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Chapter Text

“Doctor Grayson? We are landing in ten minutes.”

Startled, Amanda lifted her head from her padd. Her copper-red hair fell over her face, and she fumbled to brush it aside to answer. The co-pilot, a young Cardassian with startling blue eyes, just smiled at her. 

“Nervous, Doctor?”

She returned their smile. “Would you be, if you were the first to be granted a research mission on Vulcan?”

They shrugged. “I’ve been on plenty strange planets before, Doctor. Vulcans are stubborn bastards, but why should they be any different than the other stubborn bastards of the galaxy?”

She cocked her head. “Given that I chose to study Vulcanology, I am sure you will forgive me if I disagree.”

“Sure.” Their smile grew wider. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be too nervous. You’ll charm them in no time.”

The pilot cleared his throat and patted the Cardassian on the arm. They gave Amanda a last wink before they had to turn around again to face the control desk. 

Amanda bit her lip. She really hoped the Cardassian was right. 

Of course she had been on Vulcan before - she had met Vulcans - she had studied their language for literal years and had edited the first Vulcan-Standard dictionary, for God’s sake. Still, the idea of living on her own among them for two years unnerved her. Not because she did not know what she was getting herself into - but precisely because she did. Vulcans were a tough nut to crack. 

With a sigh, she pulled out a small mirror out of her handbag. If she was to make a good first impression, she should at least try to pin her hair up the way Surak suggested for Vulcan women - long, flowing hair was still seen as a marker of pre-Reform times. For a second she cursed herself that she had not set time aside for this earlier. Instead, she had gotten distracted over records of the first anti-Surak uprising in the third quadrant of the planet. But it was no use - with a few practised strokes, she combed her copper hair and began braiding it up into a bun. At least she had found time to change on the five-hour flight. 

Her dress, a pastel turquoise with long sleeves, would, she hoped, appeal to the Vulcans. After all, green was their colour of affection. It was a Starfleet uniform cut, but she had taken the liberty of adding a more flattering neckline and a pencil skirt - small advantages she more than enjoyed as an affiliate researcher for the Federation. 

She took one look out the window. The endless red planes of the Vulcan desert stretched out below them, only occasionally broken up by the straight lines of inter-city routes or the perfectly circular shapes of the Vulcan cities. The sky was of a reddish hue as well, as if the entire planet was trapped under a cloud of desert smoke. That’s because it was.

No matter how often Amanda saw this sight, it always amazed her. The transporter shuttle made a hard turn to the right, bringing the slowly descending Vulcan sun into view. Underneath them, Amanda could make out the small, glittering outline of the shuttle port. In a few minutes, they would touch ground.

She took one last look in the mirror. Her braided hair was pinned up in what could pass as a hairdo, even though two untameable curls still fell into her forehead. At least a tiny bit of makeup had reasonably covered the dark circles under her eyes. She straightened the top half of her dress again and took a deep breath. 

All would be well. She knew Vulcans. She was as prepared for this as anyone could be. Still, her heart was beating in her throat.

“Touch down in 60 seconds,” the co-pilot announced. “The Vulcan Science Academy has just informed me that their welcoming committee is already at the platform.”

Amanda stilled in trying to tuck her curls behind her ear. “Welcoming committee?!”

The Cardassian shrugged. “You weren’t informed?”

“No!”

“Oh. Well, there will be - uh…” they tapped on their padd, “...two officials from the Vulcan Science Academy, two Vulcan admirals of the Federation, and one ambassador, plus his attaché, I guess, they never put these guys on the lists - that, and your research aides, of course.”

Amanda could feel her heart picking up pace. Fuck. “My research aides?”

The drawn out whirring sound of the engines powering down alerted her that they had landed. The Cardassian opened their seatbelt and spun their chair to look at her. Their eyes were truly strikingly ice-blue. “Supplied for you by the VSA, if I read my briefing correctly. And all of them are waiting just behind that door.”

Before Amanda could protest, they had already pressed the button. 

Other than the desert heat, the shuttle port - once the dome over it was closed - was pleasantly cool and clean. Chromium surfaces and glass clicked under her heels as she descended from the shuttle ramp. 

The welcoming committee was standing at the other end of the dock. It relieved her to see Professor Sovan among them - the older scholar had already been a kind mentor to her, and crucial in getting her case of a research proposal to the high council of the VSA. Next to the stern, ascetic older man stood another Vulcan man in academic robes with graying hair and heavier set features. Two young Vulcans, a man and a woman, huddled behind him - apparently, these were to be her research aides. On the other side, she could make out two Vulcan women in Starfleet uniforms. One she already knew - T'Pau, high-ranking admiral and politician, with the reputation to hold Vulcan traditions in especially high regard. Amanda was glad she had taken the time to do her hair, seeing how T'Pau taxed her appearance the second she emerged from the shuttle craft. Behind her was another woman she did not know. In her head, she went through the list the young Cardassian had given her - two professors, two researchers, two admirals, and one-

“May I assist you, Dr. Grayson?”

The dark, firm voice startled her. Whipping around, her foot slipped on the chrome tiles of the ramp. She yelped, and fell straight into the Vulcan man who had waited next to the shuttle door. Strong arms caught her before she could hit the ground. With incredible presence of mind, he had caught her with only one arm, her face pressed into his shoulder. He stiffened.

“My apologies, Doc-”

“I am terribly sorry, Mister-”

They both paused. Amanda raised her head. The man who had caught her was a tall, broad shouldered, handsome Vulcan man, with a round jaw and straight nose, and eyes so dark she feared to get lost in them. Her heart skipped a beat. Then he cleared his throat and she scrambled to let go of him.

“Thank you,” she murmured, pressing his hand in gratitude. He only pursed his lips.

“I hope you are not hurt?”

She gave him a little smile, twisting her foot from side to side. “No, I don't think so. Thank you.” 

“There is no need to express gratitude for my assistance.” 

He let go of her and raised his hand into a ta'al. 

“Diplomatic officer Sarek, Miss. It is a great honour for Vulcan to welcome you here.” 

It was only when she had already formed the ta'al in response that Amanda realised that she had just held - pressed - the Vulcan's hand. 

God, what must he think of her?

Yet before she could apologise, Sarek had already turned around to walk over to the rest of the welcoming party. All she could do was scramble to follow. 

T'Pau greeted her surprisingly heartily - as heartily as Vulcans could. Her jet black eyes still taxed her entire silhouette, yet there was an ever so faint air of approval when she returned Amanda's greeting. Professor Sovan, too, seemed pleased to see her, and introduced her to the two VSA students who were to support her project. They were T'Pali, a girl with striking grey eyes and accent-free Standard, and her fellow student, Solik, who apparently knew more about Vulcan and Terran history than a ship computer. Even Sovan’s companion seemed to be impressed with her flawless pronunciation of the Vulcan greeting which she had learned on the flight.

“I assume Ambassador Sarek has already introduced himself?” Sovan asked after the formal greetings had been exchanged. “He has expressed the greatest interest in your project.”

That surprised Amanda. The ambassador had seemed so distant - his dark eyes still rested on her, his expression entirely illegible. 

“Then I hope you will pay me a visit in my office?” she asked. Sarek, of course, did not reciprocate her smile. 

“If you deem it necessary,” he replied instead. Her smile faded. Maybe she had offended him more than he let show. She could feel a blush rising to her cheeks. 

“Ahem,” she very eloquently replied instead.

The Vulcans, deaf to anything that humans perceived as awkward silence, remained politely stiff until Amanda spoke again. 

“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, desperate to make up an excuse, “but it was a rather long journey. I’d be happy to see the office that was prepared for me, though. I will just fetch my-”

“Your luggage is already being transported to the apartment assigned to you,” Sarek replied. “I hope you will find accommodation in the Starfleet headquarters suitable. It provides all amenities Terrans are accustomed to. We feared that you would find a more traditional accommodation… uncomfortable.”

“Oh.” Yes. Of course that made sense. She swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow and exchanged a glance with T’Pau. If Amanda read her Vulcans correctly, it was because whatever he said, the two of them did not see it as a compliment. Luckily Sovan cleared his throat before her discomfort could become too visible. 

“If you do not mind, Doctor Grayson, there’s a shuttle waiting for you outside. T’Pali, Solik and I would gladly accompany you and Ambassador Sarek to your office-”

“You may leave without me,” Sarek interrupted. Sovan furrowed his brows at T’Pau, who nudged Sarek with her elbow.

“I must insist, Ambassador-”

“Dr. Grayson has already expressed that she is feeling exhausted from the journey. I believe adding another person to this process would only unnecessarily tire her. I therefore deem it more logical that only the strictly necessary people accompany her. I fail to see why she would enjoy my company.” His dark, cold gaze fixed on her. “Doctor Grayson.”

Amanda could only swallow hard and nod in agreement. “Oh, yes,” she replied, quietly. “I am sure you have important matters to attend to.”

A simple nod. “I do.” With a sharper tone, he added, “I know your customs and ours differ. Still, I’d ask you to accept my welcome.” He pointedly raised his hand. “Live long and prosper.”

With only half a mind, she requited the ta’al. Then Sarek whirled around, his long cape billowing around him like a dark storm cloud, and strutted away to the exit. T’Pau, her companion, and the older Vulcan professor followed suit. 

Amanda’s heart sank in her chest as she watched them go. How long had it been since she set foot on Vulcan? Twenty minutes? And already she had lost one supporter - surely Sarek was offended by her tactlessness. As he approached the door, Sarek stopped to let T’Pau and the older scholar through. Behind his back, he flexed the hand she had taken, his long, pale fingers trembling against the rich fabric of his dark robes. 

The view down over the Vulcan cities never ceased to amaze her. After the fashion of ancient Vulcan villages, their layout was strictly circular, with roads extending from the centre like a spidery web of straight lines. The holoport, in one of the outer rings of the city, slowly descended under them as their shuttle took off. Amanda suddenly wondered how Sarek was going to get back - after all, he was most likely also going to the Vulcan Starfleet office. They could have shared a shuttle, if he had such important business to attend to. Then again, he had been in a hurry-

Under her, she could make out the grey, shimmering streak of a maglev train whizzing into the heart of the city. Yes. Sarek probably had taken the train. 

The shuttle took a hard left and the skyscrapers of the city centre came into full view. In respect to the scorching Vulcan sun, they did not glitter, but were painted in matte white. The wind whistled through the many gaps left in the high ventilation towers that provided at least a semblance of cool air in the heat. It had always fascinated Amanda how cultures - Terran and alien - could thrive in such harsh conditions. Surely the Vulcans were made of sterner stuff than most humans; stronger, faster, and- 

“Doctor Grayson, look out!”

T'Pali, the Vulcan girl, pointed at the window on the other side of the shuttlecraft with only barely concealed pride. When Amanda followed her outstretched hand with her eyes, she gasped. 

The building of the Vulcan Science Academy, directly opposite to the Starfleet headquarters, stood out against the red sky like a giant, blindingly white monolith. Groups of smaller towers rose to a pyramid-like structure in the middle, with a high tower forming the peak. The roof of each individual building was a terrace, connecting it with the other cells of the building complex. The blue rectangle of solar panels covered every terrace to shield it from the sun. Only the highest three towers were tipped with blue half-domes that, Amanda knew well, encompassed three different astronomical observatories. 

As the afternoon sun slowly descended, a wave of light swept over the front of the building, setting it into an even harsher outline against the colour of the sky which was slowly bleeding into crimson red. On some of the terraces, Amanda could make out tiny figures - students on their way to their afternoon lecture, maybe, or professors enjoying some refreshments in their break. She wondered whether one of them was Sarek. 

Minutes later, the hover shuttle landed on the roof of a smaller teaching building. The wind immediately blew into her face as soon as she stepped out of the shuttle, this time more careful not to fall over. While she covered her face against the millions of red grains of sand that were being blown into her eyes and hair, the Vulcans showed themselves unimpressed. Of course. Second eyelid. Yet, noticing how she squinted against the onslaught of wind, Sovan quickly ushered her and the two students inside. 

The building itself was cooler and thankfully much quieter. Amanda immediately breathed a sigh of relief. The white corridors belonging to the sociology faculty were lined with Vulcan artefacts - fabrics, beautifully woven carpets and pre-Surakian totem figures. Even the tiles on the floor shimmered with an inlaid geometrical pattern. Despite the exhaustion settling in her bones, she had to try very hard to not squeal with excitement when she saw a pre-reform mask mounted onto the wall next to what would soon be her office. 

Someone had even made the effort to fix a neat plaque with her name on the door: in both standard and Vulcan, it said “Dr. Amanda Grayson, Sociologist.” The Vulcan translation of her name made Amanda squint. T'gai - that literally meant “daughter of the gray one.” Maybe whichever Vulcan had made this translation had decided that a mere transcription of the English sounds did not go far enough. It endeared her more than it should. 

