Home is Where the Heart is

By

Pat Foley

“Come on, Spock.” Kirk made a gesture toward freedom. “Let’s go mind the store.”

“Of course, Captain,” Spock said, and followed Kirk out of the sickbay.

The doors closed behind them but Kirk paused, halfway to the turbolift. “Wait a minute. Did I drag you out of there too fast? Should McCoy check you over?”

“No. You did not injure me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Kirk said, giving his First Officer a meaningful look. “I know you said you’re--”

Spock drew himself up. “I am quite well, Captain. The combat did break the fever. But if I could have a moment before resuming my duties? To send a message.”

Kirk gave him a sharp look. “I thought that was all over? With the girl?”

“Not to a girl,” Spock said and then frowned. “Not precisely.” And drew himself up as a green flush suffused his cheeks.. “I mean-- there is someone I should notify, but she is not--”

“Go on, Spock,” Kirk grinned. “Whoever she is. Like I said before, you’ve been patient with my indiscretions.”

“This is not an indiscretion--” Spock protested, but Kirk just patted him on the arm.

“Never mind. You don’t have to say anything. Just join me when you’re ready.” Kirk started down the corridor and then turned. “It’ll have to be a subspace squirt. We went into high warp as soon as we broke Vulcan’s orbit. We’re still going to try to make at least part of those Altair ceremonies.”

“Yes, of course, Captain.” Spock said. “That should suffice.”

And Kirk’s brows rose speculatively as his First Officer and friend disappeared into his quarters. But he didn’t ask who the woman was.

And he would have been surprised to discover his First Officer was not messaging Vulcan, now receding in the distance, but Earth.

xxx

It was spring in Geneva, and Amanda realized her old friend Reny had been right. She’d forgotten the beauty of her birth world.

Forgotten until she stepped out of the shuttlecraft and found it bursting around her, innocent and unaware. Just another spring morning on Terra, but to her, something she’d forgotten. Whether it had slipped her memory, or she’d taught herself that forgetting, now Earth imperiously reminded her of its myriad beauties, all of which she’d laboriously taught herself, if not to forget, than to cease to miss. Billowing white clouds in a breezy blue sky. A thousand shades of leaf green gilded by the sun piercing the treetop canopies. Oceans roiling in blues and greens and grays, foam capped in white. And if that were not enough, the pure pastel profusion of flowers everywhere. The cool shades of Terra shocked her retinas, used to the fiery oranges, rubies and amethysts of her adopted home. And they seemed all the more exotic for doing so.

Even as she reveled in the beauty of a Terran spring, still some part of her wondered at its strangeness. She had not realized how completely Vulcan had laid claim to her. Her eyes had adapted to its deep jewel tones, her ears to the sounds of its nightbirds, the lematya’s scream at dawn, the swish of sand kicked up by a high wind off the mountains. The elusive scents of garden, mountain and forge all combining in the thin desert air were more familiar to her nostrils than the heavy waterladen cloying scents of earth. She was surprised to find herself, even as she reveled in Terra’s beauties, feeling more than a little strange on her birthworld. And even homesick for her adopted world. As if the more she enjoyed the beauties of Terra, the more she realized how divorced she had become from them.

Terra had now become strange and it was Vulcan that was home, familiar, known. She found herself viewing her birth world as if it were alien to her. A disconcerting thought, if not entirely unexpected. Intellectually, she had known this might, perhaps even should happen. She was even glad it had happened, because otherwise she would perhaps never have felt at home on her adopted world. Far better she feel a little strange for a couple of months on Terra, than displaced, a fish out of water, for all her years on Vulcan. But knowing intellectually that Vulcan and not Earth, was home now to her was not the same punch in the solar plexus as feeling it. And that’s what she was feeling now, even as she reveled in the beauty of her birth world, that sense, that awareness, that it was familiar and yet strange. And that it wasn’t home. She wasn’t home. It was a strange little minor chord litany, even as her eyes drank in Terra’s blue green coolness. That whispered of Vulcan. Home.

Of course on long diplomatic missions she sometimes became homesick. But it was a strange experience to feel that trace of bittersweet longing for Vulcan while she was on Terra. And it came to her, even as she did, that she had lost track of, forgotten, failed to record, when on Vulcan she had stopped feeling homesick for Terra. It hadn’t left her all at once, there today, gone tomorrow. But somehow that longing had evaporated away, like dew in the sun and she hadn’t even noticed it. It left her feeling strangely guilty. She hardly knew what to think about that.

At always, it was little things that tripped her up. How cold Terra seemed. She had to be careful to take a sweater where ever she went, and some of the ruthlessly air-conditioned rooms were so cold she wondered how Sarek could bear to tolerate them, even briefly. They kept near Vulcan conditions in their quarters. And not just cold but damp. Terra seemed always clammy, often chilly, even in their private quarters. The environmental controls could be set for temperature but less so for humidity. She added a dehumidifier to their rooms, and added extra quilts and thick plush sheets to their bed. And was grateful even then for Sarek’s toasty warmth.

“You’re better than a micro-heater,” she told him, pressing close in bed after a post prandial walk in a fresh spring breeze left her feeling as if she’d faced an arctic blast. “I wish I could do the same for you.”

Sarek just raised a brow and pulled her under him, answering that with Vulcan effectiveness – and efficiently, without even the need for words.

Another thing that surprised her -- how loud Terra was. Wholly apart from Vulcan’s less flamboyant style and pace, in a society where everyone had keen hearing, society was altogether much quieter on Vulcan. There were times on Terra where she wanted to put her hands over her ears.

And times when she wished she had pointed ears. Or the acuity that went with them. At first she thought people were slurring their words more. Then she thought it was some new dialect or accent. But though even English was a language that constantly changed, she realized it hadn’t changed that much. But while English sounded a little …slurred, she managed to get by in it as long as she concentrated. But Vulcan was a precise enough language that any deviation in pronunciation or tone could alter meaning. The first time after they’d arrived on Earth that Sarek spoke to her in his own language, she had to ask him to repeat himself. Looking at her as if she’d grown a new head, Sarek did. She answered him dubiously, her voice sounding strange even to her, and knew something was wrong. Raising his brows, Sarek corrected her pronunciation as he had not done since they were first married.

After they went through that a few times, with Sarek more puzzled and she more frustrated, she actually went to see a healer to have her hearing tested, convinced there was something organic wrong. But she tested normal, and the healers explained it wasn’t at all unusual, for those acclimated to the thinner air of Vulcan to need to adapt to Terran conditions. Even some Vulcans, though Sarek had never had trouble. The healers were at somewhat of a loss, given that she couldn’t do any of the usual Vulcan physiological tricks to adapt her hearing. But then a human physician who’d served on a desert world came and told her it would take her a few days to adjust to the different way sound refracted in the thicker atmosphere, and recommended time and – telling her she was lucky her inner ears hadn’t been affected, or she’d be walking like a drunken sailor – and also rest, until she adapted.

She went back to the Vulcan embassy, considerably embarrassed. And spent what was left of the afternoon on the couch, watching the holovid and trying in that relative privacy to force her ears to hear things correctly.

Sarek came in and asked her, unthinkingly in Vulcanur, what the healers had said.

“That it’s a temporary condition,” she said, forgetting and using the same language, more than half distracted by a strange music video and wondering if people really danced that way now. And why they’d want to. “Just adapting to the difference in air pressure and sound waves. He says that in a few days I’ll be fine.”

Sarek raised a brow, and to her annoyance repeated what she’d said, carefully correcting her pronunciation. And then added, doubtfully. “Are they quite sure? You have never had this problem before.”

“Actually no,” she said. “They told me I’ve picked up a strange feedback echo in my auditory system that’s driving me crazy. And if it doesn’t stop, it will have to be surgically removed. Or I might become violent.” She threw a pillow at him. “And take that echo right out of my life.”

“Indeed.”

“I’ll adapt in a few days. So please stop saying what I say right after I say it.”

“There are ways of communicating without words,” Sarek said, non-plussed, coming over to join her on the couch. He craned his head to the holovid. “What on Earth are they doing?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” she admitted, moving over to make room for him. “It’s a very odd dance, isn’t it?”

“I can think of a better one.”

“Oh?”

“More…traditional.”

“Vulcans are known for respecting traditions. But sometimes something new--”

Shaking his head, Sarek waved off the vid and putting a finger to her lips, proceeding to show her the tradition he had in mind.

“That’s what I call communicating,” she sighed afterwards, unthinkingly speaking in Vulcan again.

Sarek winced and shook his head, tracing her errant lips with a reproving finger. And shortly after replaced fingers with lips and she decided speech was decidedly underrated.

After their… traditional dance, they actually used sign language for a few days. They used it often anyway, at conferences and debates, when she wanted to communicate something to him at the table when she was in the crowd. And she’d rather do that than see that puzzled brow on her husband, and watch him restrain himself from correcting her pronunciation yet again.

Fortunately the doctor was right. After a few days of forcing herself to listen carefully, the sense she was immersed in a strange, slightly garbled dialect disappeared and she could hear again. And even what she said sounded right to her ears. And now that she could hear herself, she could talk intelligently in Vulcan again. At least according to Sarek. But she wondered if she’d have to go through the same thing in reverse at home.

“Just don’t do the echo thing again,” she told him. “It was really most annoying.”

They were only little things. But they reminded her how long she had been away. Little signs but somewhat unsettling, given they proved how Terra had become alien to her. Or she to it.

Since she’d be leaving Terra again at the end of this general session of the Federation Council, she pushed aside her feeling of strangeness and her homesickness for Vulcan, and concentrated on enjoying what she could of Terra, apart from its unsettling facets, trying to see it all, trying to capture it to take back with her. A souvenir, a keepsake for her memory. Who knew if or when she might see it again?

It made her less than patient with her usual role of attending Sarek at the interminable Federation conferences that were the ostensible reason for their presence on Terra. Her behind the scenes, unacknowledged advisor and aide-assistant role. And to which, after a few days, her impatience with interminable diplomatic negotiations came to a head, and she rebelled against it all for the first time in her marriage.

“You’re on your own this session, my husband,” she’d told him one morning at breakfast. “This girl is playing hooky.”

A professional diplomat, possessed of a more than usual share of self confidence, and a Vulcan, Sarek was only slightly taken aback by her surprising declaration. “I do not understand. You are not teaching. You have no classes scheduled.” He knew she’d been asked to do some guest lectures and had, in fact and inexplicably to him, declined almost all of them.

“I’m not playing hooky from school, but from work. And not even my work, but your work. I am hereby declining my role as your unofficial, unpaid advisor and designating this my vacation. I’m not setting foot in a council chamber. Or evaluating any more reports. And I’m not giving a single interview.”

At that latter statement, Sarek’s eyes did widen and he set down his fork. Although her role to liaison with the press was largely unofficial and often off the record, no one could do it as well as her. And on Terra, that role was doubly important. He held out a hope that she was teasing him. He still had trouble recognizing that. “Amanda, that is…” He scrutinized her narrowly. “You are not serious.”

“Try me. I quit.”

Slight exasperation at this. “You cannot quit in this. You are my wife.”

“Then I’ll fire me. Or you.”

A trace of a smile tugging at his lips. “You can’t do that either.”

Amanda sighed in frustration, feeling her vacation receding away. “I don’t care. I absolutely refuse to spend all day in a council chamber. Not here. Not now. Haven’t I earned a vacation? I’m going to be a tourist. I want to play.”

Sarek tilted his head, slightly aggrieved at this development, realizing she was serious. “No work at all?”

“Sarek. Don’t you have enough aides and advisors? Do you really need me?”

“I have advisors in plenty. But none with your …unique perspective.”

“Hire someone.”

“There is no one who would have your abilities.” He raised a brow. “Particularly here.”

“Nonsense. You talk as if we were at war. Aren’t we all in this together, the great Federation experiment--”

“Amanda.”

She sighed, deflated. “All right. I’ll still do the press when it’s absolutely necessary. And this brings up an important point. We need someone to fill in for me, at least for analysis and review. We should take this time on Terra and hire someone. I’ll call my alma mater, interview some likely candidates and hire a few. They can start taking notes and writing summaries and analyses. We’ll review them and hire the best of them.” She gave him a look. “Just don’t expect to fall in love and marry her, if it’s a girl. You’re taken you know.”

Sarek raised a careless brow. “I have yet to be so today.” He eyed her. “You slept late.”

She gave him a look of surprise. “You let me sleep late.”

“For which I will exact due recompense this evening.”

“Terra has made you deliciously wicked, my husband.”

“Not Terra. One Terran in particular.”

“Well, this particular Terran has done such a good job, she deserves some time off. As for the other, the day is young. And you have meetings my husband. I’m playing hooky from your meetings today, and as for the rest,” she eyed him, “we can address that later.” And as she saw him off she thought deliciously of her first vacation in years.

And she’d been playing hooky very happily since. Sarek was at first disbelieving she would actually follow through with her plan to do absolutely nothing of work. That wasn’t precisely true, she kept her promise to hire some promising staff, reviewed their work, and dealt with the press when required, but she had kept her promise of not setting foot, well hardly ever, in the council chambers. Once he reconciled to it, Sarek was bemused by her behavior. As well he might be, not even Vulcan children had so much unstructured free time. But she did now; she was playing for real, an activity she seldom indulged in. She visited old friends, she went shopping. She toured places she’d never seen and had suddenly realized she might never have a chance to see again, sometimes with Sarek, sometimes alone or with friends. And she soaked up scenery, enough blue sky and green leaves to set her up for the rest of her life. She thought she’d better, she wasn’t getting any younger, and who knows when she might be back. She used that as an excuse, as justification, for playing hooky in earnest, and enjoying herself fully. Everything seemed so beautiful to her, finally it wasn’t enough for her to merely see it. She’d set up an easel and was trying to capture Terra in more than mere holographs, to translate it, and her feelings into paint.

The stretched canvas was before her now, a dozen different shades of blue and green, and she was mixing the colors, covering the stark white of the canvas, enjoying translating the play of sunlight and air, the shimmer of green leaves tipped with golden sunlight rippled by wind, like an ocean of green in the sky into two dimensional form. She didn’t hear the comm ring with a priority call until an aide interrupted her.

“Who is it, Sandarac?” She lowered her paintbrush.

“Matriarch, my Lady.”

Amanda stared at him for a beat, brows raised in surprise. T’Pau never called her when she was off planet. “Then it must be for Sarek,” she offered faintly.

“No, my Lady. She asked to speak to you.”

