteenth century romance characters is not sensible behavior for a 23^rd century woman. Remember, Cathy didn’t fare too well at Heathcliff’s hands, and he was human.</