They had even already calibrated the door lock to her voice profile, fingerprint and biometrics (although the Vulcans still insisted that physical keys and keycards were the safest options - Amanda admired this about them too. They were technological geniuses, but they were not blindly following scientific progress.)

It was almost even more endearing to see how the two students tried very hard to mask their excitement from her as well as from their teacher. 

Obviously, both of them belonged to the brightest and best students of sociology - otherwise they would not have been chosen for a project so controversial and complex. Yet, it was hard not to be excited, even for a Vulcan, when the doors to the office slid open with a satisfying whoosh.

The room was quite spacious, with large floor to ceiling windows on two sides. T'Pali and Solik had two desks, facing each other on the east side. Amanda's larger desk, all chrome, glass top and holo display, was on the north side, with a beautiful view over the centre of the city, the high plateaus of the Vulcan mountains emerging on the horizon. A long-necked lamp extended from its base in the corner to the spherical shade directly over the desk. In the corner without windows, there was even a small tea table, close to the floor as was Vulcan fashion, and two enormous bookshelves. They were still mostly empty, save for a couple of Amanda's own publications and three rolled up meditations mats. 

It was a completely different world to the closet-esque, cramped space that Amanda had worked in for two years at the Starfleet Academy University. 

“Is everything to your liking, Doctor?” Sovan asked after several seconds of stunned silence. The two students stopped fiddling around with the remote for the ceiling fan and dropped back into parade rest. Amanda suddenly was keenly aware that she had been staring at her new space with wide eyes and open mouth.

“Yes. Thank you, it’s perfect,” she stammered, still overwhelmed with the view out over the Vulcan desert.

Sovan only lowered his head slightly. “We had hoped you would deem it so, Doctor,” he said. “However, if you notice that there is anything lacking, you can always notify me and we will do our best to accommodate your wishes.” He bowed slightly into her direction, the faintest impression of a smile dancing around the corner of his mouth. “No matter how cold our manners might seem to you, the Vulcan Science Academy is very honoured to have you here.”

“Thank you.” 

Motioning Amanda to follow him, he already turned to leave. “Now, since you mentioned that you are tired, let me show you to your apartment.”

“What about you two?” Amanda asked when she noticed that the two students, still standing with their arms folded behind their back, did not stir. The young man, Solik, furrowed his pointed brows.

“We will remain here to sort your books and other materials, Doctor,” he replied matter-of-factly. His pronunciation was slightly more accentuated than T’Pali’s, yet entirely flawless in grammar. “It is the most efficient way to ensure that you can start your research as soon as possible.” 

T’Pali exchanged an approving glance with him. Their faces gave still no sign of disapproval or enthusiasm. Amanda immediately shook her head. 

“No,” she answered. “When I am calling it a day, so can you. We’ll start tomorrow.” 

Solik’s face tensed up for a second, then he and T’Pali nodded in perfect unison. 

“If that is your preference, Doctor,” she replied. “Then Solik and I will use our free time to go over the extended readings for our phonetics class. If you would excuse us.” 

And with another almost scarily synchronous ta’al, the two of them turned towards the door and disappeared into the hallway. Amanda wondered for a moment whether they were androids.

As soon as they were gone, Sovan switched off the lights and closed the door behind them. 

“You must excuse them,” he said, again with a tint of amusement at the back of his tongue as they turned around the next corner. “We selected them not only because they are two of the best students the sociology department has, but also because T’Pali and Solik are growing to be more and more compatible. I am sorry to meddle your research with such private business, but it is the wish of their families that they are to face challenging experiences together to realise the full potential of their katric bond.”

Oh. That would explain the meaningful glances. 

“So they have already been bonded?” Amanda asked, now growing more curious. The Vulcan tradition of bonding was still one of their best kept secrets - in all her years of studying the Vulcan culture, she had not come across a single record of what a bonding ritual required. 

Sovan must have noticed her sudden interest. His eyebrows quirked up in response.

“Not in the same way as you Terrans would consider an engagement or a marriage,” he explained calmly. “They were deemed compatible as children and were betrothed to one another. This bond has proven to be fruitful, even as they are still quite young. It is likely that they will be fully bonded once the time comes for Solik.”

“What time?”

They had reached the glass door leading back up on the roof where their hover shuttle was still parked. With a practised flick, Sovan motioned to let the glass panels slide apart. A gust of wind hit them, and whatever evasive reply he gave was blown away. Apparently Amanda would just have to find out what it meant to share an office with two newlywed teenagers. 

The Starfleet building was of newer design - industrial metal and exposed natural stone gave it a much more universal appearance than the VSA, the pride and joy of Vulcan culture. Even the signs in the hallways were in Standard as well as in Vulcan, although - and Amanda sighed - some of the translations were more than imperfect. 

Her apartment was located in the residential wing of the building, where diplomats and other officials from all parts of the Federation would be housed. Her heart skipped a beat. Was it possible that the Vulcan ambassadors were also living here?

But that was ridiculous. Surely they could have their own place in the city. She allowed herself a frustrated sigh. 

The man probably despised her, and even if he didn’t, he was probably also bonded to someone he had known since childhood. She had not even checked whether Sarek was wearing a betrothal medallion or not. Maybe he had a family somewhere in the city - and regardless, what would that change? And what would it change if he was single, if he was living in the same building, and if she could potentially run across him in the mess hall? Nothing. Still, the very thought of bumping into Sarek in the hallway made her thoughts freeze. 

“Doctor Grayson?” 

Fuck.

Sovan’s look was growing a little concerned. “I do start to believe that you would benefit from some light meditation,” he said mildly. “You seem very tired.”

“Yeah.” Amanda straightened her shoulders. “A nap would be great.” 

If Sovan was unfamiliar with the term, he did not let it show. Instead, he handed her a keycard and pointed towards a solid black door at the end of the hallway. 

“Then I will leave you for today. Tomorrow we could meet around midday to discuss your plans. Would that suit you?”

It would. With another “live long and prosper,” Sovan bid her goodbye and disappeared down the corridor in an extremely dignified ruffle of academic robes. Amanda put the keycard through the scanner, slipped through the door and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Upon a sudden twist of her gut, she realised that she was homesick.

With one hand, she undid the braided bun that held her hair together. Her scalp had started itching. Her curls fell down over her face, featherlight touches against her face and neck. With a sigh, she brushed them back over her head. Maybe a shower would help clear her head. 

Raising her head, she could see her apartment for the first time. The hallway led to a small living room, complete with bookshelves and a nook in the windowsill, and a very well equipped kitchen with a Terran table and chairs. Someone had even had the presence of mind to supply Terran silverware - forks, knives, spoons, but also a variety of chopsticks and other utensils were lined up neatly in the first drawer she opened. 

The bedroom, however, took the cake: a large bed was set into an alcove directly under the large floor to ceiling window. It was surrounded by gauze netting, a feature that was more traditional than necessary, since no one in their right mind would open the windows to let any dust or insects in. Plush pillows and a light blanket were fluffed up on the mattress. Opposite to the bed was a large wardrobe with a full body mirror. For some reason, most of her luggage had already been unpacked, her dresses and other clothing neatly folded and hung up. Her fingers trailed over the exactly ninety degree angles in which her blouses had been folded. That was a trick the Vulcans had to teach her, she decided. But not today. She took one of her sleeping gowns and panties and went to the adjoining bathroom. 

Given that Vulcan had to use water very sparsely, Amanda was not surprised that she had to make do with a sonic shower. As much as she yearned to just strip and submerge herself in a bathtub of warm water - in the hope that this would drown out her thoughts - she would have to settle for standing still in the humming cabinet in the corner of the room. With a sigh, she shucked off her dress and underwear and stepped into the glass cylinder. A click of the button, and the sonic started to hum lowly. 

Amanda tried her best to relax her muscles and leaned her forehead against the pleasantly cool as the warm breeze caressed her bare skin. Her hair was falling around her face, frizzed by the sonic hum of the shower. She would have to brush it out later - or maybe tomorrow - she was feeling more tired by the minute.

She had been so foolish. 

With sudden certainty, all the exhaustion and confusion of the day came crashing down on her. As kind and gentle as Sovan had been to her, and as delighted as the two young Vulcans seemed to work with her, the cold look in Sarek’s piercing, dark eyes still stung, and she could still feel T’Pau’s disapproving glare on her back. 

But Sarek - Sarek she had offended, more deeply than she could tell yet, and in the eyes of everyone on the hangar deck she had made clear that she was not yet ready to study the Vulcan culture. She was alone, exhausted, and stuck on a stranger’s planet, with not a single human soul in a lightyear radius.

When a tear caught on her bottom lip, she realised that she had started crying. God. Foolish, hysterical girl.

The image of Sarek’s hand flexing would not leave her mind - his long, lean fingers, his strong arms that had so protectively held her. His chest had been warm. For a moment she indulged herself with the memory of his steady breath on her face, the softness of his hands, the low timbre of his voice saying her name, those eyes tracing every inch of her bare body, hands running gently through her loose hair- 

The humming noise stopped. Apparently there was a time limit to avoid someone actually passing out and falling asleep amid warm air and pleasant white noise. Perfectly logical.

Amanda stepped out, towelled herself off out of pure habit, and slipped into her evening gown. 

When she stepped back into the bedroom, she could not help but shiver - her gown opened over her chest in a low vee, her arms only covered at the shoulder by a strip of lace. She could feel the goosebumps pricking up on her arms and chest. The AC was still cooling the room to a temperature perfectly pleasant when one had spent the entire day in the scorching sun, but now that the outside temperature was dropping, she felt a chill. Maybe the Vulcans overestimated Terran tolerance to temperatures.

A glance out of the window assured her that the sun was slowly descending in the distance. It was by no means too early to go to sleep. With a long yawn, she switched off the light in the bathroom, drew the semi-transparent blinds over the windows, and slipped under the warm covers of her bed. 

Her padd had been placed on her night table and gave a chirping noise just when she was about to put her head onto the incredibly inviting pillow. Trying to blink her way through the creeping sleepiness, she opened it. 

It was a couple of messages from her colleagues and friends, most concerned with whether she had landed safely. She typed a few short responses, one little note to her parents and sister, but when she had to retype the same sentence two times over, she decided that she was too tired for anything like this and dropped her padd onto the night table again. The picture frame next to it fell over with a clattering noise. 

Amanda had to smile when she propped it up again and saw the picture some gentle Vulcan hand had inserted in it: it was an antique photograph of the first Terran mission to Luna, over 300 years ago. The grey horizon of the moon surface was set against the dark, glimmering vastness of space. Fixed in the middle was the oval image of earth, a bright blue marble adorned with white swirls of clouds. She looked small, fragile even, enveloped in that pitch-black background. Her fingers danced over the blue outline for a moment until they hit the cold glass. 

Home. So far away, yet someone on this strange, emotionless planet had reasoned that she would miss her Earth.

She put the frame closer to the edge of the night table and laid her head onto the pillow. 

“Good night,” she muttered. Then sleep swept her up like a gentle wave. 

Chapter Text

The Vulcan sun rises early, a gleaming white shield rolling over the horizon in swift strokes. The chill of the night was still clinging to Amanda's sheets when she woke. It had been a restful sleep, though full of strange dreams - bits and pieces of it she could still trace in the stream of her memory - dark voices and strong arms, and a warm, tight embrace - 

She shook her head. Oh dear. It was a new day, and she had no time for such trifles.

She drew the blinds over her bed. The air over the city was slowly heating up, flimmering over the horizon. The buildings were glimmering in the light, while the streets, far below the high rising towers, were still cast in cool shadows. 

A glance at her padd alerted her that she would have to hurry a little to get to the lab in time. It would be unforgivable to add not respecting Vulcan punctuality to - 

No. Amanda swung her feet out of the bed, sat up and took a deep breath. She would not think about Ambassador Sarek today. There were about 6.45 billion Vulcans on this planet, all of them interesting to her studies. It would be illogical to focus on only one. 

With a look in the mirror, she realised that she should really have brushed her hair last night - her usually luscious curls were frizzed and floating around her head like a copper halo. She pulled a face at herself. Her reflection grimaced back. 

Grabbing her hairbrush from the cupboard with one hand, Amanda made her way to the small kitchen to rifle through the drawer of replicator discs. There was no time to make a proper meal, so she settled for replicating an oatmeal and a tea. While the replicator pod started humming, she surrendered to the reality of her hair and decided to just braid it up again - maybe she should get used to it. Her hair was not nearly sleek enough to attempt any of the fashionable Vulcan hairstyles, and she still knew too little about which hairstyle signified what relationship status and class to take the risk at all, but this was close enough. With a determined chin, she rammed the last bobby pin into her bun and tried to ignore that her curls were already making their escape from the braids she had wrestled them into. 