Amanda swallowed, and the brush slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers to clatter to the floor, leaving a green stain as a truth came home to her. In the fifteen years since T’Pau had recognized her, she had developed a close relationship with her mother-in-law. She attended her regularly, was counted now among her advisors. But that was on Vulcan. She had never thought about it, but T’Pau had never called her or asked to speak with her before when she was off world. For any business reason, she would call Sarek. If she was calling her now, on a priority channel, in real time, not a subspace squirted message, then it must be family related. And very serious. Her heart in her throat, Amanda took the call.

“T’Pau.” Amanda caught herself, belatedly remembering proper forms of address, striving at the same time to keep her voice steady. “Mother. How may I serve?”

“It is I who would serve thee, T’Amanda.” The old woman was ostensibly controlled, but Amanda still searched her face for clues. And didn’t like what she saw.

“Serve me?” That made this even more personal. Immediate family, most likely. She licked her dry lips. “How? I have no needs.” I hope.

“I bring thee tidings of import.”

“Is it…good news or bad news?” Part of her was frantic with impatience at the inevitable Vulcan formalities, part grasping at any delay if it was bad news.

“Both and neither. These tidings are from the ceremonial grounds.”

Amanda suddenly found her hand at her mouth. But even as one part of her was shocked another, saner part flooded with relief, thinking it wasn’t so very bad then. Unexpected, but not bad. Starfleet was hardly a safe occupation. But this was not a misrouted communiqué from Starfleet, not news that she had dreaded since her son had taken his first deep space tour. No service related injury. Or worse. Still the news was daunting enough. “He is too young,” she said in faint protest.

“It is rare. But not entirely without precedent.”

“How awful for him that we were not there. I wanted us present. Sarek promised, and I thought that it might bring them together again. As father and son,” she knew she was babbling, but it wasn’t without purpose, not at all, for T’Pau’s brow had not cleared, and that meant worse news still.

“T’Amanda. It is… as well.”

‘What do you mean?” Amanda asked. T’Pau’s reluctance suddenly made her exclaim dawning in horror, “What has happened?!”

‘You were not wrong in your estimate of T’Pring.”

Amanda shook her head, unwilling to accept where this might be leading. “No. Oh, no!”

‘It is truth. She challenged, Amanda.”

“No,” Amanda took a step back from the comm. “No! It isn’t true. It can’t be--”

T’Pau forestalled her, before she might have fled. “Spock won the challenge, T’Amanda. Your son lives.”

Amanda said nothing, breathing hard. One part of her mind still deep in denial that Spock had been Challenged. But another, vitally alive, was thinking furiously. If Spock had won his Challenge, was still alive, it still meant he had killed in the Plak Tow. And that escalation of the already dangerous state, to a male of his line, with an unwilling bondmate. “Are you …sure? That he lives still? How do you know? When did this happen? Is he free of the fever now? Is he at home – with --?” she could hardly say her name.

“These circumstances of which I speak are …without precedent, my daughter. Spock came to the ceremony attended by two Starfleet associates, his Captain, and a medical officer. T’Pring …chose this Captain, this human, a male not even known to her, as her Champion.”

Amanda was astounded. “And he accepted?”

“There was some trickery on the part of thy son’s friends. His Captain was given some drug, made to appear as if dead, to force the combat to a close. When the combat was… finished, the physician took him away. I – and Spock -- thought him deceased, but it was not so.”

“How do you know of all this?” Amanda asked.

“I had thought to have Spock cleared of what humans would consider murder. But…when I inquired after him… I have been informed, by Starfleet authorities, that the Captain has reported in and is in fact taking his ship on her next mission. Spock did not kill, T’Amanda.”

Amanda was relieved on that score. “But he thought he had,” she said. “What of Spock now? He and T’Pring--”

“He has released T’Pring.”

“Released her to bondmate status?” She drew a relieved breath. She knew little of Vulcan customs, but she had some personal experience with this. A Challenged male, not a Champion, didn’t easily release a woman from chattel to bondmate status. If he did, if he even could, it spoke well, very well, for his equilibrium. “Then he must be free of the fever. He must be all right now.”

“You misunderstand me. This joining was unconsummated. Spock released her to another.”

Amanda’s eyes widened at this. “In the grip of Pon Far? How is that possible? And released her to whom?”

“To Stonn. Apparently her originally intended champion.”

This was so unVulcan, so unlike a male in the fever that Amanda turned away, hardly able to understand her son’s actions. And to Stonn? That jug eared pedantic tormentor from her son’s childhood was T’Pring’s intended champion? Oh, everyone knew she was seen with him, that she flattered and used him. But while her behavior was frowned on, no one took it seriously. Next to Spock, Stonn was a joke, not a quarter as intelligent, not so psi-skilled. Wealth and family he had, but it was all he had. He was high born, but even prominent families can produce a Stonn, someone in whom all the recessive in breeding came together with a vengeance. He’d been left unbonded while his parents hoped some additional years would give him the maturity to attract a suitable bondmate. His family had even looked the other way at T’Pring’s excessive license with their son, for no other had so far looked to him, and they hoped a little feminine attention would aid in his maturity.

She’d heard rumors about Stonn and T’Pring. That in Spock’s absence the girl had found Stonn convenient, easy to manipulate, and only too attentive. And Spock was not conveniently at hand, difficult if not impossible to manipulate, so stubborn as he was, and he and T’Pring had never been close. But while it said little for T’Pring’s character, Amanda had never seriously thought the girl would trade Spock for Stonn. Nor had T’Pring’s family thought so. Not even Stonn’s family had thought so.

T’Pring had been wayward, even licentious by Vulcan standards, though Amanda knew T’Pring’s mother and T’Pring well enough to suspect nothing had gone very far. But in a culture where most high born Vulcan males were bonded at childhood along dynastic lines, T’Pring and Stonn had few others at their station to turn to for …personal companionship. But to intend him as a champion? It was a not possible. She got hold of herself. “How could Spock release her? Surely the fever wouldn’t allow for that.”

“It is …unusual. Not entirely unprecedented…in Surak’s line.”

“T’Pau.” Amanda steeled herself. What little she knew of Vulcan biology, particularly in Surak’s line didn’t portend well. “What happens to males who are challenged and win the challenge and then release the woman who challenges?”

“They usually die.”

Amanda said nothing, her heart in her throat.

“Usually. The hormonal surge is too stressful if mating does not immediately follow. The shock is too great. The nervous system fails. As you well know, challenge takes Pon Far to a far higher and more stressful hormonal level. Even after winning a combat, even when mating follows, there can be…complications from a Challenge. But there is too limited a case history to make an estimation of Spock’s chances. And he is a law unto himself. He …spoke, even in the fever.

Amanda drew back askance. “Then he couldn’t have been in the fever. It is not possible.”

“It was the true blood fever. I touched his mind. I assessed his state. He burned.” Seeing Amanda’s confusion she added. “Perhaps his hybrid genes, which tax his control in many ways ordinarily, lend control in this. Or it could be that he had a very light first cycle. His death is not assured. Some rare few males do survive to take other bondmates.”

“Other bondmates.” She latched onto that. “Have you other candidates to whom he can turn?”

“Thy son seemed…uninterested in such candidates.”

“But that is shock, or-- ” Amanda floundered for the Vulcan equivalent. “You must press him to consider them! He could die otherwise.”

“Spock chose to return to Starfleet.”

“But he can’t. Surely he must need--”

“This is also rare but not unprecedented. Such a first pon far, a light cycle, broken early, broken abruptly by shock, can …cease. Such seems to have been the case with your son.”

“Cease,” Amanda bit her lips. “But it will return.”

“That is inevitable.”

“But do you know if he is all right? How could you just let him go?”

“I had concerns, and indeed he also assumed, that he would be held accountable for his Captain’s murder. He seemed to believe his life was forfeit for that. That was my primary concern.”

“Couldn’t you keep him on Vulcan?”

T’Pau raised her brows. “Would you have me keep him against his sworn duty?”

“To save his life, yes. Of course.”

“A life without honor is not worth living.”

“Oh, don’t prate to me about Vulcan philosophy or duty,” Amanda said in exasperation. “Neither will matter to him if he is dead. You can’t tell me Starfleet doesn’t have leave. And if there was ever a time for it--”

“T’Amanda,” the matriarch reproved. “He thought he had other, serious concerns that required his attendance.”

Amanda bit her lips. “If he spoke, what did he say?”

“That he would not live long, having killed his captain.”

“He planned to let the fever take him, if it returned,” Amanda said in dismay. “To sacrifice himself. That’s why he went back. He thought to die.”

“Perhaps. He considered it his duty to surrender to Federation authorities. His duty on Vulcan was discharged; the woman was treacherous. He appeared…in reasonable control, given the circumstances. How could I force him to stay? His actions were not a crime by Vulcan standards. What was there on Vulcan to hold him? And he thought he had human charges to which he must answer.”

“You should have thought up something. A Vulcan crime,” Amanda argued. “Anything to keep him there, until you could be sure he was well.”

“T’Amanda,” T’Pau reproved again, shaking her head. “That would be dishonorable. But now that he is not charged with a crime under Federation law, his future, can…and must… be considered the primary issue.”

“T’Pau, is it likely – is it possible, this could trigger vrie in Spock?”

The matriarch tilted her head. “I think not. He is young for that. The Plak Vrie is usually a curse of maturity, not youth. But I do not know. It is possible, of course. He would not speak of such to me, even if he understood the state. As it was my role to speak with Sarek of his condition, so it is you who must speak of these events to Spock. It is a mother’s task or a matriarch’s, to reason with a male in the fever, or late of it. A father has no place.”

Amanda drew a breath. “If I have learned anything, it is that I know little of Vulcan biology. How can I advise him?”

“If the fever is not broken, then it is my role as Matriarch to bring to him the list of unbonded females with whom a suitable match can be made. And he must return to Vulcan to be married. He is not being held by Federation justice for any crime of murder or assault, as he thought before. So this can be done. And it must be done soon. An aborted fever may be arrested a few days or a few weeks by a Challenge, but longer than that is unprecedented.

“But what if it is broken?”

“If a healer ascertains such, then he can be allowed …time… for a choice of his own making.”

“How long?”

“I would wish he would choose swiftly. But I will grant him a maximum of half the span of an unbonded male’s cycle.”

An unbonded male could go as long as seven years before Pon Far would claim him. Few Vulcan males would choose to live so long in uncertainty. But Spock might need all that to recover from this situation. She’d rather see him take that time and make a choice he could live with. Even …love. He deserved something, after T’Pring. If the fever really was broken. “So three years. Or a little more.”

“In Spock’s case, with his human blood, I would wish it to be less. But with a healer’s sanction, I will grant him that. There are Vulcan healers at Altair who can assess his true condition. He must see them.”

‘Thank you, T’Pau.” Amanda set her jaw, but she had to ask. “And T’Pring?”

“Stonn was displeased at her choice of Champion. He claimed it disgraced him. Disgraced them. He was…angry. He has yet to release her.”

“Good,” Amanda returned. “I hope he never does. Even to rot as a chattel is too good for her.”

For a long moment, T’Pau was silent. Then she spoke. “T’Amanda. I think you do not mean what you say.”

Amanda met T’Pau’s eyes through the vidscreen, unrepentant, defiant. And for a moment she held the too wise gaze. Then her eyes wavered and dropped. The old woman could still make her feel like an unruly twelve year old. “It is still too good for her,” she insisted.

“She is no longer of your family. No longer your concern,” T’Pau said gently. “Spock, and thee, are free of her.”

“After all these years of wondering…dreading…what she might do...and then to find she has done it, after all--”

“I understand, and given her treachery, I might agree with your …assertion. Still, I suspect Stonn will relent. He is not in the unreasoning grip of the fever. The advantages presented to him to release her, financial and social, by her family will be numerous. And T’Pring has always easily swayed him.” T’Pau flicked a brow. “Though she may be presently finding her leverage as owned property greatly to be less than as a formerly desired consort. At least, Stonn has not freed her yet.” T’Pau looked unaccountably old and weary. “As you say, perhaps it is no more than she deserves. Yet I find it hard to wish such a fate upon any woman.”

“Isn’t that your tradition?”

“Traditions come from necessity as well as desire. In this case, Stonn is not in the fever. And while she challenged, she did not challenge him. It is to be hoped he can be reasoned with.”

“All I can think of is my son. I am glad she is out of his life, and where she can do no more harm.”

“I understand. I regret having to bring such tidings to thee. Take care, my honored daughter.” And she cut the connection.

Amanda stood staring at the screen and then she summoned Sarek’s office. She got an aide.

“The Ambassador is in session.”

“Pull him out.”

The aide’s Vulcan bangs rose to his brows. “That is impossible, my Lady.”

“Don’t give me that, people cut sessions short for all manner of excuses. Tell him I want to see him --- I must see him, now. Do it, Sandarac!” She said it in the emphatic mode and though his eyes widened, he gave her the expected acknowledgement.

She began furiously to access the subspace nets, the priority bands, the classified, ultracoded frequencies. “I want a call, highest priority one coding, classified and scrambled to the Starship Enterprise.”

She was used to Vulcan efficiency. And though she often discounted it, she had become used to the benefits of Vulcan’s ancestral hierarchy. On Vulcan, discount it as she would, she was a most important person, a clan leader, a recognized daughter of T’Pau. She rarely gave orders, but when she did, in the emphatic mode, even Vulcans now hurried and bent to her will.

But to Starfleet, she was just another mother of a Starfleet officer, perhaps a little raised in rank by being an Ambassador’s wife. She hit red tape after red tape trying to place a priority one call to the Enterprise. In her frustration, she disregarded any pretense to being politic and pulled such rank as she had. But on Terra, even that was minor. She was merely an Ambassador’s wife, not of political import herself, at least not ostensibly. Since she had always shunned official titles, she was not even advisor or aide with whom to be reckoned. No one here really understood her Vulcan rank, nor did she care to educate them as to what it meant. She always half discounted it herself, embarrassed at the idea of rank by marriage. But in this, she considered herself invested with T’Pau’s authority. T’Pau would have been given no trouble if she had requested a priority call to a starship. Even Sarek would not have been, though his Vulcan authority in this particular situation was minimal. This sort of thing was the reason why Vulcan had a matriarchy of sorts. But when the Terran officer still didn’t understand to whom he was speaking and what her position was, and put her off as if she were just some cloying overbearing mother trying to keep her son tied to her apron strings, she lost it and swore so fluently at him – in Rigellian -- that, understand her or not, she finally ended up talking to the port Admiral. Who did understand something of whom she was, but was equally unhelpful.