The replicator gave a loud ping. With another look at her padd, still resting on her night table, Amanda cursed. Shit. Fine. Why didn't she build her career around a planet that didn't give a shit about punctuality?

Of course, the Vulcan Science Academy was already swarming with people at 9 in the morning. Amanda could hear the hushed whispers of all the students that she passed. She had realised too late that her bright blue uniform and red hair would stand out like a neon sign among the sea of light grey student robes and jet-black bowlcuts. A couple of black or white clad figures, researchers and professors, ushered among the crowd of students, though most of the older Vulcans made an effort not to stare too openly at her. Making her way to the next elevator, Amanda caught the eye of a Vulcan boy, a first year, given from the blue belt on his hip, who was staring at her with eyes so wide they were basically the size of teacups. Reflexively, she gave him a smile. The boy flinched and blinked in absolute shock, as if he had just seen Amanda unhinge her jaw and swallow one of his classmates whole. Of course. The poor boy probably only knew smiles as an example of alien social behaviour from one of his sociology classes - if he even studied that. Glancing at the book he pressed to his chest as if it could protect him from an onslaught of alien emotion, she could make out the words “aeronautical” and “engineering”. Well. No luck. 

The buildings of the science academy were laid out in a hexagonal grid, akin to Terran bee hives - a rather apt metaphor, Amanda thought as her glass elevator ascended and the foyer of the building slowly disappeared under her. The buzz of Vulcan voices and the patter of thousands of feet rushing to classes had something of a gigantic bee hive. Added to it was the everpresent hum of the ventilation system - maybe she should have asked her new engineering friend how that one worked. The heat in the street had already been sweltering at this hour, but inside the building, the air was warm without being overbearing. 

She took a sip from her tea, in the futile hope that the caffeine would wake her up. Instead, the instant burn on the tip of her tongue made her jerk her mouth away from the cup. Great. She took another deep breath. There was no use in letting herself become frustrated over this. Maybe she should give Vulcan meditation practices another try. 

The doors of the elevator slid open with a metallic whoosh. If she walked a little faster, she would make it on time. 

The door to her office was already ajar when she arrived. Amanda stopped. It was nine in the morning - who on earth - 

Then she heard a muffled hum.

Peeking through the gap, she could see that the lights in her office were turned on and that someone was already sitting in the office chair facing the other window. She scooched a little closer to the door. It was T'Pali, her eyes closed and her forearms resting on the desktop. Both her hands were gently holding what were most likely Solik's. The tips of their fingers were lying on top of each other, entwining their hands in what looked more and more like an intimate Vulcan kiss. When T'Pali gently curled her fingers towards herself, enveloping Solik’s against her palm, Solik hummed again, a low, surprised noise. A pleased non-expression flitted over T'Pali's face. She obviously knew what her fiancé liked. 

Amanda withdrew, biting her lip, not only because she wanted to leave the two their privacy, but also because her worst predictions seemed to be correct - the significance of hand-holding was not only cultural. Judging from the - for a Vulcan concerningly expressive noises - she could hear from in tere, the fingertips must be sensitive, very sensitive. 

Behind the door, T'Pali gasped. Right. Enough of this. 

Amanda took two steps back, dropped her keycard to the floor and tried to click her heels as loudly as possible while picking it up. 

“Oh fuck !” she cursed loudly. There was a very hurried shuffle behind the door, a chair slid back with a loud creak.

Amanda waited a moment, then picked up her card, pulled down her skirt, and opened the door. 

Her assistants, both absolute prime examples of Vulcan propriety and restraint, had shot up from their chairs with their hands clasped behind their backs. Only Solik looked a little blushy around the ears - that was frankly adorable. Given the mischievous glimmer in T'Pali's otherwise non-expressive face, she thought so, too. She raised her hand in a ta'al.

“Good morning, Doctor.” 

Amanda faked a surprised expression. “You are already here?”

“Solik and I were attending an extra-curricular morning lecture on the practices of Terran science in the Northern hemisphere,” T'Pali answered. “We were just going over our findings. Tell me, Doctor, what are your opinions on the use of the metric system?”

She was an excellent liar. Amanda hung up the shawl that had protected her face from the hot wind and shrugged. “I find it quite practical. Why?” She turned around. “And you two can sit down, please.”

The two exchanged a look, doubtlessly deliberating that offer telepathically. Solik shrugged and hid in his chair behind his holo monitor. Poor boy. 

“We were told that several Terran countries refused to adapt the metric system even centuries after it was first established. Do you know of any reason for that?”

Amanda couldn't bite back a chuckle. 

“I guess that could be because the English and the Americans are rather-” she searched for the word, “- stubborn.”

Both of them furrowed their pointed brows in unison. “Stubborn?”

“Oh.” She thought for a moment. There was no word for that in the limited emotional Vulcan vocabulary. “Hard to be convinced, set on one's own opinion. A sort of - mental inertia.”

Solik nodded. “That does sound exceedingly human.”

“Solik!”

T'Pali immediately spun around in her chair. “Doctor Grayson, you must excuse him. Solik has not yet finished his studies in interspecies diplomacy. It was not his intention to offend your species with his honesty.”

Amanda only grinned and tucked an escaped curl back behind her ear.

“No worries,” she said. “I must remind him that, before the Surakian reform, the individual territories of Vulcan all followed the measurement systems of their respective leaders, which were hardly unified or even logical. In fact, the reason for the second T'Mila conflict in 1415 was that the T'Mila faction offered the opposing warlord Sukal a territory of 400 square 500 miles as part of a truce agreement. Sukal discovered too late that miles according to T'Mila's tribal system measured 1305 metres, while his tribe measured a mile as roughly 1800 metres. The acquired territory was therefore much smaller than previously expected. You might remember the field of ruins that were discovered last year just outside of Gol - it was all that was left of T'Mila's stronghold after Sukal burned it to the ground in retaliation for this trick.”

The tips of Solik's ears paled. “Of course,” he answered. “I should have considered that.”

“Yet we must remind Dr. Grayson,” a deeper voice said from the doorway, “that after the Surakian reform, all regional leaders swiftly adapted to a logical metric system. Within the span of two years, all of Vulcan was using standardised measurements.”

Amanda whipped around so fast that her hand flew through her holo monitor. The familiar tingling of hundreds of individual laser needles hitting her hand made her fingers itch. In the doorway, tall, handsome and incredibly smug, stood none other than Ambassador Sarek. 

His eyebrows arched up when their eyes met. “A win for Vulcan logic, I would say.”

Amanda was too confused to respond anything, except to mirror his ta'al. Sarek gave her two assistants, who had shot up from their chairs, a polite nod. Then his dark eyes fixed on her again. 

“Doctor Grayson, forgive my intrusion,” he said. “But I reasoned that you would feel like an apology for my behaviour yesterday was in order. I recognise that, by human standards, I must have seemed rude. If it would suit you, would you want to accompany me on a tour around the city? It would be beneficial to your general sense of direction.” 

Oh. Amanda blinked. Did a Vulcan just apologise to her?

“Has my general sense of direction been worrying you, Ambassador?” she asked and cocked her head. Sarek's brows furrowed. 

“Worry is a human emotion,” he said after a beat. “I have reasoned that, logically, you do not know the city and that its layout has been deemed confusing by other Terrans. I must have underestimated you, please accept my apologies for that mistake.”

Was she mistaken or was he blushing, just the faintest shade?

Amanda grinned and twirled her pen through her fingers. Sarek pursed his lips. 

“It would be beneficial to you, Ambassador, to not underestimate human emotion,” she teased. “But I accept your apology. And your invitation, if it's still on the table.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see how Solik's eyes were immediately scanning the table top of her desk. Finding no literal invitation, he turned to T'Pali, who just slowly shook her head. Sarek nodded. 

“Agreed. If you would follow me. My shuttle is waiting downstairs.”

“Give me a minute.”

With a look at her calendar page, she reassured herself that there were no other appointments lined up yet. Apparently, one of her assistants had already put in some routine dates - the dinner with Sovan this afternoon, the academic function next week where she was supposed to present her thesis proposal, and - that was interesting - a 30 minute meditation break every afternoon of the week. But other than that, her day was still free. She looked up to meet the round, clear eyes of T'Pali. Well. She and Solik would surely not be disappointed to have the office to themselves for a couple of hours. 

“I concur with Ambassador Sarek,” the girl said quickly. “This knowledge would be useful to you. Would you allow Solik and me to stay here and look over our - study material?”

Solik, if that was possible, sunk deeper into his chair. And people said Vulcans couldn't lie- 

“Of course,” Amanda grinned. “I trust you will get less distracted here than in the library, right?”

“Certainly,” T'Pali replied without even blinking.

Biting back a chuckle, Amanda pushed back her chair and grabbed her shawl from the coat rack. “Then I will see you tomorrow, most likely. My apologies.”

A confused blink from two Vulcan teenagers answered her. Apparently they had not yet read up on the human habit of apologising when it wasn't strictly necessary. No matter. 

Adjusting her shawl, she turned to Sarek. “Are we ready to go?”

Another simple nod. His dark eyes were strangely fixed on her, as if he was taxing her form. She swallowed. Had she committed another mistake? His gaze wandered up to her face, scanning her features, before coming to settle on a single curl that had escaped her hairdo and fell into her forehead. She quickly tucked it away. 

“Ah- yes,” Sarek said, almost hesitant. “If you would follow me.”

Sarek's shuttle was a clearly expensive, yet modest light grey model with four seats that were facing each other. Since the VSA had perfectionised autonomous driving 47 years ago, hardly any new vessel was equipped with a steering wheel anymore. Still, the sight of a private shuttle was odd, to say the least. 

“Got your own car?” she grinned. Vucan prided itself in its public transport - hardly anyone living in the inner ring of the city had need of such an expensive and spacious vehicle. Sarek almost looked embarrassed. 

“The Embassy deemed it necessary to equip their staff with a private fleet,” he answered briskly. “Though it might touch you as strange, this was deemed the most logical solution. Transporting foreign guests or important documents on the public network was deemed too much of a risk. .”

He knocked his fingers against the windows. “Soundproof, tinted glass. Nothing goes in or out.”

Amanda inhaled sharply. Was that so? 

“Are you planning to kidnap me?” she joked. Sarek’s eyebrows shot up.

“Vulcan has taken no political hostages since the admission to the United Federation of Planets,” he said and opened the door for her. She slipped inside the cool, air-conditioned vehicle. His eyes caught hers and with a certain spark he added: “Officially.”

Sarek ordered the shuttle to drive them to the central town square, the very eye of the circular city layout. When it started moving with a pleasant humming noise, Amanda was almost glad that they weren’t flying this time - instead, the shuttle hovered about twenty centimetres above the ground. From the inside, the tinted windows were perfectly clear, allowing her to marvel at the gleaming white cityscape sprawling out around them. Whenever they passed one of the trajectory streets, her line of sight extended to the very borders of the city, where the air was flimmering, hot under the now burning midday sun. 

Sarek had settled opposite to her, entirely inexpressive, hands hidden in the long sleeves of his robe - maybe he was trying to protect them from another human assault - and apparently entirely oblivious to the fact that he was the reason why Amanda’s stomach was making leaps. Unwillingly, she started biting her lip.

What was Sarek doing here? Was he really here to apologise? Or was it some intricate Vulcan ploy to get her to admit her defeat, to apologise and slink back to her office or her planet in defeat? As far as she knew, Vulcans were not that dramatic - but this one might be. For some reason, Amanda could not get the thought out of her head that there was something more under Sarek’s thick veneer of standoffish, cold logic - something sleek and dark, strong and tense, like the flank of a panther. His gaze was fixed firmly outside of the window. Of course he did not feel the urge to talk much - she would have to get used to Vulcans having no concept of awkward silence. Still, she cleared her throat. 

“I would like to extend my thanks to whoever prepared my quarters,” she said quickly. “They are wonderful.”

Sarek only bowed his head. “I will let the person in charge know.”

“Thank you.” 

He didn’t reply, only turned towards the window again. Amanda could feel her throat going dry. Maybe she didn’t drink enough. 

“Do you-”

“You must be-”

Oh, great. Amanda chuckled nervously. “Ahm. Please, Ambassador.”

Another eyebrow raise. “I was merely going to suggest that you might be dehydrated. The atmosphere of Vulcan is different to the one you are used to. I’d advise you to make a conscious effort to drink more.”

He pulled a latch on the middle seat next to him and opened the lid of a compartment under the bench. The faint, cool light suggested that it was a small fridge.

“Would you care for some water?”

Oh. “Yes, that would be very nice. Hchrm.” Her throat really was dry.

Sarek merely nodded and handed her the bottle. The glass was wonderfully cool, with small droplets of condensed water running down her fingers. She took the utmost care not to touch Sarek’s fingertips again - she had not yet ruled out the possibility that this was an elaborate test. Besides, even if it wasn’t, she would not risk embarrassing him like this again. His fingernails were straight, perfectly manicured, of course. Sarek hid his hands in his sleeves again immediately. Wonderful. 

At least the drink would give her an excuse not to talk. 

When the shuttle stopped at the side of the central square, Amanda had already finished her water - half out of embarrassment, half out of a desire not to talk more than was necessary. Sarek did not seem to mind - his attention seemed to be fixed on a particular spot of desert dust sticking to his window. Maybe it vexed him that his precious private shuttle was anything less than pristine. 

Once the shuttle hit the ground, Sarek fumbled to open the door for her. Immediately, the gust of hot air hit her, a single breath drying out her throat once again. Sarek, of course, still moved with unbothered elegance. Not even the silky seam of his fringe was out of place. Not that Amanda minded the fringe. It wasn't unattractive, per se, although she was sure that it would be on a human man. Yet there was something about the way that this Vulcan - no, these Vulcans - managed to keep things neat and controlled in the most hostile environment that was deeply fascinating to her. A breeze swept through Sarek's hair, only momentarily ruffling his silky hair. Amanda realised that she liked that, too. 

Sarek did not extend a hand to help her out of the shuttle. For a moment, Amanda was almost offended, then realised that he probably only wanted to save them both from the embarrassment of Amanda grabbing his hand again - worse because they were now in public. Flocks of other people promenaded around the central square. Tall awnings covered most of it in shade, except for the very centre of the square. Sarek immediately started walking into its direction as soon as Amanda had exited the shuttle and shut the door. She had to jog a few steps to keep up. Already, she could feel the sweat breaking on her brow. Sarek was so damn tall. One of his steps counted for at least two of her own. 

When she finally caught up with him, he had at least the grace to slow down a little bit. 

“I thought you would like to see the most important landmarks before you immerse yourself in your work,” he said. “Humans, the exceptionally intelligent ones at least, have the unfortunate tendency to focus on only their area of interest once they have started, with the illogical consequences of neglecting nutrition, sleep or exercise.”

Amanda had to laugh. “And Vulcans are not, in their contemplative phases?”

There. She had noticed that before. The tiny crack in Sarek's veneer, the small twitch in his eyebrow. He blinked.

“Not to the same stubborn degree,” he answered then. 

“Sure.”

He did a full stop. Amanda ran straight into him. Blinking, she tried to regain her balance. Sarek seemed to draw some satisfaction from that. His dark grey eyes warmed a little, not unlike a single drop of thaw on a glacier.

“I would appreciate it if you announced the usage of sarcasm in the future,” he said silkily. “It would enrich our conversation.”

Amanda cocked her head. “So you do enjoy talking to me.”

“Enjoyment is a human indulgence, Doctor.”

“Oh, of course!” Her tone, she decided, had to be enough of an announcement of sarcasm in this case. Sarek's raised brow seemed to agree. “I was merely making a logical conclusion. You would like our conversations to be more enriching, ergo, you expect to converse with me more in the future. You wish to continue to converse with someone, and from that I draw that you find this -” she fumbled for a word, “- interlocutor beneficial or stimulating, or challenging, in the most positive sense. I must therefore conclude that you find talking to me… stimulating.”

Sarek made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a huff.  “I was not aware humans were so familiar with the use of the syllogism.”

“We quite literally invented the word.”

It was perverse of her, and in some corner of her brain she knew it. She had already embarrassed Sarek once - what good was it to dig her nails into every tiny crack in that perfect Vulcan composure that she could find? It wasn't like she wanted Sarek to hate her.  Yet, Amanda could not ignore the sparks of schadenfreude when Sarek just muttered something sounding like “Surak-” under his breath and continued walking. Maybe a vicious little part of her brain wanted to bring him to his knees - metaphorically. Of course.

They had reached the middle of the circular square. Within a ten metre radius, the awnings left space for the sun to shine on the very heart of the city. The lines of the pavement tiles all ran perfectly into the base of a monument that was inscribed with Vulcan runes. A silver bar of metal extended from it, curving into - and Amanda only recognized it when she circled the monument and looked at it from its left side - the straight, eagle-like profile of a Vulcan. 

Of course, it could only be one. Vulcans were strictly against idolising anyone's character, with one notable exception. A colleague of hers had called them “as hypocritical as the English”.

“Surak?” she asked. Sarek merely nodded. He had bowed his head in something like reverence. In contrast to the white pavement and awnings around him, his profile seemed strangely similar to that before them. 

“I thought it would serve as a reminder just how deep our life and customs are influenced by Surak's teachings,” Sarek said. “I'm sure you must be aware of it academically, Doctor Grayson. I do not doubt your expertise. But you must understand that this is not merely a subject of the academic study of our past, but a vein always running through our present life.”

Amanda swallowed hard. “I understand,” she answered. Heat was already rising to her cheeks. Or maybe that was just the sun. Here, caught between the sky and the pavement, she felt like she was baking. 

“I'm terribly sorry if I made an averse impression,” she added quickly. 

“You did not.”

Sarek’s eyes seemed much more grey in this light, a shining silver not unlike that of the Surak monument. It made Amanda a little dizzy as she looked up to him. His tall figure stood straight and willowy, his shoulders not even stooping as he looked down at her. Then again, the weather could be making her dizzy. She wetted her lips, but before she could say anything, Sarek swished his long sleeves and turned to go. 

“I thought you might want to visit the meditation centre,” he said, and Amanda had no choice but to try to keep up with his pace. “You must have read about it. Before the Surakian reform, it was a temple dedicated to several Vulcan deities. Nowadays, of course, we have done away with such superstition.”

“You have an aversion to religion, Ambassador?”

Sarek shook his head almost immediately. “By no means. We have committed ourselves to protecting and cherishing the religions of other people as much as all other federation planets do. And since there has been no proof yet that a deity or several might exist, or that a being which your species, for example, would consider a deity, exists somewhere in the universe, it would be illogical to deem the belief in a higher power primitive or immoral. But it is not the Vulcan way.” 

“How interesting.”

Amanda wished she had taken a notebook with her. Why was Sarek so talkative all of a sudden? He turned his head to look at her. 

“Are you using me as a test specimen, Doctor?”

She gave him a smile. “Perhaps.”

“Then the logical next question would be what the Vulcan way is, of course.” 

“I think I am beginning to find out.”

When Sarek did the Vulcan eyebrow equivalent of a shrug and continued walking, Amanda could only barely keep up. It was so hot. The fabric of her dress was clinging to her, and she could feel the sweat on her skin where her thighs rubbed together under the skirt. Even the insides of her shoes had begun feeling slippery. 

“Ambassador, can we wait a second-”

Sarek immediately stopped in his tracks. 

“Are you not feeling well?” he asked. Amanda tried to fan herself to come up with a very logical and not at all pity-worthy answer. Not that Vulcans could be convinced with pity. 

“You are overheating,” Sarek simply said. “That is no wonder. Your clothing is not made to sufficiently allow airflow in this climate.” 

So he had been staring at her.

“Are you saying you’re not feeling warm in that robe?” she replied. Her tongue was getting dry, too. Sarek looked down at himself - his long sleeves and dark grey robe flowed almost down to his feet, where she could see the legs of loosely cut trousers. The man was definitely wearing too much fabric to be so unbothered by the midday heat.

“I am not,” he said, then tilted his head with a slow blink. “If you would follow me. I think I might be able to provide a solution.”

The inside of the shop they entered was cooler, but mostly Amanda was glad not to be in the sun anymore. She had known that Vulcan was a desert planet before - but no paper on geography or climate could have prepared for this. Dry, pressing heat, with no escape but the inside of a hopefully cool building or the temporary shade of one. The air was constantly melting over the ground, giving the skyline the impression of being submerged in gently moving water. But inside here, behind the big sliding glass doors, she could relax at least a little. The sweat still coating her legs and her arms under the long sleeves of the dress began to feel cold immediately. 

As soon as the second glass door closed, a shop clerk in a crisp silver outfit approached them. She had her hair pinned up with several long, swirled needles that matched her dangling earrings. Amanda guessed that it was fashion - she recalled T’Pali wearing similar earrings. 

“May I help you?” she asked. Luckily, Sarek took over. Amanda was still occupied with looking wide-eyed at the aisles and displays of clothing that would be every fashion historian’s dream. Sarek hadn’t led her into just any clothing shop - this was a high-end boutique. Her stomach immediately felt queasy. She was definitely out of place here.

“We’d need some assistance in selecting appropriate attire for Doctor Grayson here,” Sarek said. “She is on a research stay from Terra. Unfortunately, Starfleet has neglected to provide her with adequate clothing for this climate. Or any formal occasion, for that matter. Would you be willing to advise her?”

The dark eyes of the other woman taxed her. She was beautiful - lean and tall, with flawless dark skin and a belt wrapped tightly around her waist. Amanda could see her own reflection in the mirror behind her - she was short, in comparison to the Vulcans, and curvy, and - Of course, Sarek was only trying to be helpful - and yet, her mouth was almost drier than it had been out in the Vulcan sun.

“Certainly,” the shop clerk said after having scanned Amanda from head to foot. “If you would follow me, Doctor.”

“What about-”

“I can wait here,” Sarek answered with a hint of amusement. “I do not think my assistance is required here.”

The clerk - she introduced herself as T’Suna - led Amanda through the front of the shop to a display of what Amanda estimated was everyday wear. The Vulcan still held modesty in high regard - it was still hard for her to tell what constituted the difference between formal and informal garments.  But slowly, stiff, embroidered fabrics disappeared to make room for flowing linen and simpler silhouettes. A few other people turned their heads when they saw Amanda, but at least this time they had the courtesy not to stare too much. 

As soon as they had found the changing rooms, T’Suna handed her another bottle of water, told her to stand still while her measurements were being scanned, and then motioned Amanda to sit while she pulled out a shiny padd. 

“I assume you are looking for something practical?” she said. Amanda just nodded.

“I think I packed the wrong stuff,” she answered with an apologetic smile. “Wasn’t prepared for it to actually be as hot as Vucan, you know?”

“I am not familiar with that saying.” When T’Suna saw how she nervously fiddled with the pull on the bottle cap, her tone softened. “But I agree with the gentleman that it is not your fault Starfleet didn’t supply you with adequate clothing. A friend of mine works in the Starfleet HQ. He said people faint almost daily.”

She stabbed the air with her pen, motioning at Amanda’s dress. “I will find something suitable. Do you need anything else?”

Behind two aisles of clothing racks, Amanda could see the top of Sarek’s head. He had apparently sat down and struck up a conversation with an older lady whose - presumably - grand-child was ruffling through the heavily embroidered robes on the other side of the aisle. 

“No,” she said, then added, “No, wait. I have a presentation lined up and there’s a dinner at the VSA. Could I try on something a bit more… business-like, too?”

T’Suna added something on her padd. “Certainly. Wait here.”

Since there was little she could do while T’Suna was picking something out for her - except gawking at aisle after aisle of fancy robes - Amanda decided to be professional and check her personal padd. Since last night, even more messages had come in - some administrative emails from the VSA, a briefing from Starfleet, some paperwork - she would have to do that once she was back in the office. Her Terran colleagues had sent her a cookbook full of classic Terran recipes in case she got homesick. She would only have to upload them on a replicator disc. Maybe she could even cook herself, if she found the time for it, she thought. She did now have a fully equipped kitchen, after all. But buried under all the messages and emails in Standard and Vulcan, one in plain English from her sister stood out. 

As soon as she opened the chat, multiple pictures of Sarek immediately filled the screen of her padd. Ah yes. She had texted her last night that she was 90% sure the “high and mighty ambassador guy” hated her. Elise had obviously taken that as incentive to dig up every picture of him that she could find on the web. She scrolled up a little bit.

Elise had replied at two a.m. If she calculated correctly, that was 1 p.m. of Terran time, and her sister should really have been working in the lab at that point. Instead, her replies read: 

02:06: he was mad you grabbed his hand?? Is that a Vulcan thing or something?
02:06: hold on let me look that up
02:08: ok nvm I guess it is????
02:08: way to go, casually grabbing some crusty ambassador’s ass XD
02:10: AMANDA

That was the point where the pictures were piling in.

02:10: AMANDA YOU DIDN'T SAY HE’S HOT
02:10: WHAT THE FUCK
02:10: WHY THE FUCK IS HE HOT HE HAS A BOWL CUT

Another picture was attached - Sarek at a formal function, apparently a screenshot from a social media video. Sarek, a little younger than now, was holding a sehlat cub in front of a wildlife shelter. Both he and the sehlat looked like they did not want to be there.

02:16: can't believe you run into the ONE hot Vulcan on the entire planet
02:18: You have to find out whether he’s single. Please.
02:18: Asking for a friend ofc

Another picture. This seemed to have been pulled from a photoshoot for a conference - Sarek was wearing his full uniform, but a stark contrast of light highlighted his cheekbones and strong jawline, the elegant curve of his brow. 