“I am sorry, Lady Amanda, but the Enterprise is unreachable by subspace.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Only too possible, I’m afraid. She was late for the investiture celebrations at Altair and is traveling in excess of Warp 9 to try and reach there before the final ceremonies. And at high warp our real time communications are limited.”

“There must be some way to reach her. A Federation starship can’t be entirely out of contact.”

“We can send a cryptic coded high priority squirt for them to drop out of warp and stand by for further orders. Then they could receive a real time priority communication.”

“Good. Do it.”

The Admiral raised his brows. “I think you don’t understand.”

“I do, and I’m …requesting…that it be done.” When he hesitated, she snapped. “It’s just a party and they’re late anyway. There are two starships already there. And how often does Vulcan request any aid, assistance or such ceremony from the Federation?”

The Admiral eyed her warily, and she could almost see the wheels in his head spinning, thinking ‘diplomatic incident’. Altair was a Terran colony. Vulcan was an alien world, with a huge block of alien support behind it. As a mother, she had no influence. But as a Vulcan official, her request, much as T’Pau’s to divert the Enterprise, trumped any Altair ceremony. “I wish, to, of course, Lady Amanda. But this would require authorization and I have not the authority. Only the Chief Admiral of Starfleet can countermand the Enterprise’s orders and divert her from her mission.”

Amanda regretted being so ignorant of this important point. She really had to ask her son a few pertinent questions in her messages to him, and not merely chatter on about family doings and other trivia. “And who is the Chief Admiral?”

“Komack.”

“Fine. Tell him I want it done.”

For a moment the Port Admiral stared at her, blithely giving orders to the Starfleet Chief Admiral. She met his gaze, unwavering. He was the first to break it, looking away from her to something on his terminal. After a moment he said, “He is in a Security Session, Lady, and can’t be disturbed except for Priority One events. I have relayed your message that you consider this of utmost urgency and wish to speak to him. He’ll get it as soon as the security session breaks.”

“When will that be?”

“It might be as much as a day.”

She sighed. “How do you accomplish anything with this bureaucracy? What if there were a Romulan invasion?”

“I’m afraid even declarations of war are not immediate in the Federation. I will see Komack is informed of your message immediately and double post it to him through our diplomatic envoys. At the present, that is all that is in my authority to do. But the Enterprise will drop out of high warp in three days when it reaches Altair. And I will expedite a call through for you then.”

“Just get me Komack. As soon as you can.” She cut the connection. And stood there, hands shaking.

Three days before the Enterprise dropped out of warp. If the fever wasn’t entirely broken, if it had only been interrupted by shock, and returned, her son could be dead in three days. No chance to get him to Vulcan. He had left Vulcan, knowing his condition, for all intents and purposes giving himself over to the possibility of death, perhaps wishing it at the time, in payment for what he had done. How could T’Pau have let him go? Who cared for his duty to Starfleet, when his life was in danger? Of course, then he had thought he’d killed his friend. Her fists clenched, thinking of that. Her son had few associates that could get past his Vulcan reserve to become a friend, and his captain had to be formidable to have done that. How Spock must feel, that he had turned on his human friend in a Vulcan fever. At that point, he must have welcomed death. But now that he knew his Captain lived, was he relieved? Or desperate, unwilling and unable to return to Vulcan and with no options before him?

Even if as T’Pau implied, there was a chance the fever had been arrested, he was alone, a broken bond, the remains of the fever lingering in him. After having faced challenge on the ceremonial grounds. The nightmare of her life, for him come true. T’Pring had plotted and planned her son’s destruction, just as she’d feared. Just as she’d suspected. No, just as she had known, from the first day she’d seen that little bitch. She had known and dreaded. And all her Vulcans had discounted her fears, and so she had discounted them and hoped for the best. And the worst had come after all. Or nearly the worst. Spock lived still. But what agonies he had undergone? While she was on Terra. Indulging herself.

“No!!” She cried, and her hand went striking out blindly, knocking aside the paints. A dozen different shades of green spattered across the canvas, over the floor, across the room in a deluge of blood-like color. She stared at it, seeing it not as leaves on trees but as blood, Vulcan blood, her son’s blood, and she struck out again and the easel went down altogether and she went to her knees in horror of what she had just heard. What she had saved Sarek from -- maddened by fever and facing some monster on the ceremonial grounds. She had lived in fear for Sarek, for both her Vulcans ever after, buried down deep, very deep. Sarek had not succumbed to vrie again, but he still feared its recurrence. Vulcan passion and Vulcan control were never an easy mix, and her husband struggled hard with it. There was no way Spock could avoid that, a son of Surak’s house, with all his fathers and forefather’s legacy, and with his mother’s human emotions added to the mix. But at least she had hoped his problems would not be compounded by a faithless bondmate. Had that not been partly why Sarek had bonded him to a controlled and emotionless Vulcan girl – so that he would have the security of a promised mate when his Time came? Perhaps Vulcan control, Vulcan emotionlessness was indeed nothing but a myth, when even T’Pring, so cold and outwardly controlled, was revealed to have secret passions, secret motivations. And in the end, Spock had suffered again, faithful to Vulcan traditions in this, faithful to T’Pring. Who had betrayed him, left him in Need and challenged by his bondmate on the ceremonial grounds. With not even his parents to stand by him. And facing not even some Vulcan monster, but a dear human friend. What had it done to her son, a boy so tender hearted he had filled their gardens with desert waifs and strays? Oh, why had she let Sarek bond him to T’Pring, when she had known all along it was wrong for Spock. More wrong than she had even suspected?

“Amanda?!” Sarek stood at the door, looking down at her, from her to the mess across the room, the paints and the painting on the floor, its stretcher bars cracked and broken, shattered ribs awash in green, colors running together. “What has happened?”

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “She challenged, Sarek.”

He froze. She could only be speaking of one person. And then he said the name he still had difficulty saying. “Spock is--”

“He won the challenge. He’s alive. Or was when he left Vulcan. He released T’Pring. T’Pau doesn’t know more. And I can’t reach him!”

His brow furrowed. “The Enterprise--”

“It’s in warp. Only some admiral, Komack, can get a real time message through.” She closed her eyes in pain. “She challenged, Sarek. And we weren’t there. He had to face it all alone, and that bitch, no, I won’t even give her that much, dogs are loyal and that vicious two faced little cunt of a whore--”

“Amanda!”

She looked up, her face wet with tears. “We should have been there. We need to contact the Enterprise. And then…I want to go home, Sarek. Let’s go home. Now. Please?”

“Go…to Vulcan? But Spock is not there now.”

“No, but she is.” The fury in her rose in purpose now. “And I’m going to rip her cold traitorous heart out of her unfeeling Vulcan breast. I want to--”

“Amanda, shh,” He crossed to her swiftly. “You do not mean this.”

“I do. If she wants a challenge, she hasn’t seen anything yet. I wouldn’t even need a weapon, I could do it with my fingernails. I could do it with my teeth--”

“Amanda,” He took her hands in his as if to raise her to her feet. “Do not speak so--”

“Sarek, she challenged! How could she, how could even she, knowing what it might do to Spock? She knew about the vrie, she might have even done it because of vrie, not because he was half-human. I know she didn’t love him, but what kind of monster is she that she could do that to him, to any bondmate?”

“Shh.” Instead of drawing her up, Sarek sank down next to her. “Shh, my wife.” His own eyes haunted, he pulled her against him, disregarding the mess at their feet, the pools of green mixing with other colors in a muddy brew. And she buried her face in his neck and he in hers while she cried for their son. Cried for them both, even as Sarek held her close and shuddered in purely Vulcan horror at what their son had been forced to face. She cried for them both.

xxx

Before her tears had even dried, before Komack had gotten back to them, she received a message from Spock. A subspace squirt, not real time, but something.

She didn’t worry about Vulcan sensibilities, she sought out Sarek. When Spock had first gone into Fleet, she had well…blackmailed her son into keeping in touch with her. Though first he had agreed somewhat out of duress, now it had become part of his routine – and Vulcans loved nothing so much as routine. So Spock messaged her faithfully every week, more or less, depending on the press of his duties. Sarek had never ostensibly listened to these messages, though over the years she had become less circumspect about playing them where he could hear them. Now she didn’t care. She took him by the arm and brought him to the viewer.

“You’ll want to see this,” she said, hitting the message play button. And she took his hand in hers, clutching it firmly. “And I need you here. So just deal with it.”

Sarek glanced sharply at her, but he didn’t pull his hand back from hers.

The screen flickered briefly, to display the Starfleet chevron. Sarek shifted uneasily, but it soon flickered again, to display a Starfleet officer’s quarters, hung in red draping not unlike Vulcan’s ruby sky. And then Spock moved into the pickup. He was dressed in a Starfleet uniform, the sky blue tunic looking out of place against the deep ruby.

“Mother. I hope to reach you before you hear tidings of this elsewhere. Though as the Enterprise is in warp and Grandmother has access to priority communications, I suspect I will not. Be assured I tried to reach you as soon as was feasible.” For a moment, he hesitated, but then raised his eyes resolutely as if he could see her. “I regret that I had no…opportunity before the Enterprise went into warp. I…have been divorced.” His voice was strained, but no more so than having to relate such disturbing news. And he seemed in control. “The circumstances were quite... unusual. But I have not killed. I have released T’Pring to her intended champion. And I am well, Mother. I wish you to know that.” He said that with a shade too much intensity to be considered full Vulcan control. But then he caught and drew himself up anew. “When the Enterprise reaches Altair, I will make a priority call and answer any questions or concerns that you might have. But for the present, you need not be concerned for me. I am…well enough. And I will speak with you soon.” He cut the pickup, and the message faded to the Starfleet chevron.

Amanda pressed the replay and froze it to her son’s image. She turned to Sarek. “What do you think? Is he free of it?”

Sarek gave the Vulcan equivalent of a headshake, a minute jerk of his chin and a slight shift of his eyes to the left, even as his gaze returned to his son. “He speaks …well enough.”

“T’Pau said he spoke, even at the height of the fever.”

“That can’t be--”

“She said that he did.”

Sarek shook his head, human style this time. “It is too soon to tell.”

She looked up at her husband, hearing the strain in his own voice. “Sarek?”

But Sarek avoided her gaze. “I am also well enough, Amanda. Do not be concerned.” But he took an abrupt leave, his fingers catching hers lightly before his hand slipped from hers.

And she looked after him, unable to help feeling that concern. Thinking that even after all this time, with a committed loving bondmate, Sarek could be… haunted by the specter of Pon Far. Perhaps every Vulcan male was similarly haunted.

And that meant her son, unbonded now, half human, with divorce behind him and no history of a successful bond could well be …devastated. What would he do? He had three years, if he was free of the fever. That left him time to finish his tour of duty with the Enterprise. And then, if he had not found a bondmate of his own choosing, T’Pau would require him to return to Vulcan. And choose among her candidates.

She realized it was time, perhaps long past time, for her to have a talk with her son. About the human birds and bees. And perhaps where Vulcans fit in this. Based on Sarek’s reaction, she doubted her husband would be much help in that. Still. Yet.

She sighed. And reached for the communications console. Time to schedule another priority call, this time to T’Pau. The matriarch would at least want to know that Spock had contacted her. And claimed he was well.

xxx

But she couldn’t reach T’Pau; the matriarch was unaccountably out. Another day went by before she could connect a priority call. And then, far from looking pleased at the news of Spock’s message, T’Pau still looked weary, even distracted. She nodded acknowledgement of Amanda’s tidings. “I have also received word from him,” she said. “But T’Amanda, I also have news for thee. And this is something of which Sarek should be apprised as well.”

“I will send for him,” Amanda said, and summoned an aide to fetch him.

T’Pau waited until Sarek entered the room before she spoke again. “I was in error before.”

Sarek said nothing and Amanda finally was forced to ask, since it seemed T’Pau was equally reluctant to speak. “What do you mean?”

“This business with T’Pring …may not yet be finished.”

“Spock said he released her to Stonn,” Amanda said. Out of pickup range, she felt Sarek take her hand in his.

“I have been in meetings over the matter all of yesterday.”

“Meetings?”

“Concerning the fact that Stonn has not released her in turn. She is still chattel.”

Amanda half smiled. “Good.”

“Her family are…distressed over her chattel status.”

Amanda thought of T’Prill’s snide remarks to her when she’d first come to Council after Sarek had restored her to bondmate status. “I’m sure they are.”

“They have contacted me.”

“What can you do for her?” Amanda asked bluntly, remembering T’Pau had been able to do little for her. “Isn’t it Stonn’s right to hold her thus? Other than you’re making sure she’s alive – ”

“Her family say that as the combat did not end in death, they have the right to petition the divorce be annulled on grounds that the challenge was illegally executed.”

“They want a death in addition to all this tragedy?” Amanda was astonished.

T’Pau tilted her head in a Vulcan shrug, “What they wish is for Spock to reclaim her as bondmate.”

“Fat chance of that,” Amanda said.

Up to now, Sarek had been listening silently. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her colloquialism, but he chose to differ. “There is some logic to their arguments.”

Amanda turned to him. “Don’t talk to me about logic in the face of that bitch’s treachery. And now because Stonn was equally treacherous in return, she wants the whole thing erased. Well, Spock could have been killed. Or he could have killed. She couldn’t have a death annulled. But now, because she was the loser--”

“Amanda, consider that--” Sarek began.

“No!”

“Is this not Spock’s decision?” T’Pau interrupted.

“He wouldn’t want her.” Amanda claimed.

“That is not your decision to make.” Sarek countered. “Amanda, Spock must at least be presented with this offer.”

“Offer? It’s a joke. How can you want that for him?” Amanda turned to her husband. “Her for him, again? I didn’t understand it the first time. But now? No. Absolutely not!”

“She was a suitable match, dynastically,” T’Pau said after a moment’s silence.

“She was always cold, even as a girl, but now, now you wish him to choose a woman who betrayed him?” Amanda looked from one to the other of them. “If she did it once, she could, probably would, do it again. That’s not logical. It’s not even sensible.”

“Perhaps she has learned the dangers of challenge,” Sarek offered.

Amanda turned, giving him a disbelieving look. “No, Sarek. If I have anything to say about this, no.”

“Would you wish even T’Pring to remain a chattel?” T’Pau asked. “You who understand that state fully?”

“Don’t use my emotions against me,” Amanda warned them both. “I pity her, that what she apparently feared has come by her own traitorous act to be visited against her. But she chose her fate. Even as I chose mine.”