02:20: (the message contained only various heart icons and some of a much cruder nature.)

Amanda had to chuckle. Her younger sister wasn’t wrong . It wasn’t a secret that her new companion was good-looking by human standards - but that meant nothing. She typed a reply. 

11:46: Don’t let Nola see this, she might get jealous. 

Nola was her sister’s girlfriend. They had met in the lab where Elise was working on her Master’s thesis, and had moved in with each other two months later. Elise adored her, and had devoted herself entirely to learning the Rigelian language - as of now to little success. It was enough to tell her girlfriend “I love you” in her native language one or two hundred times everyday. They were almost sickeningly adorable together.

Three white dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. Elise was already typing again. 

11:47: Nah she agrees with me
11:48: showed her a picture of your man and she says that you should grab his butt again

11:48: he is not my man 

She looked up. Sarek was still seated at the entrance of the boutique, now looking at something on the screen of the older lady next to him. There are few constants in the universe - grandmothers of every species proudly showing you blurry pictures of their grandkids and their crusty little pets is one of them. She tried to type a reply. 

11:48: We’re just |

She stopped. They were what? Working together? Not really. Colleagues? Sarek was an ambassador, she a researcher. That both of them were employed by Starfleet seemed to stretch the definition a little. Sarek was neither her supervisor nor part of the VSA committee that had agreed to her research proposal, and though she had been advised that Sarek would be her main contact in case of any bureaucratic problem, that hardly required him to take her sightseeing.

So what were they? And, suddenly it dawned over her, if that was the case, why was he even doing this for her?

“Doctor Grayson?”

T’Suna had returned, a pile of differently coloured robes in her arms. With a raised eyebrow, her gaze was fixed on the padd, where Amanda was seemingly still staring at looping gifs of Ambassador Sarek’s face. 

Tactful as Vulcans are, she said nothing. Instead, she waited patiently as Amanda blushed red as a lobster, fumbled to turn off her padd and to stand up. For a moment, she wondered whether a Vulcan sandworm couldn’t just appear and swallow her. Then she followed T’Suna to the nearest cubicle. 

“I assumed you have not put on a Vulcan robe before?” T’Suna asked. Amanda shook her head. 

“Once, but I think it was just a tunic. We did some reconstruction work on pre-reform artefacts on Terra, but I guess that does not compare.”

T’Suna halted in ordering the garments in neat piles. “Oh,” she said. “You’re the Terran researcher.”

“Pardon?”

“The - The Terran professor that’s going to live here for a year. I heard it on the news.” She stopped, and with something almost sheepish, she said: “I’m a little interested in Terran history, you see.”

Amanda couldn’t resist giving her a wide smile. “Really? What area?”

T’Suna had finished ordering the piles and drew the curtains around the cubicle. “The music, mostly,” she said. “Terran classical music is so interesting. Wait, I will help you with that -”

Amanda had taken one of the pieces from the rack. She assumed it was a longer tunic, but the cut of what she assumed were sleeves made it impossible to tell. Instead, she pulled the zipper of her dress down. 

“Really? What classical composers do you like?”

T’Suna closed the curtains entirely, blocking out the rest of the shop. Then she said: “ABBA.”

It was good that Amanda had accepted T’Suna’s help immediately - even though she had paid close attention, she would never have figured out how to put this outfit on herself. At least, she hoped, she would be able to take it off again alone.

The base layer worn directly over her underwear consisted of a long tunic covering the shoulders and the neck and ending just ove rthe middle of the thighs. The tight collar was closed with two buttons. Under it were wide, wrapped trousers that were tightened around the ankle with elastic thread - Amanda recalled that this must be a more modern convenience. In all historical reproductions she had seen, the trousers had been secured by embroidered ribbons that were wrapped around the ankles for additional support. Over the undershirt was added a robe made from a light, deep-blue fabric. Yellow treads were woven into the border of the wide sleeves and the collar. The robe was fastened at the side with several small, round buttons.
Over the robe itself, T’Suna added a ribbon printed with Vulcan runes - Amanda identified a poetry lyric, but she wasn’t sure about the author. In doubt, it was probably Surak. The ribbon was hung over her left shoulder, hanging down to her waist on both sides of her body, and secured by adding a wide sash around her waist. That, too, must be a modern development. In earlier times, Amanda was sure, these ribbons were embroidered with the name of the families the wearer belonged to, and were passed down and rewoven over generations. Or maybe T’Suna had only pulled a ribbon like this from the “Tourist wants to put on our traditional clothing” box. 

The last part was a drape from a fabric so light it was basically translucent. It wound around her shoulder and around her waist, before being tucked under the sash and falling down in a cascade of light, flowing waves.

“You can also cover your head with it,” T’Suna explained while finishing the last drape. “If people don't stop staring at your hair. Or if the wind gets too bad. You Terrans only have one eyelid, right?”

“We do.”

“That’s so strange. There, you’re all set.”

She pulled back and let Amanda turn around to the mirror. “I would also do your hair, but I think this works. What do you think?”

Amanda needed a second to recognize the woman she saw reflected in the mirror as herself. The garment, not luxurious, but entirely practical, flowed around her in waves of different shades of blue. When she lifted her arm, she could barely feel the weight of the long sleeves. They were slightly too long - most Vulcans were apparently taller than her - and covered her hands when she let her arms hang down. Modesty reasons. The fact that she was curvier did not seem to pose a problem - instead, the robe adjusted and hugged her waist and chest while leaving her almost complete freedom of movement for her legs and arms. The sash, tightly hugging her waist, reassured that nothing would fall out of place.

“Now,” T’Suna added, tucking one of Amanda’s curls back into a bobby pin, “I think this should work for most occasions. You should add your ribbon and the drape for formal events. On most other days, unless you are an official, the robe and the belt would be sufficient. You can also add a shawl if it’s windy.”

“And how do I look to a Vulcan?” Amanda asked, partly joking. When she turned to the side, the light fabric of the robe twirled around her. T’Suna raised an eyebrow. 

“Businesslike,” she replied stoically. “It is rather conservative, but fashionable by all standards. Suitable for an academic.”

“Perfect.” 

Amanda had only listened with half an ear. The light fabric of the drape swirled around her whenever she moved, and safe for her waist, everything already felt much cooler. She could even feel the faint breeze of the air conditioning breathe over the skin of her legs. T’Suna folded her uniform dress and put it in a paper bag. 

“I assume you will want to wear it right now. Just give me a minute to ring you up.”

And with a swish of the curtain, she disappeared. Amanda took a moment to admire her new clothing. The blue contrasted beautifully with her hair - it would be a shame to cover it. Then again, people would stare less. For a second, she wondered what Sarek would think of that. 

Her padd pinged again. Apparently, Elise was still awake. Her answer to the “he's not my man” was a simple: 

12:15: yet

Amanda lifted the padd and sent her a picture of the outfit. Then she grabbed her purse and the paper bag with her dress and slipped out into the shop. 

Sarek was standing with his back to her, the line of his shoulders almost entirely hiding T'Suna, and was discussing quietly with her in Vulcan. 

“You can send the bill to the Embassy,” Amanda could make out. “We will forward it to Starfleet as necessary expenses. It is their responsibility if they don't provide suitable clothing.”

T'Suna gave him an eyebrow raise. “Five of different models are necessary?” 

“I'm the ambassador, it is my privilege to decide that. Doctor Grayson should not be troubled by such-”

He stopped. His eyes had caught Amanda's reflection in one of the mirrors opposite to the changing rooms. Immediately, his expression froze. When he turned around to face her, Amanda could almost feel his gaze burning on her as he taxed her head to foot. Still, she could read neither approval nor disapproval in his features. 

“Well?” she asked after a moment, attempting her best sheepish smile. Not that Vulcans were telling the difference between smiles. Shit. Maybe this hadn't been such a brilliant idea after all. 

Sarek swallowed. “ Vaksur ,” he muttered under his breath. 

T'Suna's eyebrows, if possible, lifted more, and with an expression that very much proclaimed that she was going to give them a bit of privacy, she turned and tip-toed towards the cash register. Amanda shrugged with embarrassment. 

“I'm sorry, it must seem very formal,” she apologised. “I- I didn't mean to be disrespectful-” 

Her hand caught the ribbon placed over her shoulder, ready to pull it out, when Sarek's hand landed on her arm. She stopped. Looking up, she looked right into his grey eyes. They were fixed with sudden intensity on hers, the slitted pupils dilated ever so slightly. A shiver raced across her spine. 

“Do not,” he said in a low voice. The tone was the same, controlled, calm, as always, but there was a quiver in it, like a wrestling for discipline. His hand was still on her arm, strong and heavy. When she tried to lower her arm, he seemed to notice and withdrew as quickly as he came. His sleeves fell back over his hands immediately. He cleared his throat. 

“Your appearance is perfect,” he said stiffly, then added, “for a visit at the meditation centre.” 

Elise's texts were ignored for the rest of the day. In fact, Amanda didn't even touch her padd for the rest of the day. The hours seemed to fly by like grains of sand in the wind. Finally able to keep up with Sarek's pace (she blamed it on the cooler, comfortable clothes, not on the possibility that he actually slowed down for her), she could marvel at the sights of ShiKahr without distraction (not counting the man on her side). The city was a marvel in itself, with high domes and pristine, white, cathedral-like buildings, ancient structures and aqueducts now used as maglev train tracks, and Sarek was suddenly much more willing to indulge her curiosity in every detail of architecture, history, even the sewer system. He even attempted a joke about his knowledge of history finally being useful - only to back off immediately to stress that, of course, all knowledge was useful and precious, no matter how niche and- 

It was, she had to admit it, cute. The sun was already casting long shadows when they had to say goodbye - Amanda's padd had chimed in time to remind her of her dinner with Sovan, and that was a good thing, because she was sure that she would have forgotten it over Sarek fuddling over an argument on Kant's Terran definition of reason, and why it was different to Surak's. They had stopped by a street food stall opposite to the imposing building of the Vulcan State library, a beautiful building decorated with abstract figurines in the shapes of trees and desert animals that were crawling and swirling over the facade in geometric patterns. Of course, even street food here came with a little fork. Sarek and all other Vulcans in the immediate vicinity would probably go into cardiac arrest if she ate with her fingers - or, Surak forbid, licked some of the sauce off them. She did not attempt to find out.

Sarek had the kindness to drive her to the restaurant in his shuttle. When she exited it - he had held the door open for her again -, she almost felt sad. As stiff as he was, there was something calming about his stoic, pensive attitude. As if, under the melting layer of arrogance, there was just a man who was undoubtedly confident of his abilities. Now, of course, that was part of arrogance, she had to admit that. Still, he gave her an almost fond nod when she closed the door of the shuttle. 

“I hope you enjoyed this,” he said, barely pausing before the emotional word. “I would not be opposed to repeating this.”

“So would you say you enjoyed this too?”

He cocked his head. For a second, he seemed confused, then his brow softened. 

“Sarcasm, I assume. As I said, if your schedule allows it, I would like-” he stopped himself again. A hum of frustration escaped him. “You will be late for your dinner.”

Aha. She could not hold back a smile. 

“You are aware that we humans have a misguided desire to express gratitude,” she said, and his eyes sparked up when he recognised his own earlier utterance in her voice. “Still, I would like to thank you. For-” she gestured at her dress and, with a sheepish smile added, “-well, for everything, really.”

“There is no need,” he said. “To borrow from your language: it was my pleasure.”

He raised his hand. “Peace and long life, Doctor Grayson.”

Sarek was relieved to see the glass doors of the restaurant close behind Amanda’s back, as much as the goodbye tugged unpleasantly at the part of his brain that was desperately reaching out to her. He shook his head and forced himself to breathe normally. 

One. 

Logic is the governing principle of the universe. 

Two. 

There is no coincidence, no luck, no sentimentality within the universe. 

Three. 

The system of logic provides solutions for all possible complications by virtue of infinite combination.

Four.

Logic must not be clouded by passion or fear, for they are always at odds. 

Five. 

Logic is the superior way to Vulcan prosperity. 

He opened his eyes again. With his breath returned to a calm, even pace, the zooming of the hover shuttles, the scooters, the maglev trains running overhead seemed twice as fast. A thin, whirring sound echoed in his ears and made his spine tingle in irritation. That was illogical, of course, merely a distortion of his perception. He was really spending too much time with humans. With a sigh, he tried to bury the thought of Amanda Grayson’s copper hair and closed the shuttle door. Of course, the inside of the vehicle still smelled faintly of her perfume.

When he finally reached his apartment, Sarek was aware that he was in dire need for meditation. Never before had his mind been so afflicted with emotion that he felt helpless in the face of it. Yet at each street corner, at each stop, he found himself looking out for a flash of red hair, or the distinct sound of a human laugh. That was unbearably illogical - he knew she was conversing with Sovan over a plate of plomeek soup at this very moment. It was even more illogical that he felt a small pang of jealousy at the mere thought of it. Jealousy - one of the dirtiest feelings. It had never led to any positive result.

As soon as he had closed the door, he shucked off his robes and decided to light an incense candle and roll out his meditation mat. He would have to rid his mind from these improper feelings before they began to cling to him. It could not be that he thought in such a respectless manner of an esteemed colleague - that he desired her in a not only improper, but impossible way. He would have to let Amanda Grayson go. How else was he supposed to work with her? And how would she feel if she knew that his attitude to her was fuelled not only by her academic brilliance? It would disgrace her - ashame her - at worst, she would feel used. No. 

Sarek shook his head. He had once given in to his unreformed, forbidden side. He would not make that mistake again.

Once he had settled cross legged on the floor and taken the first deep breath, his mind slipped into the warm, dark velvet dimension of his mindscape. A familiar cove in the endless, humming darkness of a content mind. The desert at night. Dunes, almost jetblack in the starlight. Vulcan had no moon - the light of the stars stood out all the more and cast no shadow. Sarek rolled his shoulders back and settled his mind into the familiar nook in the sand. 

Except that it all felt different. Without stirring, Sarek tried to poke at the fabric of his inner landscape, the part he kept closed off except for his meditation. Red strands danced before his closed eyes, running through the gentle darkness like veins of metal ores ran through stone. He did not have to guess what it was. Logic was the governing principle of the universe. It provided the solutions for all possible complications. Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Sarek let go and followed the red thread. 

A figure danced before his eyes - her, of course, rendered in every detail of his eidetic memory. He could trace the curves of her figure with his hands. Her laugh sounded in his ear, and her hair danced around her freckled face like fire - and like fire she burned him. Sarek could feel the smoulder of passion deep within his core, a flickering ember that he knew all too well could be lit to burning passion during his pon farr. In his memory, he could run his hands over the fabric covering her body, feel every thread under his sensitive fingertips, dance them along the seam of her neckline. For only a moment he hesitated, then his curiosity overtook his instinct, and her body arched into his in unspoken desire for his dark touch. For a moment he wondered whether her freckles extended all over her body, down over her collar bone to the soft, ample weight of her bosom. The fabric of her dress - her Terran dress, of all things - stretched over her pale breasts, leaving little to his imagination, and he could almost hear her voice echoing out an endless stream of yes, yes, mine-

Her chest rose and fell in fiery passion under his imagined touch, and her clear green eyes found his. Green like the sea, foreign like the sea, like a wave that swept him off his feet. He must, unconsciously, have memorised the constellations of the golden specks on her deep green irises. Without wanting to, his memory rushed him back to the touch of her hand on his.

His fingertips had been caught in the palm of her hand, between the supple flesh of her palm and her rosy fingers. His fingertips between hers. There was something - a tingle starting in the tips of his fingers, shooting like sparks up his arm, directly into the core of his spine. It flowed into his veins, a liquid desire, hot as molten gold, intoxicating like chocolate. His fingers on her, in her-

Sarek's eyes snapped open. His breath was reeling, his cheeks burning with shame. He could not allow himself this. He had promised himself he would not love again. It had overtaken him once - and he already knew that he could not inflict the same misery on Amanda that his love had already brought to a different woman. She would be untainted by his illogical desires.

Chapter Text

“May you explain again to me what the purpose of our visit is?” Sarek asked and shifted uncomfortably on the park bench. His back was as straight as a flagpole, and his handsome face was set in an elegant curve of silent disapproval. He had the air of a housecat that had been forced to go to the waterpark. It was rather endearing. Amanda leaned back and fished a brown paper bag (courtesy from Elise’s recipe for double chocolate chip cookies) out of her bag. They were a little too crispy - she would have to fine tune the replicator to the recipe.

“Field work,” she answered. “I and the rest of the galaxy know Vulcan from history books, but we have little to no idea of what your modern society works like. You’re about to give me an introduction.”

“Is my knowledge required here?” Sarek pointed his chin to T’Pali, who had modestly placed herself on the bench to their left and was staring into her padd. She had wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders, as if she was cold. Unlikely - the day was sunny, bordering on too warm even for his Vulcan self. “After all, Doctor Grayson, you have a research assistant who studies sociology and culture. They seem better equipped to-”

“I enjoy your insight. You’re less academic than her or Solik.” Amanda smiled that shy human smile of hers. “And you didn’t decline the invitation.”

“I would have declined, if I had known that I have only been selected for an experiment.”

Amanda laughed. The sound startled the two Vulcan children who were drawing geometrical shapes in the sandpit opposite to the path. Their little heads perked up for only a second, then immediately turned downwards again when they spied the flash of foreign red hair. The parents were locked in conversation and probably had mistaken the unfamiliar sound with the call of a bird. Neither of the children uttered a word.

It was still eerie to Amanda how quiet Vulcans were. No loud laughter or shrieks of surprise or fear, sighs of frustration or groans of anger escaped them. The best she had gotten out of Sarek was a huff when she had dug her nails into a tiny logical flaw in his reasoning again. A part of her wondered how he’d sound if he screamed. 

Instead she asked: “Is it so hard to believe that I might just enjoy your company?”

Sarek hoped the prickling in the tips of his ears was not an indication that he was blushing. Vulcans didn’t do that. 

“That would be illogical.”

He left it for her to guess what of the statement was illogical. He was pretty certain that something of it was. He did not enjoy any frivolous indulgences. They were colleagues, nothing more. This conversation was mutually beneficial. In parts. 

“Maybe I thought that you needed some sunlight, Ambassador. After all, you declined two invitations for dinner because you were too busy with your work.”

They had made this a habit, to eat dinner together at the Embassy or at the Starfleet HQ, depending on what they preferred. Sarek had a strong preference for Starfleet - the first time they had eaten at the embassy, the low, gentle light had caught in Amanda’s red hair, and had made her green eyes glimmer like dark, intoxicating Andorian wine. And he had felt the stares of the other Vulcans around him, recognising that this must be the Terran researcher, and that he was the one who got to listen to her. It scratched an itch deep in the undergrowth of his brain, something dark, sleek and strong. Something almost possessive, jealously guarding her attention. He couldn’t give in to it. The sleek, white-tiled restaurant and brighter lights of the Starfleet HQ were much more sober, much more preferable to keep his thoughts in check. He couldn’t allow himself the same slip he had committed during his meditation practice.

Just as he did then, Sarek forced himself to stare straight ahead, into the sand and stone gardens of the park. He couldn’t look at Amanda, at the way she sprawled so relaxedly on the park bench, one arm on the backrest, her cheek on her hand. He shawl had slipped of her shoulder, showing the soft, supple line of freckles trickling down her neck, down onto her soft, white bosom-

Not again. His nails dug into the sensitive flesh of his palm. The pain was sharp, fresh. He deserved this. He had tried so hard to rein his thoughts in, yet nothing had helped. He even had invented excuses to avoid seeing her - that was not the same as lying, he told himself. Voluntarily taking on more work to not have time to eat dinner with Amanda was not lying to her. Those were simply the circumstances. He had to resist.

Yet he couldn’t deny that the conclusion that Amanda worried about him - even felt desire for his company - made the same deeply buried part of his mind purr in content. Surak help him. He was too familiar with this feeling. 

Amanda, of course, wasn’t making this any easier. She was a sight to behold, even more so when she was even wearing the clothes they had ordered for her. They suited her - much better than the stiff, tight Starfleet uniform, of course. Apparently, she was still adjusting to the weather, and in the train they had taken to the park, she had covered her head with her shawl so people would not stare at her hair and her round ears. Not that he minded the ears. They were strange, surely, but he had met enough humans to get used to the sight. The soft, round line suited humans. Amanda had a little mole on the curve of her ear shell. Surak, why did he know that?

“Cookie?” Amanda was still taking notes on her padd with her left hand. With the right, she was fishing in her paper bag. The cookies did smell delicious. Maybe, if he focused on that smell, he would be able to block out the smell of her perfume. Patchouli, and something like - he wasn’t quite sure, but it might be Orion lemon, a lesser known aphrodisiac. Maybe that explained why his thoughts were branching into all the wrong directions. 

Absent-mindedly, he took the cookie, careful not to brush their hands together. That was the last thing he needed right now.It was more than enough that he was nearing the boundaries of his logic whenever Amanda looked at him with these deep, green eyes. He was a Vulcan, after all. Logic and propriety were to be defended.

At least he seemed to be good at shielding his worries, because Amanda, still as cheerful and unbothered, put down her padd with a little smile and leaned over to him. He sent a silent prayer for strength into the void of the universe.

“By the way,” she said, more quietly this time. “If you’re wondering about T’Pali, I thought it would be good to let her and Solik have some free time as well. They’re burying themselves in books. I’m worried that they forget that there is an outside world.”

“Then where is Solik?”

She shrugged. “Excused himself. From what I’m gathering, there’s some trouble in paradise. They were arguing.” 

When he made no reaction, she dropped her shoulders and bit her lip. “Not that that is any of my business, of course.”

“Please, Doctor. I am well aware of the human concept of gossip.” 

In an instant, her researcher's instinct had returned. “And Vulcans don’t gossip?”

Sarek straightened his back. Of course. He was here to provide information. “Certainly not. We observe, evaluate and analyse. Is that of importance for your research?”

Only for a second, she hesitated. “Yes. Gossip is often concerned with what the society is interested in - what it places importance on, or what is seen as a breach of manners. Human gossip is often concerned with romantic relationships, especially between celebrities, because we place a high social value on romance, or friendship, and social capital. When Raya Reynolds and Timothy Stans separated last year, there was nothing else me and my friends were talking about for a week.”

“Were they close friends of yours?”

“They are Terran popstars.”

“Ah.”

Amanda grinned and reached for another cookie. “You see? WIth the same principle, I would learn a lot about your modern Vulcan perception of morals if I, I don't know, found out that you’re scandalised if an unmarried lady is caught brushing ungloved hands with the baker without her chaperone present.”

“That depends entirely on whether these two Vulcans are intended for each other or not.”

Amanda’s eyes went round. She spluttered, then quickly covered her mouth before laughing. Sarek was confused as to why - he had given an honest answer.
This time, the two Vulcan parents did actually turn around to them. Amanda made a half-hearted attempt at concealing her laughter as a coughing fit. She was unsuccessful. T’Pali didn’t even look up from her padd. She seemed to be browsing an article on human government systems, but Sarek had noticed that she had been staring at the same page for several minutes now. Apparently, the young woman was distracted by something. What had Amanda called it? “Trouble in paradise”?

The same Amanda ahd regained her composure admirably and immediately grabbed her notepadd. 

“ Fascinating ,” she grinned. “When you say intended , do you mean like T’Pali and Solik?”

Sarek deliberated for a second. “I assume so. It is one of the most intimate areas of Vulcan life. ” He cleared his throat. No one was looking at them or within hearing reach. “Every Vulcan-” 

He started again. “I must advise you to treat this with the utmost discretion, Dr. Grayson, but I am aware that this will be of relevance for your research. Ahem.”

Surak, he hoped those Vulcan parents couldn’t hear him.

“When a Vulcan child reaches the age of seven, many families make an arrangement to form a lasting connection with another child who is of the same age and is compatible, depending on their personalities. There is an evaluation to - well, to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the child’s character, and in which direction they will most likely develop. You are aware that Vulcans have telepathic qualities, correct?”

Amanda nodded, scribbling furiously. “Yes,” she said quickly. “But only when touching, right?”

“Yes. In most cases. Individuals who are very close to one another - immediate family and spouses, sometimes close friends, can share a mindlink, a deep connection to the other’s thoughts that does not require touch. But such a link must be established in a ritual. When two children are bonded, a pre-stage of this telepathic connection is formed. Many families also choose to let the children grow up together, or live together when they reach adolescence, so that they may develop their strengths and personalities together. Then-” he was struggling to find a word for the shameful act, “- when they have… matured, the marriage ceremony is arranged by the families.”

“So it is an arranged marriage?”

There was a note of disapproval in her voice. Again, Sarek had to weigh his words for a moment. 

“Not in the way that you think of the financial transaction that marriage was in several eras of your Earth. Should one or both of the partners feel that they are not anymore compatible with their intended, the engagement can be broken off before the ceremony. This is a principle that existed even before Surak’s reforms. Marrying someone against their declared will was unfathomable even to our ancestors. However, at some point, it is -” he shifted uncomfortably. It felt dirty to talk to her about such things. She was a lady, after all, and a Terran one, and - 

“At some point, every Vulcan needs a - a mate to share their life with. It is a biological - a telepathic imperative. We need partners. The marriage does not have to produce children. They also do not have to be a man and a woman. What counts is the compatibility alone.”