“You did not.” Sarek denied, “You weren’t even aware of that ancient factor in Vulcan biology.”

“No, but when I was aware I chose it then. And I choose it now, Sarek.” Her eyes met his. “And so do you. We don’t know what the future will bring us, but we know what we’ve chosen and we are resolved to meet it together, whatever it brings. T’Pring did not.”

Sarek drew an unsteady breath. “Amanda, I do not mean to imply in any way that you and T’Pring are complicit in any thought or attitude.”

“Other than sharing chattel status.”

“For very different reasons,” Sarek reminded her. “Yours was an honorable sacrifice, not the result of a treacherous act. The result of my failure.”

Amanda sighed, rubbing her temples. She never liked to think back, or dwell, on what had led up to her brief stint of chattel status. “Let’s not get mired in the past. I agree, this is a very different situation. Of course I wouldn’t wish that, for anyone. But if ever a girl deserved it--”

“Regardless of what the girl deserves,” T’Pau interrupted them, “T’Pring’s family is in great distress.”

“Then they should have advised her better, before she acted,” Amanda said.

“They are willing to make recompense now for all failures. They wish the divorce annulled of course, but they wish for more than that. If the divorce is annulled that does not solve the issue that the bond, never strong between Spock and T’Pring, was severed at the conclusion of the combat,” said T’Pau.

“Which proves it was a divorce in fact,” Amanda pointed out.

“Practically, yes. Legally, it is still in some dispute. Regardless, a new bond would have to be undertaken.”

“Isn’t she bonded now to Stonn?”

“She is chattel, not bondmate, T’Amanda,” T’Pau said gently. “That is the difference. No bond exists between them.”

Amanda drew a breath, not fully realizing before the distinction in terms. Even when she’d accepted chattel status, she had still been a bondmate. A wife. And even in vrie, her husband consumed by the chronic fever, she had known he had loved her. Because he’d never touched her until he’d regained enough control, past the madness that terrible fever had induced. Far worse than any Pon Far. She hadn’t fully appreciated then the difference between bondmate and chattel. But now…

“Stonn is not in the fever,” she ventured to T’Pau.

“Which is why her family must act now. Such ceremonies can trigger the fever, and Stonn was meant to be a …challenger. If he should fall to the fever, and T’Pring still chattel,” T’Pau shrugged. “Then the issue is moot.”

“He wouldn’t kill her,” Amanda ventured, looking from T’Pau to Sarek uncertainly.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. But after such an experience, she would not make a fit bondmate for another. Certainly not for Spock.” T’Pau said.

Amanda swallowed hard, and slipped her hand back into her husband’s. And wished she could be even more improper. Like crawl into his arms. And never come out again.

T’Pau had laid some documents before her. “Legally, there are some grounds to have the divorce annulled. But in such a legal case the circumstances of T’Pring’s deception would be made public. Even if the divorce annulment was sought, if he opposed it, Spock could simply counter her actions constituted challenge.” T'Pau flicked a brow. “And no court of elders would contest that. He would be within his rights to refuse the annulment, or even if it were granted, and she was returned to him as chattel after challenge, he would be within his rights to release her again. Then she might possibly be freed, but her treachery would have been made public knowledge, a matter of court and public record. And the disgrace of Stonn and T’Pring, together, would be compounded. There would be future repercussions, all serious. No bondmate would accept T’Pring in future, based on her past behavior. No bondmate would be likely to accept Stonn given his actions in this affair. She has no siblings. Her dynastic line will end.”

“None of this is Spock’s concern. Or his problem. Stonn and T’Pring made their choices. And as for you, is her status really more of a concern than Spock’s life? And his ha- his well being? Her family may be ancient, but surely T’Pring’s acts against this clan has forfeited her – and them -- your consideration.”

“Spock is in need of a bondmate,” Sarek said. “That is his concern. His life is still in danger from a bond broken in unprecedented circumstances. That is our justifiable concern. Which makes this a necessary consideration.”

Amanda turned to him. “Are you implying he can’t do better than T’Pring?”

“I am saying his fever was broken by unnatural means, and he is thus in danger now. We cannot be sure he is free of the fever. T’Pring is available,” he glanced at the impassive T’Pau, “and from all reports, she is now willing.”

“Willing! I doubt it. Maybe she says that now. But if Spock took her back, when she’s no longer a chattel, that scheming mind of hers--”

“That is for Spock to ascertain. What can it harm to present him with the option?” Sarek asked.

“If he wanted her, he wouldn’t have released her to Stonn.”

“He is young. His control has been erratic in the past. He behaved rashly in the aftermath of the combat and the fever. He may be more…rational now. He may regret his actions.”

“It seems to me he’s being the rational one about this and you’re -- T’Pau,” Amanda appealed to her, “You can’t approve of this.”

T’Pau shook her head. “I speak as Matriarch. I must present the offer, unbiased, to his family.”

Amanda was frustrated. “All this because the girl is chattel. They must have tried with Stonn first. Has he proved so unpersuadable?”

T’Pau’s face gave nothing away. “He wanted the girl. He is neither destitute nor has he the ability to assume a seat in Council. And what he sought, he now has, courtesy of Spock. T’Pring …miscalculated. Stonn and she had arranged that he was to release her. But Stonn considered her choice of the Captain as her Champion to be a betrayal of that agreement.”

“How fastidious of him. He didn’t seem to have similar qualms agreeing to be a champion in the first place. That was also a betrayal on her part.”

T’Pau raised a brow. “True. But by her betrayal of him, he believes himself no longer bound by their agreement, and refuses to release her. He is not in the fever, but he has something of the ancient passions. He considers that he almost lost her twice, first when she rejected him as Champion in favor of Kirk and then when Spock won the challenge. When Spock gave her to him, he says he resolved then never to give her a choice again, since she has twice proved untrustworthy in honoring such commitments. And he is not unaware that if she were bondmate, she would have legal rights, which as chattel she does not. At present, unless the divorce is annulled, she is entirely his, past all machinations on her part. I think…” T’Pau hesitated then shrugged, “In truth, after speaking with him, I think he never had any intention of releasing her.”

“And here everyone thought he was stupid,” Amanda commented. “He has her number.”

“And he has her.”

“Then, they are well suited to each other.”

“Perhaps. But now that she is his chattel, he has claimed he will never free her. As property, she has lost all influence, and her family has none with him. Thus her kin are ….frantic. In her present state, they have lost her forever. This annulment is their -- her only chance with one such as Stonn.”

“She sent my son into mortal combat,” Amanda argued. “At least they know she is alive. With more chance to remain so than Spock or her chosen champion. I say Spock is well rid of her.”

“Nevertheless, her family are willing to promise anything in terms of marriage settlements if Spock would accept an annulment of the divorce. And reclaim her as bondmate.”

“To promise anything to him? Or to you, both of you?” Amanda looked from T’Pau to Sarek. “They’re no doubt hoping you and T’Pau will use your influence to hush this up. And they win, and T’Pring gets off scott free. But Spock loses. He gets a traitorous bondmate. And Stonn as an enemy forever.”

“Stonn is not of consequence. And Spock gains a bondmate,” Sarek reminded her, “A vital consideration, given he is presently late of the fever, if he is even free of it. And he has none.”

“This offer is for Spock, naturally,” T’Pau said, her voice surprisingly mild. “T’Pring’s family will grant anything they can. They are aware that T’Pring’s traitorous acts have made her …relatively worthless, as even a consort. They offer other concessions, if he will even take her.”

“And what of Stonn’s family? Even if he is of no consequence, they are not.”

“His family are not pleased that their son, with not even Pon Far as an excuse, has kept T’Pring as chattel. Their son has a…a mate of sorts, though reportedly now an unwilling, treacherous one. In some respects, they consider he has further dishonored an already dishonorable situation. In modern times, a challenging woman is typically freed by her champion— as Spock did, even though he was the Challenged. That Stonn did not in turn compounds the existing shame. They are grateful there was no death as a result of this treachery and claim neutrality. In honor, they have agreed this was an unfortunate occurrence, that Spock acted with great honor, and they vow no opposition to Spock’s choice, whatever it might be. If he chooses to allow the divorce annulled, they pledge to keep Stonn from both Spock and T’Pring in future.”

Amanda shook her head. “You seem to have it all planned out. Except Spock doesn’t want T’Pring or he wouldn’t have released her. Nor is he materialistic. As your son and T’Pau’s heir, he’s not exactly destitute. What could they offer that could possibly tempt him?”

T’Pau glanced at Sarek through the pickup. “Apart from additional financial settlements, T’Prill has agreed to resign her Council seat immediately to Spock.”

That was a great concession. It had not been part of the original marriage settlement, for it would leave T’Pring’s family without their long held Council seat. But Amanda was unimpressed. “Spock will be Head of Council, in time. I can’t imagine that would be much of an attraction.”

“Amanda, this is Spock’s decision, not yours.” Sarek said.

“Then stop talking to me about it. Tell him.” Amanda flared. “You got him into this, against my better judgment. I never liked T’Pring. I knew it would be a disaster. So if you want him to take her back again, you’ll have to talk him into it. I refuse to have anything to do with it.”

Sarek drew himself up. He had yet to speak to Spock except in the most formal and distant of ways. And rarely even that. “Traditionally, as Mother, it is your duty to approach him and present him with these alternatives.”

“This is true,” T’Pau said. “Only a mother, or in her absence, the Matriarch, can speak to a male in the fever, or late of the fever, as Spock must be considered. T’Amanda this is your right. And your duty. Sarek has no part in this.”

Amanda moaned, brought up short by that fact, her hand tightening on her husband’s. It was true that by Vulcan tradition, only females of family – mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, or in a pinch, sisters, could be expected to reason with a male in the fever, or raise the subject of bonding. Males were too likely to be considered rivals. Post an unconsummated Pon Far, Spock was considered to be in this category, regardless that he’d seemed relatively…calm…to her in his message squirt. By Vulcan tradition, this was her duty. And one she could not forgo. He was her son. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it pass to another, reluctant as she was to take it up.

“All right. When we can get a subspace link to the Enterprise, I’ll talk to him of this offer.” She glared at Sarek and T’Pau both. “But don’t expect me to advocate for it. If you want a champion for T’Pring, Sarek, you’ll have to speak to him yourself.”

Sarek gave her an astonished look and she realized what she had just said. “I…I didn’t mean a champion! Not in that way.”

T’Pau merely raised a brow and Sarek just turned away, as if unwilling to even countenance such a discussion.

“That wasn’t a Freudian slip,” Amanda muttered. But neither of her Vulcans responded.

xxx

“What the hell is this?” Komack growled, looking at the message. “Another priority call to the Enterprise? Have they even made it to Altair yet?”

“Not yet,” his aide said.

“A request from T’Pau is one thing,” Komack said, “but I’m not pulling the Enterprise out of warp on the strength of some mother’s--”

“Sir, the Starfleet diplomatic envoy -- Carter -- requested that you contact him regarding this,” his aide said, making the connection without waiting for an order. And left the room, eager to be out of earshot of his Admiral’s wrath.

“I don’t care what you say, Carter, the Enterprise is finished being a personal taxi service for one Vulcan--”

“She’s not asking for the Enterprise to divert from her mission, just to take a real time priority--”

“If the Enterprise has to drop out of warp it is much the same thing. And I won’t”

“Admiral, do you know who we’re talking about here? Amanda Grayson. The wife – the human wife – of--”

“I don’t give a damn if she’s queen of the May!”

“Of Vulcan’s Ambassador to the Federation. And Sarek is a Federation Ambassador-at- Large too.”

“Nor do I give a damn who he is for that matter. Ambassadors and diplomats are the bain of the Federation. I have done with my Fleet being used--”

“Whether it is your Fleet is the issue.”

That quieted Komack down.

Admiral, you know who Sarek is. You also know he’s adamantly opposed to Starfleet.”

“He wouldn’t be the first Vulcan to have that sentiment,” Komack grumbled.

“But he’ll be the first Vulcan to sit on Federation High Council who’s adamantly opposed to Fleet. And that’s while his son is still alive. Imagine if his son dies for some…trifling reason.”

“Fleet is hazardous duty.”

“Nothing hazardous about going to a glorified party. Admiral, the Federation High Council determines Starfleet’s budget. The budget for your Fleet. Do you really want to give the Council one more reason to cut Starfleet’s funding? Prove that it can’t respect the needs of all its members – prove it is human biased, as well as human dominated, and you’ll do just that.”

“Sarek isn’t even asking for anything.”

“No, but his wife has.”

“It’s bad enough to be jerked around by bonafide politicos, but Ambassador’s wives--”

“Amanda Grayson is more than just an ambassador’s wife. And you know it. She’s got T’Pau’s ear as well as Sarek’s. She’s a high level human advisor to the most politically important Vulcans in the Federation. Do you really want to brush her off? I guarantee you, that if you squander her son’s life, what little ambivalence Vulcan has for Starfleet is going to abruptly vanish. Believe me, its much better to cultivate her than make her an adversary. Though considering she asked for a priority link to the Enterprise hours ago, it might be too late.”

“What does she want?”

Carter shook his head. “Ask her. And I’d advise you to do so with all due humility. An Ambassador’s wife may not rank an Admiral, but in this case, Vulcan does.”

Komack grimaced and reached for the comm. “Damn and blast the idiot who ever let that Vulcan into Starfleet. He’s been nothing but trouble since he first enlisted, but now – he hijacks the Enterprise for Chris Pike and now he’s doing the same thing, but for himself. No one should be so much trouble without at least being a Captain… And before I see my Fleet be used--”

“You owe Spock too,” Carter insisted. “Starfleet has made a lot of hay out of that Vulcan. We would have made more if he would have let us use him politically. But still, there are few enough aliens in Fleet that the ones we have are all the more valuable to us. We need him politically. And that means you need to talk to the lady. T’Pau alone was one thing, but when Amanda joins her – well, all I can say is, that’s cause enough for me. ”

“Not for me.”

“Admiral, I’ve been authorized by the Federation Secretary to say this. Whatever they want, you must grant. Spock’s a sixteen year Veteran of Fleet, an Ambassador’s son, and the heir to the most politically powerful clan on Vulcan – an alien power we desperately need in the Federation. Can you honestly say that this trumps shooting off a few phasers at the Altair System President’s inauguration party?”

Komack scowled.