“Why? Why do you have to marry?”

Sarek stared straight ahead onto the perfectly neat gravel path and used the same half-truth he had told so many aliens before. 

“As you can imagine, a life governed by logic and knowledge can lead us to isolate ourselves. But even for Vulcans, loneliness is not beneficial. Without a bond, our telepathic abilities wither and die. It’s a profound loneliness, Doctor Grayson, not of the body, but of the heart. But a bond is a trusting, intimate, and above all reliable relationship. We enjoy company - in a way, it could be said that we need it.”

Amanda had stopped writing. Her eyes glimmered in the light of the sun, green like desert flowers. He had to stop using these similes. 

“I understand,” she said softly. “So you’re saying that your bond- your partner - they don’t have to be your romantic partner? They can also just be your friend?”

“If you are referring to the-” he cleared his throat, “the sexual aspect of a married relationship, then, yes.” He refused to tell her of the necessity of sex during the time of mating. It was shameful, unreformed. Wild.

Again, it was not lying to withhold information from her. 

“A married relationship?” Her brow furrowed. “Do you mean that there’s no sex before marriage?” 

His heart skipped a beat. No. She couldn’t know. His secret was safe, deleted from all files. 

“There is no necessity for it,” he managed. “We Vulcans feel little to no sexual desire before the bond- before the marriage ceremony is finished. Only the psionic bond to our partner awakens what you humans call libido . Intended partners are free to engage in all other forms of intimate contact, of course. In moderation. It strengthens their connection.”

Amanda quirked one of her brows as if she was doubting his words, but if she did, she did not say it. Maybe he was misreading her. 

“That does not sound very romantic.”

“We have little understanding of this Terran concept. In my very personal opinion, Doctor Grayson, it does sound like an artificial construct that only encourages emotional and illogical behaviour.”

Another Terran chuckle. It did quite sound like the song of a little bird. “I am rather sure it is. You see, we humans place immeasurable importance on imaginary concepts.”

“That explains why you constantly sabotage your own potential. Of course,” he added quickly, “exceptions prove the rule.” 

Again, she did not seem offended. Instead, she put down her pen and fixed him with interested eyes. A curl was falling into her forehead, curved like a question mark.

“What would happen if an engagement is broken off, but one of the partners does not find a new mate?” she asked. “I can imagine that there is a certain kind of competition, or shame about not being bonded.”

“It is correct that we pair-bond. But you again try to understand our relationships through Terran concepts. Shame is not something Vulcans feel.”

“Neither is love?”

Sarek paused for a second. “You attribute many conflicting meanings to that word,” he said then. “It’s reductive. In Standard, you also translate the Cappellian akkaela sign as ‘love’, even though the Capellians define it as the deep sense of duty and protection they feel for the world around them, including the members of their family, their farm animals, and their land. Your Terran, English language defines love, romance, between two married partners as an all-encompassing feeling of passion and madness. One of your most important works of literature connects the death of two adolescents from rivalling families with this love.”

“You read Romeo and Juliet?” 

To her surprise, Sarek nodded.

“It was part of our moral education classes. By the end, we were convinced that, for Vulcans, this ‘love’ would be an unattainable, foolish concept.”

“You are not big on romance.”

“I am not saying that the entirety of Terran literature on love is foolish. Even on your profoundly illogical planet, the ancient Greeks had seven different words for affectations that Standard summarises under the word ‘love’. It is this translation that is not logical. It is reductive.”

It had been a long talk for him. By the end of it, Amanda looked at him with such unconcealed fascination that he wished nothing more than to retreat into his shell, before-

“So how would you define ashaya ?”

Her pen hovered over her notepad. A tiny speck of dust had caught on her eyelashes and disappeared when she blinked. Sarek was trying to remember the dictionary definition. It shouldn’t be so hard for someone with an eidetic memory to remember something as easy as this, but whatever he grasped at dissolved in his mind. He blinked, too.

“It-,” he started. The words caught in his throat. It had been a long time since he thought about it at all. “It is the deep, ineffable, unbreakable tie of duty and serenity one achieves with a bonded partner. The union of your minds. That you can feel where your beings start to blur and your thoughts become intertwined. You can think of it as a reliability, a safe haven, or a place where you will always be understood and protected. In the marriage vows, we call it ‘parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched’. I don’t think love is a proper word for it. Your love, erotic obsession, can be one-sided. Ashaya cannot. I would translate it more as union, or wholeness. If that is what you humans see and define as love , that is your affair. But this peaceful, mutual union has little similarity to your illusion of romance .”

Amanda smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

“Does this explanation satisfy you, Doctor?”

She weighed her head. “Not quite. There’s another word in Vulcan that Standard translates as love at first sight . You are aware of the concept, I assume?”

It took a lot in Sarek to not give her a look of disapproval. “Is it another Terran fantasy? If I remember correctly, even your species doubts whether this phenomenon is real.”

Now Amanda seemed to falter. Her gaze turned from his face to the desert rose bushes lining the gravel path. “I guess we find the idea… comforting. If love at first sight was real, the attraction one feels when one only looks at a person would guarantee that one can strike up a relationship with them. There’d be no uncertainty, no fielding or awkward phases while you get to know one another. It- I guess it would be akin to you pairing up compatible children. You don’t have to worry, because love at first sight or statistical evaluations of your character guarantee that you will love each other, someday, because it is destined. It’s a sense of reliability.”

“Are you implying that we Vulcans believe in love at first sight?”

“I think you, to some degree, believe in predestination, yes. What is the second Surakian principle? There is no coincidence within the universe?”

Oh , she was smart. It pricked him. He was not used to anyone - let alone a human - running at the same speed as him.

“You would have made a wonderful philosopher, Dr Grayson. But I do not believe that this belief in logical consequence is the same as predestination as your Terran Christian religion believes in it. We attribute no moral reasoning behind the way things play out. These chains of reaction work entirely on the basis of logic, without moral, or, as another Terran culture defined it, karma attached to it.”

“So that is kaiidth ?” 

“I-” By now, Sarek felt like he was playing chess, and Amanda had just moved her queen far into his side of the field. The glimmer in her eyes assured him that she knew. He was her favourite specimen fixed to a corkboard. What was worse, he caught himself thinking that he liked it.

“ Kaiidth is - it’s the acceptance that a situation is what it is, and that one cannot go back to change it. The acceptance that things are the result of logical consequences includes this.  Attributing guil tto someone, or expressing deep remorse is not helpful either at the moment. It is more a - it’s a state of peace even in the face of a problem, directed into the future, towards a solution. It is not stagnant. And unlike Terran Christians praying to God, we know that the solution, the drive forward, needs to come from within ourselves. We do not believe in a higher power that has a personal affection for us.”

“Except for logic.”

“You’re distracting from your initial question.” The tips of his ears were really prickling now.

Amanda raised her hands in a gesture of apology. “Yes. Love at first sight. I was going to ask what you understand as shon-ha-lock .”

The cookie fell from his hand. At the mere mention of the word, T’Pali’s head perked up in the periphery of Sarek’s vision. Her eyes were round, as if she was asking Sarek the same shocked question as she was. In reflex, he had crossed his legs. At least, the two Vulcan families had moved further along the path, hopefully out of earshot. 

“It’s not something we normally discuss in public,” he answered stiffly. His mouth was dry. Amanda’s fell open. “Oh!” 

Immediately she withdrew and fumbled to put her shawl into place. “I wasn’t aware it was a taboo,” she muttered. Her cheeks were turning pink with embarrassment. “I- I didn’t mean to offend you. You see, in academic texts, there’s no real definition for it, but I would not have guessed-”

Sarek simply shook his head and deliberately uncrossed his legs. “I am not offended, Doctor Grayson. It is logical that you wouldn’t know. We-”

T’Pali had delved back into her padd. From somewhere in her bag, she had also pulled a set of headphones, blocking out all parts of this conversation. Clever girl.

Sarek took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back. Fine.

“ Shon-ha-lock- ” The word didn't easily roll off his tongue, “- literally means ‘the engulfment’. It is - well, you could call it a taboo. It's the word we give the unreformed - the complete control that desire can take over a Vulcan if he or she lets their unreformed side-” He had to swallow, trying to fight the thoughts burning in the back of his mind. “Before Surak reformed Vulcan, we were a violent, passionate people. This wild hunger for- this desire was the only form of ‘love’ that we could perceive. Whole clans killed and died for it. People were driven to suicide if they were refused by the object of their obsession. To be in shon-ha-lock for your bonded partner was even seen as a compliment.”

“Is it not?”

“Would you view it as a compliment if your spouse was driven to raving madness out of desire for you? A desire that could only be satisfied by ravaging the partner in question?”

Amanda hesitated. She hesitated way too long. Then she very slowly said: “It depends.”

Sarek realised, with before unknown clarity, that humans were maniacs. When she saw how his eyebrows met the line of his fringe, she broke into nervous laughter. 

“I must admit that much of Terran romantic literature finds concepts like these enticing, yes. But please, tell me more. So shon-ha-lock is madness because it drives a person to illogical, if not self-destructive acts?”

Sarek vowed to himself to never touch human romance novels. Then he nodded. “Yes. Above all, it is a selfish feeling. The desire puts itself above all other obligations or feelings the person has. It proclaims itself as an imperative. The person in shon-ha-lock only cares for their own desire to be met, to be united with that person.”

“Oh, I see.” Amanda’s face had darkened. “So the wishes of the other person do not matter? They are just means to sate the urge?”

“If put to the extreme, yes.”

“And there is no middle ground between a platonic, peaceful connection and obsessive, sexual desire? For a Vulcan?”

Again, she had caught him off guard. Her pen was hovering in the air, waiting for an answer that Sarek, for the life of him, just could not give her. He pursed his lips and then forced himself to look at her.

“You must understand, Doctor,” he said slowly. “We gravitate always to our possessive nature. To keep it in check is the only way to ensure that we do not hurt another person we value, especially not when we are so deeply bonded. Surak’s philosophy gives us the guidelines for that. When we bond, we bond for life, forever. Our souls become entwined until one cannot be without the other. And when it comes to our bonded partner, to respect and cherish them is the highest principle of Vulcan matrimony.”

Amanda bit her lip. Something glimmered in her eyes. “That,” she smiled, “is the most romantic thing I have ever heard.”

They went for dinner at the embassy, simply because it was closer, and for absolutely no other reason. This time, Sarek focused more on the conversation than on Amanda’s hair. Over the day, it had slipped out of her Vulcan updo, and ringlets of curls were framing her face. He began to understand why the Terrans liked that. 

They were alone.T’Pali had excused herself immediately after they had left the park. She looked tired, and the usual spark of intellect in her eyes was only a faint shimmer. Even Sarek began to feel worried about her. As far as he knew, T’Pali and Solik had been betrothed for quite some time. He distantly knew Solik’s mother, had met her on occasion at charity events. She was a remarkably unbending woman. Her principles and expectations were set in stone, in a way so rigid that it defied all logic. Her son's engagement was agreed upon. It was not permitted to fail.
Then again, the boy was twenty-two by now. His time was more than expected. Sarek would understand if this was what was causing the young lady so much distress. 

But it only took until the main course that T’Pali’s marital struggles had entirely disappeared from his mind. 

Amanda captivated him like he was a moon in her orbit, passively reflecting her light back at her. She moved her hands so much while talking - every time she spoke, he caught himself tracking the movements of her slender, freckled hands.
Again and again, she had surprised him. She was clever, more clever than he had expected, and given that her Terran brain had not been drilled in Vulcan rhetoric, he could never anticipate where her next train of thought was coming from, or from which side she would attack his argument. It was vexing. It was, even worse, unbearably exciting . 

The first course had come and gone without him even noticing that he had finished his plate, because Amanda was telling him about the research into Vulcan vocabulary before and after the reform that she had conducted for her master's thesis. Apparently, his remark that Standard was inadequate in translating certain cultural implications had stung her.
Sarek only felt marginally sorry - he loved listening to her, to run along with the swift leaps of her thought process, occasionally redirecting or leading her in a chase until she found the argument that would make him retreat. He wished she'd never stop talking. 

That was probably the chocolate cookie speaking. 

Only after the second one he had realised that this was real, Terran chocolate, not the synthetic variant without cocoa butter that was sold on Vulcan. He was a little inebriated. But not too much. Hopefully. He would have to keep his wits together with this woman. 