“This is an order from the Federation President, Admiral. Give those Vulcans – Amanda included –whatever the hell they want. Now.”

xxx

Komack did call, apologized profusely for the delay, claiming priority security issues, which Amanda failed to entirely believe and which he entirely understood she did not. In fact they understood each other very well, which actually made their using each other work rather well. He magnanimously offered to have the Enterprise drop out of warp. But now, with only hours before the Enterprise reached Altair, the situation had changed for Amanda. The Enterprise was too far, now for a quick trip back to Vulcan. She preferred the Enterprise reach Altair with all due speed so that those healers could do a true assessment of her son’s condition. And at least have Vulcan healers at hand if he should be …ill. She, T’Pau, even Sarek were anxious over that. To force the Enterprise to delay now would serve no purpose. And such magnanimity on Starfleet’s part would have a price. Who knew if or when in future, there would really be an emergency situation that required her to use such a trump card. She felt she should hold onto that option. She thanked Komack for the offer, but demurred it for the present, and when he made the mistake of offering his services in future, let him know that once the Enterprise reached Altair, she might take him up on it. The scowl warring with his politic smile as he cut the connection offered her only slight recompense. She really had to learn to start cultivating Starfleet brass if her son was going to keep signing on for these missions.

If. She could almost sympathize with his Starfleet service, if the alternative was for him to return and take up residence with T’Pring. Her role as emissary for T’Pring’s family weighed on her. She could use the extra time to talk herself into the kind of neutrality required to perform that duty adequately. Another of the strange ironies of life, that she, who had never felt comfortable with his bonding to T’Pring, had to by all Vulcan duty present an option for him to take her back. She felt a new kinship with T’Pau, who when Sarek was in vrie, had to advise her in all logic, to choose challenge, or leave him, even though it would have assured Sarek’s death. Sometimes Vulcan duty was a royal pain.

But she had resigned herself to it, and the Enterprise barely had a parking orbit before she had a call put through. And a priority call with an Admiral’s authorization took precedence over all other duties for a mere Commander. Her son came to the pickup with more than a trace of exasperation on his Vulcan features at her machinations. But gloriously alive.

“Mother.” He sat down across from the pickup in his red draped quarters. “Did you not receive my message?”

“Did you think that would satisfy me? I wanted to speak to you anyway.”

“I am sorry I caused you such concern.”

“None of this was your fault. It was--” she hesitated saying the name, and Spock simply raised a brow.

“You need not be so circumspect. Perhaps it was not. But my situation unfortunately caused innumerable problems and concerns. For Starfleet, my Captain, and…you.”

“I imagine the rest of us will survive,” Amanda said dryly. “How are you?”

He drew a deep breath. “I am well, Mother.”

She looked at him searchingly. “How can I believe that? Spock, I am not exactly unfamiliar with the usual progress of Pon Far.”

He colored. “Mother, you should not speak to me of this.”

“Of course I should. This is my duty, Spock. And it is yours. Don’t treat me like the village idiot. I’ve been married to a Vulcan for 40 years, I know about Pon Far.”

He flinched at her repeated blunt naming of that syndrome. But that was typical for Vulcan males. Sarek was reluctant to speak of Pon Far, even after being married to her for over three decades. Even on the news, casualties of Pon Far were reported as an ‘unspecified fever’. That Spock would not name it could merely be that, and not that he was still suffering from it, even if in chronic form.

“The …combat…seemed to break the fever.”

Amanda eyed him closely, but his Vulcan mask was well in place now, and she could not read anything from him. “There are Vulcan healers at Altair, Spock. T’Pau wants you to see them. And so do I.”

He deviated from his Vulcan mask enough to look mulish. “That is unnecessary.”

“Spock, you must do this. In respect to your clan leader. It is her command.” When Spock still looked reluctant, she added, “And in respect to your Starfleet obligations, as well. Do you want to risk another …disruption?”

That argument swayed him. “Very well.”

“How…how is your Captain?” she asked hesitantly.

“He is well. He was only slightly injured before …the subterfuge of our ship’s surgeon took effect.”

“I know you’ve spoken of him as a friend. How is it between the two of you?”

“It seems to have survived it.” Spock admitted. “He is …quite a remarkable individual.”

Amanda drew a relieved breath. “I am glad. Someday I’d like to meet him. And your remarkable ship’s surgeon. I am so grateful to him. How much we owe him!”

“Do not let him know that. He is insufferable enough.”

There was enough of reluctant humor in his voice that she smiled in equal relief, grateful her son had such friends. “Funny, I thought that description best fit you.”

“Mother.” Spock shook his head slightly. “It is pleasant to speak with you. But your concerns are unfounded. I will see the healers as you wish. But we have just dropped out of warp, and I have duties that must take precedence now. I trust you and Sarek are well, and--”

She forestalled him before his reaching hand could cut off the transmission. ‘There is something of import we need to discuss, my son. And it involves a delicate subject. I don’t wish to distress your control. Are you equal to it?”

Spock grew wary, his hand returning to his side. “I am not in the fever. I am well. Surely there is nothing left to discuss of that situation.”

“There is the question of a bondmate.”

“That is not an immediate concern.”

“There is a related concern of that which is immediate. It involves T’Pring.”

“Mother, she is nothing to me now.” He said it with infinite patience, his ‘my mother is so human’ voice. “I have released her. She is Stonn’s.”

“Perhaps she is not Stonn’s.”

“I gave her to him.” Her brows raised, not in dispute of that, but in surprise that her son could be so Vulcan. Vulcan enough that even he, who had spent fifteen years in a service where women had at least tacit equality, could casually speak of giving a woman away as property.

Seeing that, he added, not understanding the reasons for her skepticism, “T’Pau was witness.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Amanda said carefully, thinking about how complicated all this was. What contradictions Vulcan men must deal with. And, with a flicker of acknowledgement to herself, what Vulcan women, or at least women married to Vulcan men must go through as well. “But T’Pring’s family has contested that as the challenge was improper, and the combat did not end in death, the divorce should be annulled.”

“Why would they contest that?” Spock asked, brows raised. “Did not T’Pring get precisely what she wished?”

Amanda half laughed, not in amusement, but in amazement that her son could be so dense in some respects. “Not quite. She didn’t want to be chattel.”

Spock’s brow cleared.

“Yes. Stonn was displeased at her unorthodox challenge and champion. Claiming she dishonored him, he has so far refused to release her from chattel status. Her family has been unable to sway him.”

“Indeed. His reasoning abilities were never great, and his logic hardly exemplary,” Spock spoke slowly, considering, “but T’Pring was aware of that when she chose him. It was one of the reasons she so chose him. That she could manipulate him.”

“Well now as chattel, she has found she has lost all leverage to do so.”

Spock shrugged. “She could have reasoned her actions might lead to this consequence. It was a calculated risk on her part. One she must have considered and accepted as worth the potential result.”

Amanda drew a measured breath, both marveling that her son could speak so indifferently to a woman – once his wife to be – living such a life, even though she had planned – hoped for – her son’s death in the planning. T’Pau was right, it was hard for her to consign even T’Pring to that. But it was harder still to speak the words duty now required her to say. “T’Pau has been appealed to by her family to annul the divorce.”

Her son’s face clouded. She saw him so rarely, spoke to him in real time so infrequently, she wasn’t sure if his emotionalism was due to Pon Far. Or simply if living in a largely human society he had come to relax some of his disciplines in that regard. But she didn’t have time to wonder, for his face was a valid predictor of his next words.

“It was a challenge lawfully given and accepted. I risked my life; my captain risked his. That he did not... die,” she heard his brief hesitation and reluctance over that word, “was immaterial. Our risk was the same. In payment for her release from an unwanted bonding, in payment for her risk of the lives of her bondmate and champion, she risked her freedom. That she lost her gamble, that Stonn proved as false to their planned future as she was to…to ours, that her risk has resulted in an untenable situation for her is irrelevant. She challenged. And she has lost. In all respects.”

Amanda drew a breath at the harshness of his tone. Even as she had seen herself in Spock a moment ago, now she could see his father. In vrie.

“Spock--”

“No, Mother.” His stormy eyes had narrowed, and he was shaking his head, human fashion as well. “I see no grounds for an annulment of the divorce. And even if T’Pau granted that annulment, T’Pring would still be chattel. My chattel. To do with as I please. Except that I have no wish to possess one so false as she. I could release her to Stonn yet again.”

Amanda shook her head in turn. “Please don’t take this as approval or an endorsement on my part. I am not advocating for this choice. But I’ve been told it is my duty – my Vulcan duty -- to present this to you. I speak on T’Pau’s directive, who as matriarch, is also acting from duty. No one is trying to force you back into a marriage with T’Pring. But I am required to present this offer to you. We are all acting from duty, and all that is required in duty from you is to listen to the proposal,” she winced at the inadvertent use of that human word, “I am required to give.”

His brow cleared and he sat back, relieved now that he understood why she had contacted him regarding this but clearly affecting disinterest. “Speak then. Let your duty be done.” And over with, his manner clearly said.

“T’Pring’s family is desperate to have her released from her present disgraced status. If you accept the annulment and agree to take her back -- as wife, as a bondmate with all rights and status -- they would agree to almost any marriage settlement you would request. Wealth, property, and her mother’s seat in Council have been offered.”

Spock’s eyes actually widened at that. “T’Prill has actually offered to permanently relinquish her family’s council seat? That is unprecedented.”

Amanda was surprised in turn. “Are you really interested in her Council position?”

Spock flicked an impatient brow. “If I had, would I have joined Starfleet?”

“You asked.”

“Merely from curiosity’s sake. It is an astonishing offer. T’Prill derives much status from her seat in council. I had not thought her so opposed to Stonn.”

“I don’t think it is Stonn, so much as her daughter’s current status that motivates her offer.”

Spock shrugged. “Perhaps she should have advised her daughter differently.”

“You think T’Prill knew of her daughter’s plans?”

“I can only speculate that T’Pring would be unlikely to so miscalculate as not to at least tacitly raise the prospect. She undoubtedly has her family’s support now. The one flaw in her reasoning was Stonn, and he was enough the weak link that she didn’t even trust him to win her challenge. But for her family to offer a hereditary clan council seat as a betrothal price is very nearly unprecedented.”

“Is it an inducement to you?”

Spock looked overly patient. “Regardless of my father’s disapproval of my current career, I am still his heir and T’Pau’s. I’ll inherit his position as Head of Council one day. Why would I be interested in some lesser seat?”

“You’d get this one now though.”

Spock flicked a reluctant brow. “Sarek would like that. No doubt it will increase my – Sarek’s –disapproval for me to admit that, at least at present, I much prefer my Starfleet duties. Nor does such an offer in any way compensate for taking T’Pring to wife. You may communicate that I have listened, fully appreciate and honor the offer given, but must refuse.”

“Are you sure, Spock? Sure you are really free of the fever, for now?”

“Yes.”

Amanda hesitated a moment, thinking of what she must do. “I don’t believe I’m asking this, but something in me must ask. You don’t have any qualms leaving T’Pring as chattel? She was to be your wife.”

Spock shook his head, not in denial, but in refusal to consider the question. “Her fate in that regard is no longer mine to decide. It is Stonn’s decision.”

“He’s not much of a judge.”

“She chose him to be her champion. Knowing that as such, he would be judge to her.”

Amanda drew breath at that.

Seeing her pause, Spock continued. “Mother, those who challenge sworn vows, who risk a bondmate’s life, and the life of another, who spill Vulcan blood in violence, by tradition have earned their chattel status. I cannot pity her. If Stonn chooses not to release her, that is his decision, and his alone. I have done with her.” Spock shrugged. “Perhaps he knows her best. In some respects, he might be wise in this. At least, as chattel, she cannot choose another champion to free her from another unwanted bondmate.”

Amanda shivered. “I understand. I suppose.”

Spock looked at her a moment, then shook his head. “I think you do not, could not, possibly understand, Mother.”

If you only knew how well I do, she thought, but only said. “I’m wife to a Vulcan as well.” She hesitated, and then said. “It’s still an awful fate. And you don’t know how reluctantly I say that.”

“I meant I do not think you could understand the character of one who would act as T’Pring did.”

Amanda sidestepped that dangerous discussion. Her son was still something of an innocent in that regard. “I didn’t think the Council seat would be much of an incentive, in itself. But I’ve now been authorized to say that whatever else you might want that they could give, you should consider on the table. You have only to ask. Her family is quite serious.” Amanda eyed him. “All that they have of wealth or property. They will offer you anything. They consider their clan honor worth any price.”

Spock drew back at this, eyes wide. “Mother, I can’t. I released her to Stonn. He accepted her. I couldn’t in honor take her back. She is his property and her fate, now, is in his hands.” He shook his head in impatience. “Perhaps I should not have released her to him. Perhaps, in the aftermath of those events, I made an error. But I thought it was what she wanted.”

Amanda closed her eyes, forcing herself to say it. “Well she doesn’t want it now, from all reports. Spock, I’ll say this just once more. She could still be yours. If you wish it. That is all I have been asked to say and all that I will say. I consider now that I’ve done my duty.”

“You speak of duty,” Spock broached. “Is this T’Pau’s wish?”

“She has refused any opinion on the matter.” Amanda hesitated and then said, truthfully. “I don’t think your Grandmother has much of an opinion of T’Pring now, but she would not be opposed if you accepted the offer. She is not advocating for it and has claimed neutrality.” Amanda bit her lips and then admitted, giving Sarek his due. “But I think your father would be…relieved…if you did so.”

Spock drew back at that, clearly uneasy. “Mother…” Spock hesitated. “You must know that I have no wish to oppose my – Sarek – yet again in a life decision. You must believe I am extremely reluctant to do so. I would not…if I could in all conscience not do so. But I think it is no secret to you that T’Pring and I had no true bond. Where the fault was in this I do not know. I tried. When we were children, before I left for Starfleet, I spent much time with her. Or tried to. But I could never seem to …reach her. It was as if there was nothing between us – at least, no bond such as I have observed between you and Sarek. I had considered perhaps it was because of my human heritage, but you are human and it doesn’t seem to be a factor in your bond. I thought…perhaps that it was because we had not been through a Time. And I had hopes that after that Time, we would …find each other. But when the Time came, T’Pring challenged. Our bonding was clearly a mistake, never meant to be. Yes, if T’Pring had not challenged, I would have taken her to wife. I would have honored and respected her throughout my life for her role as bondmate. And hoped, even if she remained indifferent, that she could find it in herself to do that much for me. Even if she could not--” But there he stopped himself. “But she chose otherwise and her attitude toward me can’t have changed. She felt nothing for me in my Time. Not even honor or duty. And now, it is only that she has now found her role as chattel untenable – and she should have considered that before she chose someone like Stonn. I would not have suspected even him of keeping a woman as chattel, particularly when not in the fever. I …feel…some pity for her. But nothing else. Pity is not enough, Mother.” He looked at her. “You must understand that. I do not want her to merely acknowledge me due to obligation. Or pity. And I will not take her as bondmate in pity to her. It is not enough.”

Amanda drew a breath at this. She remembered, long ago, telling Sarek that curiosity was not enough. “I do understand. I’m glad to hear that you do feel some pity for her. But I agree, it isn’t enough on which to base a marriage.”

Spock glanced at her. “Surely Sarek must also understand….that I am enough my father’s son to wish a true bondmate and companion, not owned property.”

“I think he does. And if he forgets, I’ll remind him.”

Spock half smiled. “No doubt you would. And like my father, I have no wish for a chattel, in law or in mind. As for T’Pring, Stonn is within his rights to keep her so. It is tradition, how can I judge him for it? Given how dangerous she is in her manipulations, perhaps he is wise to keep her so. Understands her as we do not. He perhaps knows her best of us all. She can hardly do much further damage in her present state. Regardless, I am not so foolish as to take her on again. Nor so dishonorable as to reclaim what I had given away. I could not take her back even if I wanted to, Mother. And I don’t want to.”

“All right. I think no one – in our family that is – really expected that of you, but I had to ask. And T’Pau, even Sarek, have said only that you are going to need a bondmate.”

Spock looked mulish. “Not now. This time that choice is mine to make.”

“Do you have a candidate in mind?”

Spock shook his head, eyes wide in astonishment. “Mother. How could I? I have not been free, nor am I of the character to offer anyone what was not mine to give.”

“But now you are free.”

Spock shivered, just a bit. “Yes. But now, I am also …once burned, twice shy. Marriage is a grave responsibility. Particularly to a Vulcan. I need time before I am ready to consider another marriage.”

“T’Pau has …lists…of unbonded females.”

Spock sighed. “If I must, I will accept and consider them. But she need not put T’Pring’s name on them. Whether Stonn releases her or not.”

“You’re quite sure?”

Spock drew up a little. “I am not so desperate, nor think so little of myself that I despair at finding a true bondmate. I don’t want T’Pring.” He softened a bit. “Perhaps I never did. Perhaps she sensed it.”

“Even as a child, you tried with her. If she sensed you didn’t want her, it was long after she made it clear that she wanted little to do with you.”

Spock shrugged. “Perhaps with reason.”

Amanda eyed him. “Spock, did she give you some reason for her challenge?”

Spock hesitated, then confessed. “She said she didn’t want to be the consort of a legend.”

Amanda drew a shocked breath. “A legend? What did she mean by that?”

“She didn’t specify, other than claiming I had a certain…notoriety…among our people.”

“You did?”

Spock shrugged. “Who else? Perhaps she meant my career in Starfleet and not my heritage. Does it matter, Mother? It is done and past. And…I confess, I am somewhat relieved.”

Amanda could hardly believe that T’Pring had come so close but not revealed the truth. But it seemed, she had done that. Perhaps there was some honor in the girl. It appeared, even with T’Pring’s blatant hint, Spock knew nothing of his father’s past condition. Of course, Vulcans were not the type to gossip, and T’Pring and he had apparently never held any heart-to-heart chats. She still wouldn’t have put it past her to have told him. But perhaps she’d had her own reasons. After all, Stonn could have found another. Or Spock could have won the challenge. Perhaps the girl truly had been afraid. Afraid and unwilling to raise that specter with a potential bondmate. Afraid to be the first to raise it. And now, in spite of all her machinations, she was chattel. And Spock would not save her from that fate. Amanda pushed aside her own unease at that. T’Pring had her own family. If wealth and property and council seats had failed with Spock, Stonn might not be so inviolate. Or they’d find something with which he could be tempted.

Amanda looked at her son, evaluating him anew, but he seemed free of any hint of the dark emotions that spoke vrie to her. No matter how she worried, in the absence of that, she knew she could not be the one to raise that prospect, even though his aborted fever worried her terribly. Some part of her felt Spock had the right to know. And another part of her shied from it. But now, when her son’s bond was so newly broken? Even if he claimed he was all right, he had to be unsettled. No, now was not the time. She buried the secret deep anew. Perhaps it was best he never knew. Perhaps it was an anomaly, affecting Sarek alone. Though everyone seemed to agree it made Spock more susceptible.

She just wished she was doing the right thing. To conceal. To tell. It was difficult to judge, but it seemed concealing the truth best, for now.

She hesitated, then said, “Will you come home?”

Spock stared at her a moment. “Home?”

“To consider your future. Now that you are not…not to be charged with any crime. To consider T’Pau’s lists?”

“I do not need to return to Vulcan for that,” he said a bit sharply.

She hesitated again, and then had to ask. “Will you consider a Vulcan at all? Or only a Vulcan?”

“I do not know, Mother. I have not been free to even think such thoughts. Now that I am free…” he shook his head again. “Surely there is no rush.” He eyed her. “What did T’Pau say?”

She hesitated, studying him and then sighed. “That if the healers on Altair judged you free of the fever, you could have…three years, before you would be required to make a choice.”

“That is…generous,” Spock acknowledged. “Time enough to finish my present tour of duty.”

“If that’s what you want,” Amanda said. “If the healers concur.”

“I do,” Spock said simply, then eyed her, “Mother you know I must finish my tour of duty.”

“I suppose-”

“Mother, would you have me walk out, abandon, such a captain? He who stood for me when I was in Need? And who risked his life?”

“No, of course not,” and then she smiled.

“You find that amusing?”

“Only that you were equally adamant you could not resign before this tour of duty. When you didn’t even know this Captain. Spock will you ever come home?”

“Captain Pike requested that I stay, to ease the new Captain’s transition. I am grateful he did, for this Captain is worthy, Mother.”

“I see that you lack nothing of loyalty, my son,” unlike the treacherous T’Pring, she thought. “But I’d like to know when you plan to come home for good. When you went away to school, remember, you spoke only of a few years.”

“By Vulcan standards it has been only a few years.”

“I suppose. And you have three more years. But in these next few years, think about your future, my son. It is time for some new life decisions.”

“On Vulcan?” Spock raised a brow, half teasing.

She sighed. “I would love you to come home. Consider now that you’ll need someone with whom to make a home. And given your future responsibilities, that does mean Vulcan, doesn’t it?”

Spock drew back a little, eyes wary. “You will tell T’Pau? And Sarek.”

“I do wish you two would…get over it. And talk to each other.”

“Mother. Nothing has --”

“Please don’t tell me that’s what’s keeping you from coming home. You know he wants you to--”

“Mother, I have responsibilities--”

“To Vulcan, as well as to Starfleet.”

Spock drew himself up. “Let us not talk of those at present. I came home, Mother. And the welcome I received was a challenge.”

Amanda sighed. “You’re right. This is not the time to speak of coming home. Perhaps you need a little time to …get past this. But don’t take T’Pring’s attitude as representing all of Vulcan. Or even your father. He loves you.”

Spock shook his head. “He is Vulcan. Mother this is not the time for this discussion. I have duties.”

Amanda sighed. “It seems it is never the time. All right, we’ll postpone it. Yet again.”

“I will see the healers as T’Pau requests, Mother.” Spock cut the connection.

xxx

Sarek looked up as she came out of the study. “He said no,” she said simply.

He hesitated visibly. “You spoke plainly to him of all the options?”

“Of course.”

“I know you disapprove. And Spock values your opinion,” Sarek said slowly.

Amanda’s eyes flashed. “Oh, for -- speak to him yourself if you think I wasn’t objective.”

“Amanda--”

“I did my best to be objective. Do you really think Spock would want her? She’s such a cold little bitch. And worse, she’s manipulative. Condescending.”

“Amanda--”

“Why would you want her for Spock?”

“Aside from her recent contemptible behavior, she is willing. And of suitable lineage.”

“Unlike me.” Sarek said nothing for a moment, and something clicked in her mind. “Does having suitable lineage really make up for the fact that she is totally unsuited for him in every other way?”

“Unsuited how?”

“Sarek. You know what I mean. My god, I would rather he had married T’Jar than T’Pring. Kitchenmaid or not, that girl at least has a heart.”

“You are being emotional.”

“Of course I am. We’re talking about a marriage. His wife. Sarek, I have said nothing all these years because Spock was bonded and there was nothing I could do. But I’m not going to stay silent again while you or T’Pau try to bond him to another suitable but heartless girl. Wasn’t it you who spoke to me of Vulcan passion trumping Vulcan logic only in the marriage bond?”

“That is true, when it is chosen. It is not necessarily a proper choice for every Vulcan.”

“Isn’t he entitled to that as well as you?”

“There are many factors implicit in choosing a suitable wife.”

Amanda said nothing for a moment. “So, was that the reason for T’Pring? That’s she was so unlike me? Did you find me such an improper choice that you had to pick someone for Spock who shared absolutely nothing of my traits?”

“I have told you before, you were a perfect choice. For me.”

“But not for Spock?”

Sarek hesitated. “His control is necessarily hard won. I deemed it best--”

“That he have a wife whom he couldn’t possibly care for?”

“Amanda, at the time I bonded Spock I did not think that. I had every expectation T’Pring and he would be compatible. But now… T’Pring is Vulcan--”

“And I’m not.”

“Spock necessarily has dynastic responsibilities as regards children.”

“That didn’t stop you. Not for one minute.”

Sarek was silent for a moment. “Amanda, I don’t wish this to cause contention between us.”

“You don’t wish – do you know why it has not, Sarek? Because for years I swallowed my objections regarding your choice for Spock, and went along with it, like a good wife, because it was what you wanted.”

“Not solely me. It was also what Spock wanted,” Sarek reminded her. “To be raised in the Vulcan way.”

“Don’t give me that argument. You were raised in the Vulcan way, Sarek. And you still managed to find a lot of room in your life for choices, even non-traditional choices, and for emotions--”

Sarek shook his head, “Amanda, that is not precisely true--”

“All right, for passion, all suitably contained in a marriage bond. But if you could do that for yourself, I don’t see why Spock can’t have the same. He’ll need it even more – he is my son as well.”

“Precisely because of that I deemed it best he marry a Vulcan woman who would help him in his …control.”

“As I don’t help you.”

Sarek glanced at her. “I am not a child, to require outside control.”

“Sarek, why is your own personal Vulcan way so totally unlike the Vulcan way you defined for Spock? I thought you were going to raise him to be like you. Not like some automaton that bears no resemblance to the husband I know.”

“There are some respects in which it is best Spock is unlike me,” Sarek said. “I would think you would agree.”

“I don’t. It’s not fair to Spock. And it’s not fair to me either.”

“Sometimes things are best, even if they are not entirely fair,” Sarek said.

“You’ve regretted it,” Amanda said. Now that all her worries about T’Pring had come true, she finally let herself express the hurt and betrayal she had felt all along that Sarek had bonded his son to a girl she had never liked, had never thought suited to him. “All this time, you’ve regretted your own choice -- and me. That’s why you bonded Spock to that cold little bitch. Because better her than someone like me.” She stared hard at her husband. “Don’t lie to me, Sarek. Maybe you even blamed me for what happened to you.”

“Never you.”

“I don’t know that I believe you,” she said slowly. “Tell me I’m not just a little bit right.”

He hesitated just a fraction too long. Too long for her, anyway, hypersensitive and fragile. And she whirled away. Outside. When she and Sarek disagreed, he went to the parapets, to the sky and the stars to meditate. She usually went to the gardens. And in her gardens, built out of love by him, if not personally by him than by his order, she usually talked herself back into some sort of acceptance. After all, what choice did she have? Marriage to a Vulcan was for life. There was no nice judge to grant her a full pardon and a ticket to Earth. And she was no T’Pring.

And he was Sarek. She did love him. Though at times she could throttle him, and at times he could infuriate her. All of which she’d known before she agreed to marry him. She’d never expected her marriage not to have its rocky shoals. Perhaps that was another reason why Sarek had her gardens built. He’d known she’d need them, from time to time.

But these were not her gardens, but the embassy gardens, on Earth. An Earth now alien to her. Which came abruptly back as she was faced not with the deep ruby sky and various shades of pink to flame of her rose garden, but with the soft pastel profusion of spring flowers on Terra. She wasn’t home and yet, she was. But she couldn’t feel it.

She put her head in her hands and wondered if this was what Spock felt, after all these years. When no choice really felt right, but that you couldn’t go home again. It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered that, for Spock, but she had never felt it so poignantly for herself.

When you couldn’t go home. Or when your sense of home had changed, so thoroughly, that you wandered forever alien between two cultures.

Surrounded by blue skies, a yellow sun, the too light catch of earth gravity, breathing the moisture laden, too oxygen rich air, it was a sobering thought. She’d felt this before, on Vulcan. When the humans of the embassy there let her know that she was not of them, was considered outside the fold, more Vulcan than human. She’d felt it elsewhere, at other diplomatic events, among less cosmopolitan humans, who saw things through uncompromising standards. She was more at home on Vulcan, and with such humans as understood and respected a larger view. Of life. Of the Federation. Who didn’t judge everything along narrow human lines.

Of course, even on Vulcan, she found those who judged things among narrow Vulcan standards. Sometimes even in Sarek. Particularly when it came to their son.

And she realized, like her son, how lost she was. How lost they both could be. But she knew Sarek well enough that strict Vulcan that he could be at times, at others, he felt the huge gulf that separated them, human to Vulcan. Finding himself alien to her, finding her alien as well. And no doubt he’d felt a little shunned and alien as well, in his own culture, for taking a human wife. For having a half human son, Vulcan though Spock did appear. She knew how hard he had worked, for his son’s acceptance as a Vulcan in Vulcan society. She knew how broken he had been, when Spock rejected that life, and went off on his own.

It was a hard task for all of them, to keep that gulf narrowed, harder at some times more than others. And it would be only too easy to give up on it. But then she really wouldn’t have a home.

It was one reason why she kept badgering Spock, even Sarek, to resolve their differences. It was too easy to let things go, to drift. But then you were truly at sea, with no safe harbor. No home.

She came abruptly out of her flare of temper, to stark reality. Even though the pastel flowers made her surroundings seem like some dream. Her reality might be a blended mix of human and Vulcan. But it was what she’d chosen, long ago. She had just never quite expected how life would serve the same painful compromises up again and again, in new situations. But if they served them for her, they served them for Sarek too. She wasn’t the only one in this situation.

But there were times she felt she was the only one trying. To resolve their differences. To make that home a reality, in spite of the negative attitudes within both their cultures. Her son, her husband, could be so stubborn.

xxx

As she frequently told Sarek, she wasn’t a child. She got over her temper relatively quickly, even sans her own garden to meditate in. She’d known Sarek had always wanted what was best for Spock. And it was no secret in their family that he considered Spock Vulcan enough that only the Vulcan way would do. That had been the case all her marriage, all through Spock’s childhood. And in spite of all that had happened between them, and now between Spock and T’Pring, apparently none of that had changed. He was still as stubbornly Vulcan as ever. And he’d married her, he even claimed to love her, but it certainly wasn’t anything new that he believed the Vulcan way was logical, right, best – at least for Vulcans. Where that left her, was where she’d always been. Outside the pale. It was only in the last fifteen years, with T’Pau’s sanction of her marriage, and T’Pau’s acceptance, she’d forgotten how outside she was. Even at times, with Sarek. He was still Vulcan, and uncompromising in some ways as ever. She was still human.

So. Before T’Pring challenged, Sarek had thought better that cold, icy rejecting bitch for her son, than someone who could love him.

And after T’Pring challenged? Nothing had changed. Still, Sarek considered better a cold icy bitch for her son – for their – son, than someone who could love him. Someone who might be human. No wonder her son wanted time to think, when even his parents at times couldn’t resolve their issues.

Her husband could be a mass of conflicting views about such things. And she supposed she was too. She wondered, sometimes, how they had lasted. But one reason, she knew, was because they sometimes accepted they had these differences, and forgave each other for them. The worst of them were when Spock was in the middle. But the worst had happened for Spock and he seemed able to shoulder on with his duties. And so must she.

So must she.

That Sarek hadn’t sought her out meant that at least in some respects, she had been right in her accusation. And she didn’t know how she felt about it, but it wasn’t exactly news to her. She just had never confronted him with it, at least not so openly. And now that she had? Well, if it was truth, wasn’t it for her to accept? It was a little late to make a fuss about it, when the worst had past. Spock could make his own decisions now. And she loved her husband, stubborn Vulcan that he was. And she had long ago said yes. And that yes implied a lot more than she’d realized at the time. But though her foot faltered at times, she was equal to the task.

She sighed, and looking at her watch, resigned herself that her sulk had to be over.

There was an embassy function they had to attend that evening. It would be a terrible breach of protocol if they didn’t at least put in an appearance. That would be a disservice to Vulcan – and she took her duties, all of them, seriously. Her personal issues with Sarek had nothing to do with her clan obligations. Even Sarek wouldn’t be able to understand it if she let such interfere with a prior commitment.

And one day her son would be clan leader, would no doubt inherit some of his father’s ambassadorial duties as well. She would not have it be said his mother was a disgrace in that regard. One drawback of being even slightly a public figure was that you did have to live something of your life in the public eye. During bad times as well as good.

Resigning herself to that duty, she went up to their suite to prepare. Sarek was nowhere around that she could see, but as she was doing her hair, he came in. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“You are still angry,” Sarek said, cutting to the chase.

Amanda put down the jeweled pin she been about to fasten in her hair. A Vulcan heirloom, though not an important one. Not T’Ianye’s jewels, which never traveled off planet. She fingered it, thinking of the Vulcans who had worn it, and wondering who would wear it next. She had thought it would be T’Pring. Now, who knew?

“There was something I never thought to make you promise me before we married,” she said, fingering the pin. She looked up at him, but he didn’t ask. He was savvy enough in negotiation not to set himself up. She wondered, that he used those skills even with her, but he just watched her, eyes dark and wary.

“I made you assure me you wouldn’t try to turn me into a Vulcan.” She took the pins, and brushed them back into the jewel box, took the one she had already placed out of her hair. Instead she twisted her hair into a French chignon, low at the nape of her neck. It wasn’t Vulcan, but she didn’t care. “And you assured me you wouldn’t.”

“And I have tried to keep that promise, so far as I could.”

“Yes, you have,” she said, absolving him of that. Oh, she’d adapted to Vulcan, acclimated, become familiar with Vulcan ways and Vulcan philosophies and if she had taken what she would from that, was it not largely her choice? And she wouldn’t apologize to anyone, least of all herself for that. She met her husband’s eyes, seeing him as a Vulcan as she so rarely did. Alien. Analytical. And cold, when he chose to be, which was almost never with her. Almost never. “But I forgot one very important thing.”

This time he did ask. “And what is that?”

“I forgot to make you promise never to turn my children into Vulcans.”

A flicker of impatience on his brow. “Spock is Vulcan, Amanda.”

“No. He is my son as well as yours.”

“Biologically he is Vulcan dominant. As recent events have confirmed. And culturally – he was raised Vulcan. In every practical aspect, Spock is Vulcan. And he chose that life as well.”

“As a baby, yes. As an adolescent, no.”

Sarek’s eyes flashed at that. “I will not speak of Starfleet, Amanda. That has nothing to do with this. Or with us. Spock is Vulcan. Now more than ever, Spock has proven himself so. He has the ancient drives.”

She looked up at him, still through the mirror. “You don’t see it, do you? Sarek, it has everything to do with him, and with us. Spock is as much me as he is you. And even as you, it’s an issue. You are not that good a Vulcan.”

Sarek drew back, astonished at this, “Amanda!”

“Don’t Amanda me. Why must you insist that Spock be a better one? You won’t let him be like me, and you don’t even want him to be like you. What do you expect him to be?”

“Vulcan. I have never changed in that regard. I have always expected him to be Vulcan.”

“But what kind of Vulcan? You didn’t choose a T’Pring for yourself. At least not then.” She looked down at the jeweled pins. “There’s a question I can’t help but wonder at, though I suppose it hardly matters at this point, at least not to anything but my emotions. But as Spock must choose again, so must you someday. And I can’t wonder, would you choose one now? You’re so insistent on what Spock needs, I wonder if you believe it also for yourself.” She looked up at him, staring at her in astonishment though the mirror’s glass. “Indulge my curiosity. After all, my lifespan is much shorter than yours.” She rattled the box. “Who will wear these next? When I die--”

“Amanda, do not speak of this--” he reached out, but she pulled away from his hand and refused to turn, still looking at him in the mirror. Part of her reminded herself she was Vulcan too, or ought to be. She was a Vulcan wife. But part of her was still unaccountably hurt and wanted to hurt in turn. And in spite of her resolve to the contrary, she continued, hitting him with words that would be far more devastating than any blows she could physically inflict.

“Why not, it’s a logical question? You must have thought of it. When I die, you will still be in need of a wife. You’re not going to expire romantically above me, like Romeo over Juliet. You are too good of a Vulcan for that. You have responsibilities, so you’ll shoulder on.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just as we must, even if our son had died on that Challenge field. So, who will you choose to replace me? Someone like T’Pring? Cool, logical, cold? You might find it refreshing. She might even give you more children – Vulcan children from whom there’d be no question as to their heritage or their choices.”

“Amanda, enough! I will not stay to hear more of this.”

She flinched at the harshness of his tone. But she deserved it, her own had been caustic. She looked down for a moment, shamed. Seeing her hands, on the dressing table. She’d redone her nails for the party, of course. It was being given in their honor, so naturally, every hair had to be in place, every part of her as perfect as could be. But she had been careless, this time. And she could see, caught in the corner of one thumb, between the side of her nail and the cuticle, the barest trace of green. Paint from her aborted artistic efforts, that she’d failed to scrub from under her fingernails. That she’d missed, that she’d failed to catch, to see, to obliterate. She looked at it for a moment, remembering Sarek holding her as she cried. He had held her, and rocked her like a child, while she cried. When she knew she’d been crying for them both. At T’Pring’s terrible betrayal of their son. Sarek had been in as much pain over it as she. Perhaps more.

What had changed since then? It came to her, a rush of shame obliterating her, that in the absence of T’Pring, she’d been taking out some of her anger on the one Vulcan handy. Sarek wasn’t blameless in all of this, but no more was she. She’d raised her son to Vulcan standards too. And then she’d had the gall to indulge in very human behavior.

Hers was an ignoble act, and one that made her realize that at this moment, she didn’t like herself very much. No hurt of hers excused her cruel words.

“I’m sorry,” she said soberly. And met his eyes, directly this time. Not in the mirror. “I am sorry, Sarek. Sometimes I can be a real bitch. I apologize. Another disadvantage of marrying a human. I was unfair. T’Pring’s challenge wasn’t your fault. You certainly didn’t expect it.” She lowered her head. “And even…if I did…I didn’t realize how…tense, I was over the possibility. And when it happened, I just had to -- anyway, I’ve gotten it out of my system.”

He shook his head and sat down beside her. “I have been considering as well my wife. Perhaps this was for best.”

“That I blew up at you? Well, you’re right in some respects. I’m ashamed enough of myself that I’ll be all sweetness and light for at least the next few months. Or at least, I’ll try.”

“You mistake me, Amanda. I meant…perhaps T’Pring’s challenge…was for the best.”

She raised her eyes warily to his. “I thought you wanted him to take her back?”

“In some respects it would be prudent,” he admitted. “And in others, not. I do respect his choice not to do so.” He looked doubtful again. “If he can so choose.”

“That’s not what it seemed to me you were saying earlier.” She eyed him. “And it still seems you think it wrong for him to let her go. And I just don’t understand that in you, Sarek. I know I shouldn’t think of myself when it is Spock who has suffered most, but it has hurt me too. Why do you think it so wrong for him not to want her?”

“Not wrong, precisely.”

“UnVulcan, then.”

“It is unVulcan of him, my wife.”

“I don’t understand you. You’re Vulcan. And you chose me.”

“Quite. Amanda, T’Pring was Spock’s promised bondmate for many years. I am aware there was little…feeling…between them, but still it was …difficult for me to conceive of her as now belonging to another than Spock.” One hand reached up to smooth her hair. Undoing the French chignon. She didn’t stop him. He liked her hair loose, or in formal situations arranged in traditional Vulcan styles. “I think you really do not understand Vulcan males, my wife. Even after all this time. You do not understand me at all.”

She looked at him for a long moment. Thinking of T’Pring. Part of her ached, for the Vulcan bondmate her husband should have had. Did he regret that, even now? Was that why he was so regretful? Even as he’d promised never to require her to be Vulcan, he was a Vulcan male. And she did adapt in so many ways, or tried to. Even in little things, like dress and hair. Was she more at sea, more lost from home than even she had realized? “Would you have taken her back?”

For a long moment Sarek was silent. “How can I answer that, Amanda? I cannot even conceive of such a hypothetical question when I can think only of you. You ask too much of me. I am not human. For me, there is no other but you. And Spock…is Vulcan as well. Do you not understand me, even in this?”

She drew a breath, looking up at him. Still amazed at how, after all this time, how alien he could still be to her.

“In that, Spock’s actions are incomprehensible to me. I do not understand how he could let T’Pring go.”

“Not entirely incomprehensible, Sarek.” She met his eyes. “You must understand at least a little. You released me. You were even willing to let me go entirely. Out of love. You were Vulcan then. How can you find it difficult to believe Spock could do the same? Even if for very different motives.”

His eyes met hers. briefly, and then lowered, his voice hushed as well. “I did agree to let you go. Yes. Perhaps that is why I so feared for Spock, now, in his letting T’Pring go. And was …hopeful…for some reconciliation.”

She closed her eyes as if the truth, unsuspected, now blinded her, shivering against that terrible image, and found herself held again. Oh, that other self sacrificing side of human love, that for a Vulcan, was so incompatible. With marriage. With life. She had tried not to imagine Sarek’s fate if she had taken him up on that offer, after he restored her to bondmate status after vrie. To release her entirely. To let her go. They had never spoken of it, afterwards. But she had suspected it would have meant Sarek’s death. A bond like theirs might be broken by death – till death do we part – but Sarek was as much as telling her why divorce, to a Vulcan male, had to be a combat to the death. Obliquely letting her know that would have been that case for him, had she made such a choice. Because if a Vulcan male lost the combat, and his bondmate, he would die anyway. Better a clean death by a blade than to die raging in the fever, unable to take another, unable to have she who he was bonded to.

No wonder Sarek had wanted her son to keep T’Pring. Because he loved Spock. And he couldn’t face the thought of his death.

She pressed against him, unable to get close enough, and hoping he could at least find it in himself to forgive that which was human in her, even as she excused the inexorable Vulcan biology that was part of who he was. How often she forgot. Even though she knew, how often she forgot that for Vulcans this was deadly serious. Until death do we part was a reality for Vulcans. Of course, Sarek would never be able to forget that. He was a Vulcan male. “Will Spock be all right?” she whispered.

“He had another chance,” Sarek said, hushed, almost in the same tone, “and he refused to take her back.” He put her away from him and met her eyes. “I do not fully understand how. But he must believe himself…free…of that need. At least he is free enough to take such an action.”

“You must think me an awful person,” she said, “to assume the worst of you when you were advocating for his taking T’Pring back. When you were just trying, in your own Vulcan way, to keep him safe.”

“No,” Sarek said. And his voice was very gentle. “How could I think that of you?”

She still couldn’t face him. “What do you think, then?”

“I think that even after all these years among Vulcans, you are still human, my wife. So very human you cannot help but attribute human motivations in very Vulcan situations.”

She drew back, but daring to meet his eyes a little. If being human was a crime, he’d long accepted her in spite of that. But still… “So I am stupid, am I?”

He half smiled. “Limited perceptually. Perhaps.” He tilted his head, looking at her fondly. “Nothing more than I expect…of my very human wife.”

She shook her head, refusing that gambit. She was well aware he was teasing her. A typical line – and method – they used to blow off steam when things got too tense between them. But they did have that party to attend. And the usual consequence of his baiting her was not feasible right now. She chose to remind him of that, however obliquely. “If I hadn’t just promised to be sweet for a few months, just imagine what my response would be.”

“But you did pledge so,” Sarek reminded her. “Though I have always told you I found you so, my wife. So much so that you need no biological reason to compel you to stay with me. Through Times…and more.”

“I have my reasons.”

“And I intend to hold you to them.”

“And I always keep my word,” she said, puzzled and wondering if he really intended the subtext under all this. The gleam in his eye told her he did, but surely…

“Indeed,” Sarek said, one hand caressing her cheek. “Unlike the treacherous T’Pring, I consider myself quite fortunate that my wife does honor her commitments in that regard. Under all circumstances. All.” His hand moved lower. “And hope, whomever Spock chooses as his future bondmate, she has his mother’s character.” His hand found its way to her hair, and spread it over her shoulders. “And his mother’s beauty.”

“Sarek, we do have this party,” she protested, past all obliquity, as he followed that action with undoing the fastening of her shift. “We just don’t have time...”

“Indeed? Based upon the current time, and our past behavior under similar …constraints, I estimate--”

“Don’t say it!” She twisted a little in his embrace, not really rejecting, but resisting at least a bit, “Do you really want to rush?”

“I did once tell you I would never rush you, my wife.” Sarek paused. “But that was under entirely different circumstances.”

She drew a breath. It wasn’t at all unusual for Sarek to want to make up after an argument in a very intimate way. Vulcan male that he was, he countered any breach in their bond with a very personal reinforcement of it. She’d grown used to that, but this was a bit much even for him, under the circumstances. Even if they hurried, it was calling it close. “Wouldn’t you prefer to wait until we get home when we can pursue this …in a more leisurely fashion?”

“It will be some months before we will return home.”

“I didn’t mean Vulcan,” she said in frustration, but it was a lost cause as he picked her up. She shook her head in amusement and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving in to the inevitability of her Vulcan husband. She had, after all, long ago said yes. And Vulcans took that very literally.

“And here, my wife, you had just been telling me that you considered Vulcan your home.” He looked down at her, still half teasing. “Have you reconsidered?”

“Yes,” she said. She could tell she’d surprised him. His brows rose. “Home isn’t Vulcan.” Seeing a shade of uneasiness cross his eyes, she assured him, “And it isn’t Terra, either.”

A trifle impatient, for Vulcan that he was, he was well aware of the time, and how little time they had for this, before they would be inexcusably late. “My wife, what can you--”

“Home is you, my husband,” she told him. “Where ever you are, that is home to me.”

For a moment, he simply stared at her, expressionlessly. And then the teasing sparkle went out of his eyes and he kissed her, deeply enough that she realized this was leading to no quick encounter.

“Sarek,” she murmured, struggling to get breath enough even for that, “remember, we have that party-- We can’t not go. It’s for us.”

“As we are the guests of honor,” Sarek reminded her, “They will have to wait.”

“Sarek--”

“This is Terra, my wife. We will bow to local custom. We will be fashionably late.”

“Vulcans are never late. They won’t expect it.”

“I will blame it on my human wife then. Going native.”

“Native, am I? I’ll give you native.” She laughed and gave in. “Oh, it is good to be home.”

And this time, Sarek didn’t bother to correct her.

xxx

The ceremonies on Altair concluded, the Captain had returned from the final round of parties. Spock had left for his appointment with the healers as soon as Kirk had returned to take command. But Kirk had left Uhura on the bridge, and sat in McCoy’s office, still in his dress uniform, though he’d loosened the collar, and swirled the drink McCoy had put in his hand.

“Drink up, Jim. Best headache remedy I know.”

“I hate political ceremonies,” Kirk said, and took a swig.

“Got yourself in the right business, then.”

“We’re supposed to seek out new life. New civilizations. Not be jangled like a party favor on an orbital string while the old ones celebrate themselves.”

“There’s a saying on Terra, Jim. That rock we call home. You dance with the one who brung ya. Meaning the present civilizations – whose taxes pay for our pretty ships – get a piece of us too.”

“Hmmm.” Kirk said. “Tell me again why he had to see these healers. Are you sure he’s all right?”

“I defy any damn Vulcan healer to find something a state of the art diagnostic system can’t. Or a good old fashioned human doctor. But you know Vulcans. They triple check everything. But there’s nothing to find. I checked him out from his bangs to his toenails, Jim. He’s 4-A. Not a thing wrong with him. Now.”

Kirk shivered. “There was before, though.”

“Like he said. The combat must have shocked him out of it.” McCoy eyed him. “You took an awful chance, Jim.”

“Me? I wasn’t the one with the shifty hypospray.”

McCoy shrugged. “No chance there. I knew it would drop you. My only worry was getting Spock to realize you were dead before he realized you weren’t dead.”

“Come again?”

“Getting him to stop fighting. Getting you out of there. Never was I so glad to have a transporter beam take hold of me. Of us.”

“Practice, maybe,” Kirk said. Seeing McCoy’s confusion, he added. “Spock. We work out a bit together. I want to be able to stand up to Vulcan strength, though I admit I’m pretty well overmatched. He’s learned to stop real quick when he drops me. It always shakes him up.”

“You never told me that.”

‘You’d disapprove.”

“You matching yourself against Vulcan strength? Damn right I’d disapprove.”

“I need the challenge.”

“Ouch,” McCoy said. “Careful there, Jim boy.”

Kirk winced in turn. “Bad choice of words.”

“I’ll say.”

“Tell me again.”

“He’s fine, mother. Jim, you’re a good Captain, but you are getting too damn broody about your crew. And that Vulcan. Like I said, you took an awful chance. First with your career. And as it turns out, with your life.”

“I won the gamble, though.”

“You did,” McCoy acknowledged. “With a little help. But you still took an awful risk.”

“A gamble on Spock? Never was a gamble easier to take. He is the best First Officer in the Fleet,” Kirk said. And shrugged. “And my friend.”

“Self sacrifice,” McCoy snorted. “Good old fashioned human emotion. Would he do it for you?”

“He did it for Pike,” Kirk said quietly.

“True enough. I’d forgotten that.”

“I haven’t,” Kirk said reverently. “What a gamble he took there. I hated him at the time, but afterwards… all I could think of was what a brilliant, desperate, insanely dedicated ploy. How can anyone say Vulcans aren’t devoted? Even if I thought nothing of him myself, how could I let a man like that go down in flames? And the worst of it is it was all classified. So no one knows of it. And people still believe that lie about Vulcan non-emotion.”

“When instead they can go down in flames. Literally.”

Kirk sighed, and took another drink. “What an awful thing to hang over one, Bones. Vulcan biology.” He gave the doctor a look. “And you knew.”

“I suspected at first. Then I knew. He’s a bit young, even for a first time. Must be his human blood.”

“He turned out Vulcan in the end, though,” Kirk said, shivering a bit. “He was right about the madness.” He looked at McCoy again. “You’re sure?”

“All his readings are back to normal. Or what passes as normal for him. What, Jim?”

“Just those priority calls – when Spock never – hardly ever—gives or takes them. And then this visit to the healers. Obviously someone’s checking up on him.”

“Family, most likely.”

“I wish they’d been at the ceremony. I’d have liked to meet them. Though meeting T’Pau was wonder enough.”

“You weren’t in a condition to meet anyone.”

“Hmmm. Bones?”

“You want to take him back to Vulcan and fight him all over again?”

“I would, if it came to that.”

“Even knowing it’s a fight to the death?”

“Got out of it the last time. Somehow, I’d manage it again.”

“You’re a damn self-sacrificing fool, Jim.” McCoy shook his head.

“Just a good friend. I hope. It’s taking an awful long time, though, isn’t it? If they find anything wrong, you don’t think they’ll just …quarantine him, do you? Keep him in custody, maybe until they get him back to Vulcan? I wouldn’t imagine they’d trust us to do it, as much as we nearly bollixed it the first time.”

“He wasn’t exactly straight with you at first.”

“He was…at last. Anyway, like I said before, he’s saved my life a dozen times. Once I understood, I owed him. Turn about-- Where the hell is he?”

xxx

Amanda was rushing around, fighting with shoes that had transported themselves under beds, fastenings that wouldn’t fasten, and hair that kept succumbing to gravity.

“Why does it always take human females so long to dress,” Sarek complained, watching her, “when you can disrobe in--”

“How do you know so much about human females?” Amanda asked, giving him a look askance. Her hair took advantage of her distraction to tumble down again. “Anyway you’re the one usually doing the disrobing in these situations. I just go along with it.”

“I have it on the best authority. Amanda, we are now 5.2 minutes late.”

“Are we fashionable yet?”

“You must tell me that. Amanda…”

“Nagging isn’t helping. Anyway, whose fault is this?”

“Yours.” When she looked at him again, he added. “You tempted me. Another human trait of yours.”

“You don’t need me to tempt you. You manage very well all on your own.”

Sarek reached out to hold up another section as she pinned it. “Hardly on my own.”

“Hmmm. You know, you never told me,” she said, struggling with the pins in her hair.

“Tell you what?”

She pushed in another pin. “Who you’ll marry next?”

“Amanda!”

She smiled. “I just meant how will you explain all this illogic to a Vulcan --”

“You are being incorrigible.”

“You are that. I’m merely being curious,” she said innocently.

“To no avail.” Sarek said.

“I worry about you too, Sarek,” she confessed, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I worry about both my Vulcans. I wish I could know that you’ll be all right -- you must have thought about it. Sarek, please tell me--”

Sarek’s eyes met hers. “Never.”

She lowered her eyes. She knew that never. “How can I not worry? You’re Vulcan and someday you’ll--”

“I am Vulcan,” Sarek intervened. “And as a Vulcan, all I can think of is you.”

She drew a breath. “If we don’t go to that party this minute, we might not get there at all.”

“A tempting thought,” Sarek said, but he helped her finish pinning up her hair, and they didn’t speak of it again as they walked out the door.

xxx

The doors to McCoy’s office opened and Spock stood framed there, ordinary, prosaic, in his blue science tunic, looking from McCoy to Kirk, both of them a little owlish from brandy. “Captain…Doctor.”

“So?” McCoy asked.

Spock laid a tape precisely before McCoy, neatly bisecting the two brandy glasses. “I am well, Doctor. In all respects.”

“See,” McCoy said to Kirk. “Like I said. Ain’t nothing a Vulcan healer can do that I can’t.”

“I beg to differ, Doctor, you being entirely psi-null and a healer requiring--”

“I meant nothing I can’t diagnose. Your Vulcan mental techniques aside.”

“At least in this respect, you are correct, Doctor,” Spock said equably.

McCoy eyed him suspiciously. “When you agree with me, Spock, something is wrong.”

“Not at all,” Spock said. “I am merely…gratified in this case that both Starfleet and Vulcan medical authorities are in accord. Human medical arts so rarely--”

Kirk slapped the desk, startling everyone. “Enough, you two. Spock, that is damn good news. Come, join us. Celebrate.”

“Celebrate, Captain?” Spock raised a forbidding brow. “What exactly are you celebrating?”

Kirk smiled innocently. “The president of Altair. Hadn’t you heard? He got himself invested today.”

“Indeed, Captain,” Spock answered in the same tone. “I believe I had heard something of the sort was to occur. That is news worth …celebrating.”

“You two are incorrigible,” McCoy said.

“And a certain Vulcan First Officer’s welcome home.” Kirk eyed him. “I was beginning to worry.”

Spock was astonished. “Really, Captain, there was no need--”

“I told Jim he was being overly broody. He’s a Starship Captain, not a--”

There was a whistle from the bridge comm. “Captain,” Uhura said, “We have a priority transmission. New orders we need a command officer to acknowledge.”

“Come on, Spock,” Kirk didn’t wait for McCoy to finish, but tugged at his arm. “We have a store to mind.”

“Mother hen!” McCoy bellowed, but the doors had already closed behind them. “Hmmph.” He took a meditative drink. “Someday I’m going to get the last word with those two.” He eyed the tape, considered viewing it, already pretty sure what it said. “But I can wait. There’s time. At least three years, I’ll wager.” He sighed, pushed aside the tape, and pillowed his head on his arms. “You done real good, McCoy,” he said. “The unacknowledged hero of the hour,” he congratulated himself. “Even without the last word.” And then the alcohol and the relief hit him both at once, pulling him under, strong as any Vulcan, as any Starship Captain. But he had no reason to fight and let the tide take him, serenely, into sleep. His job well done.

xxx

And aide handed her the message at the party. By Vulcan tradition, it was given to her. As T’Pau had said, fathers had no place in these situations. But she glanced at Sarek before she broke the seal. And was aware of his eyes on her as she read it. She didn’t need to tell him the result, he saw it in her relieved sigh. She handed it to him and watched him as he scanned the few lines, but of course his expression changed by not so much as a millimeter.

“So he has three years,” she said to him.

Sarek glanced at her, and then crumpled the message in his hand. “And no doubt he has informed you he intends to stay in--” Sarek stopped, unwilling still, even to speak of Starfleet.

“Just for a few more years,” she coaxed.

Sarek shook his head. “Let us not discuss it.”

Amanda sighed. “I was hoping this might bring you two together.”

“Since Spock refuses to return home, obviously it can not.”

Under cover of the crowd, Amanda took her husband’s hand in hers. “Home is where the heart is, darling.” It was and old saw, but a revelation that had come to her anew, in the embassy gardens. Terra, Vulcan, both were alien to her now, each in their way. She had no home but him.

“I don’t see the relevance,” Sarek said, still stubborn.

“Give him yours and then perhaps he might.”

“I think perhaps my human wife is thinking once again with her heart.”

“The heart has a different logic,” Amanda agreed. “But I think a universal one – even human to Vulcan.”

“That depends on the humans and the Vulcans,” Sarek said, in reluctant concession.

Amanda only smiled, but she thought even her son might agree to that. She didn’t think it was logic alone that kept him in Starfleet.

xxx

On the Enterprise, Nurse Chapel roused McCoy enough to drop him into a diagnostic bed. In his quarters, Kirk stepped out of a sonic shower and rubbed thoughtfully at the faint line across his chest, already fading with treatment, that was the only tangible reminder of his sojourn on Vulcan. And Spock pushed a tape into his viewer, glanced one final time at the image of a young girl displayed there, and then hit the erase key. The screen went obediently blank. Spock shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. There was an empty spot in his mind where once the tug of the bond had been. But he was not disheartened. In fact, he felt almost a sense of relief. Of joy, since he’d first seen his Captain, and friend, alive and well. No, his mind might be lacking that tug of a bond. But the fire in his blood had faded. He could not even be totally disheartened by these events. For he was still able to remain on the Enterprise. Among shipmates, fellow officers, friends. No, his mind might be slightly more empty. But his heart was full. And it was here.

And then he banned such thoughts as unVulcan, and went to pull on a fresh duty shirt. He had the night watch on the bridge, and he’d gotten disgracefully behind on his duties.

But at the back of his thoughts was the realization that he had three years. Three years and perhaps a little more. To stay where his heart was home.

It was enough, for now.

Fini

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Home is Where the Heart is

By

Pat Foley

Holography -- Tentatively Series 4

September – November, 2005

At Brookwood