The chocolate would also explain why he found Amanda especially enchanting tonight. The flow of her words was like a melodious stream, skipping from one idea to the next like clear, precious spring water. Her hands were soft, with some freckles dancing over her knuckles and the back of her palm whenever she moved - had he already said that? It seemed likely-

 He had not previously noticed the necklace she was wearing - it was a simple, silver chain with a Terran letter symbol that he was not familiar with. It hung right in the middle of the cutout of her robe, not even attempting to be hidden, as if to display that she still was a woman of her planet, of her people, as much as she admired Vulcan. Sarek realised slowly that he liked that - that he didn't want her to change. The metal must be warm from her skin, he mused. Cold, unbending, hard metal, warmed up and made pliant by the human warmth of her soft bosom. The gentle purr in the back of his head hadn't ceased since her eyes had fixed him like he was the most interesting person she knew.

It was, at this point, illogical to deny that he was attracted to her. It was a simple fact. Kaiidth. But his attraction was purely one of intellect. Amanda was challenging, he told himself. She was, in a way, tempting. Intellectually.

As much as she tried to adhere perfectly to this strange planet she had moved to (and he had to admit that she did so admirably), there was still the obvious distance to be bridged between them, that her self-control and blankness were not the same as his. Behind hers was the mind of a pack-bonding, warm, joyous human who craved connection, understanding, light. Her humanness shone through her discipline like the sunshine through a thin layer of fabric. He wondered what else was hiding behind that veil of restraint, what would be uncovered once they had grown closer and her attitude of polite distance had been stripped away. In a way, it pricked his curiosity. He wanted to be close to her. Too close.

She was an attractive woman, too. Kaiidth, again. He'd be blind to not notice that. He had studied aesthetics, and he knew that appearances were shallow vanities, and that deeming some features attractive or unattractive always said more about oneself than about the desired person. Still, he could not deny that, in his personal opinion, Amanda was exceptionally beautiful. 

That was an entirely neutral sentiment, of course.  To know that someone's outward appearance was attractive was a different thing than being drawn to someone purely on the basis of their looks. That would be vanity. Surak did not condone vanity.

He wondered what Surak would say if he saw the woman in front of him now. Had Surak ever looked upon a woman like this? Surely, no Vulcan lady could compare. Amanda's hair, so red, so copper red, so strange, caught the light as if it burned. The freckles danced over her skin like sparks, and her cheeks were reddened by the warmth and the Saurian wine he had ordered. She was a kindling flame, flickering, moving and glowing. His hands itched to be warmed by her touch. To be warmed, and to bend.

He should not have eaten that chocolate cookie. But just as he was about to excuse himself to the bathroom and splash some cold water into his face, she asked him whether he had read about Terran stoicism.

“I do not believe I have. Enlighten me.”

That earned him a smile and the sleek creature in his mind purred louder. Apparently, he was indulging a special interest.

“Your remark earlier about Terran ancient Greek having several different words for love reminded me of it. It is philosophy. I think your Surak and our Chrysippus would get along fantastic. You see, the Terran Stoics were also incredibly fond of logic and practising virtue. Chrysippus even invented a system to apply logic to all situations of life.”

Sarek leaned in closer. “That sounds impressive. What logic did he apply?”

Amanda laughed nervously. “Oh, it was some time ago that I read it. Uh.” She chewed on a bite for a little longer, her eyes fixed on a spot left to his head. Then she said: “I think the main argument was that a good, fulfilling, beneficial life can be lived by adhering to certain virtues at all times. Like honesty, or justice, but also courage and humility. That does sound rather Vulcan, doesn't it?”

Sarek tilted his head. “We do not call these things virtuous,” he said. “We call them logical. It is logical to be honest, just, courageous or humble. If you were not, you would cause pain or confusion to others or yourself. To behave like this would be illogical. The needs of the many outweigh selfish desires.”

“How noble.”

“Again, simple logic.”

She took a sip from her glass, not leaving him out of her sight. “So it's logic that makes you a perfect gentleman?” 

The wine was a faint, husky layer on her voice. Sarek could feel the tingling in the tips of his ears. He was definitely blushing. 

“It is only logical to be a gentleman when engaging with such desirable company.”

Oh, Surak . 

Amanda halted for a second, wine glass tipped against her mouth. When she lowered it, she very slowly raised a brow (only one - how did she do that?) and paused. Her attempt at an amused laugh hung between them. Sarek cleared his throat.

“You have not yet told me how this is tied to your argument on Terran Greek vocabulary.”

Thankfully, she got the cue, swallowed down her wine and leaned back. For only a moment, she looked almost bashful. “When I studied Vulcan vocabulary, before and after the reform, one of the things I couldn't help but notice was how quickly Surak and his followers reduced the vocabulary of emotions. Old Vulcan had a plethora of all kinds of terms for them. But now, many of these are perceived as old-fashioned or- well-”

“Obscene. Like.” He cleared his throat. He couldn't utter the word in a restaurant full of Vulcans with hypersensitive ears. “The. Well.”

“I know.” She flashed him a smile. “Engulfment. Don't worry, I will try not to scandalise anyone.”

“You mean, not again.”

He met her mock offended gasp with a cocky one. “Do continue.”

Amanda looked like she wanted to call him a word for Terrans conceived out of wedlock. “My point is,” she said once she had gathered herself, “Stoicism attempted the same. They reduced the vocabulary, tried to summarise emotions under four groups: Distress, fear, lust, and delight.”

“Too complex still. Fear is a kind of distress, and lust can be a source of delights. Or so I have read.” He cleared his throat. “And all can be summarised as fleeting passions, contrary to timeless, unified logic.”

“You'd be willing to lump fear together with lust?”

“They are both shades of agony. Fear is the anticipation of distress, lust is the anticipation of delight. Logic frees you from all of them.”

Amanda swirled the dark green wine in her glass. “Funny. I read the exact same sentence in a Vulcan school book I was analysing. ‘Logic frees you from mental strain and agony.’”

“You analysed Vulcan school books?”

She took another sip. “I think one can learn quite much about a culture from what it chooses to teach its children. Vulcans choose to train their young children in regulating their emotions, putting them into broad categories. You reduce the vocabulary of emotion to not get lost in analysing them too deeply. It is logical, of course. This way, you waste less time before applying logic to let go of these hindering feelings. If you cannot articulate what you feel, you are more likely to dismiss it.”

“You are saying that, since we started using logic instead of passion, our emotional vocabulary has become smaller?”

“It's what earned me my master's thesis,” she laughed. “And at least one scholar of the VSA was on the committee. Soshal or something similar was his name, and I think he felt flattered by the conclusion that Vulcans do, in fact, ban emotions even from their language. But he also was rather - insistent on his own opinion.”

“You mean to say stubborn.”

Her expression always betrayed her. The twitch of her mouth, the smallest movements of her brow. It was delightful to watch. 

“He was of the opinion that I should only study Vulcan educational literature. I had wanted to read up on the more complicated emotions - jealousy, vanity, desire, but for some reason, Vulcan love poetry was deemed to be too touchy a subject. I didn't pry.” She gave him a shy smile. “Of course, I didn't know how much of a taboo it was. I apologise if I have offended you.”

Sarek thought for a moment. His chocolate-addled brain was swimming, whereto he didn’t yet know.  

“I may have an offer,” he heard himself say. Amanda's head perked up. 

“Yes?”

“You are still interested in Vulcan pre-reform poetry?”

“It is not my current focus of research,” she said with a shrug. “And I really have my hands full with this project here. I- I would only call it a private interest, but I know-”

Sarek interrupted her.

“Pre-reform poetry, especially love poetry, is very hard to come by. I need you to know that much of it is indexed as too emotional for our modern taste.”

“I am aware.”

“We do not sing love songs, especially not on such, well, improper subjects. Of course, you know that Surak advocated for simple instrumental music. It is less…stimulating. Most poets I know of are out of print by now. I assume you could ask the VSA for access to their archives, but they will make you fill out a truly ridiculous amount of paperwork, even if you could argue that this is important for your research.”

“If they even let me. I tried before.” She flicked a curl out of her face. Apparently, the issue brought up frustrating memories.

He breathed in. His decision was made. “Well, luckily for you, you know the Vulcan ambassador now. If I give them a hint, you can have the complete works  of Shanor on your desk tomorrow. They might convince you that we can, in fact, feel everything. Fear, desire, jealousy - even lust.”

“ Shanor ?”

 Amanda looked at him as if he had just told her that unicorns were real (they were, on Zeta V, but that was a different story entirely). 

“I thought they didn't have any of his works. That they were lost.”

“I assume that was a misunderstanding. They do have his works. My father donated his personal library upon his death, and I know for certain that a copy of Shanor’s works was among them, which he only possessed because he was the one who decided to ban the book in the first place. But I doubt that they will hesitate lending the book to me.”

“You mean they lied to me.”

“Vulcans do not lie.” Sarek attempted a conspiratorial look. “We withhold the truth, occasionally.”

“And what reason will you give them to lend one of your father's old books of restricted ancient poetry?”

Sarek leaned back in his chair and put his hands together in a triangle. “That I need it for science. Obviously.”

 “For science.” She returned a conspiratorial smile, but her eyes were soft. “I am beyond grateful.”

“It is nothing. I must only ask you to recommend me some of the books of that Chrysippus in turn. He sounds like a most interesting man. Vulcan would benefit from studying his teachings.”

Her smile grew even wider, and Sarek felt something inside him flutter. “I would love to!”

It was settled. The image of her delighted smile had burned itself into the back of his eyelids. Kaiidth.

“Did he achieve his goal in the end?” he asked, half out of curiosity, half to hear her keep talking, and also because it would calm the creature purring in the back of his head. “Did he in fact lead a long, prosperous life of logic?”

Amanda took a bite of her dessert (when had they brought in the dessert?) and tilted her head. 

“Uh. Not quite.” She swallowed. “He. Uhm. He made a joke about a fig eating donkey and laughed so much about it that he died.”

Humans.

This time, Amanda made no effort at masking her laugh at his dumbfounded expression as a coughing fit. The wine had done the work on her that the chocolate had done on him, and he felt himself unable to resist it.

“Well,” he gathered himself. “You see, this could entirely have been prevented by logic.”

“You think?” Amanda refilled her glass and raised it with a mocking smile. “To logic, then.”

“To science, Doctor Grayson.”

Chapter Text

Amanda still couldn't sleep. The air in her room was stale and tasted of sand. The hum of the air conditioning purred in the background, an ever present, faint whirring. Normally, she found the noise calming. Now, it only provided one more item in her already overcrowded mind. 

She had called Elise earlier, partly to distract herself, partly because a part of her was yearning to talk to someone who followed all the same conversational rules that she did. As easy as conversation with Sarek was, he was still Vulcan. Talking to her sister, without wondering whether she laughed too much or made too many facial expressions or twirled her hair through her fingers too much was refreshing. Grounding. Amanda had realised how much she missed her sister. Elise was busy with her lab work. She had attempted to explain it to Amanda - something about a research project on DNA sequencing to produce more resilient grain for colonies on previously uninhabited planets. But Amanda had never shared her sister's affinity for memorising the terms of advanced biology. She was simply glad the newly fielded Tarsus system would profit from the grain samples, and glad that she could sit and listen while her little sister rambled on. Nola, the girlfriend, made a brief appearance in the corner. Her hair was a teal colour this time - it suited her pale purple skin much better than the previous deep, heavy red.  Her only question to Amanda was how things were going with her “hot embassy guy” (Nola had whacked her arm about it and her girlfriend had disappeared laughing in theliving room). 

As much as she and Elise had later laughed about it, Amanda had, unfortunately, been unable to let the thought go. Truth was that she had no idea how things “were going”. 

Was it true that Sarek's interest in her research, her ideas, her personal thoughts on politics and philosophy, flattered her? That she maybe - maybe - felt a little flutter in her stomach when he gave her that slightly annoyed, slightly fond non-expression that only meant that she had surprised him again? 

Elise had said that his face reminded her of a disgruntled cat - the comparison stuck, as much as Sarek, with his tall frame and considerable strength, resembled a panther more than a docile house cat. 

Despite his stoic air, sometimes she even felt like he liked her human quirks. He was far easier to read than he would let himself believe. When a man was this inexpressive, even the smallest twitch of his mouth or brow, each slow blink, said a million words. And, after all, she wasn’t new to Vulcans and their insistence that they didn’t feel anything. Sarek seemed to forget that she had spent the better part of her career analysing his planet of secret-harbouring, stoic tightasses. It annoyed her to no end that he was still a tough nut to crack. 

If she was being honest, Amanda still knew next to nothing about Sarek - besides the things he had told her of himself. She knew he was strict with himself in following the Surakian principles, often to the letter. That he meditated daily, sometimes twice a day. He liked chess, and he liked to read philosophy. He liked poetry and wine, though he said himself that he didn't have a refined taste in both - he merely enjoyed them without passing judgement on their quality. He disliked Klingon opera, intensely, but with the caveat that his first exposure to it had been on a diplomatic mission where he had contracted food poisoning and sat through the opera in a stuffy opera house, sweating through his robe, and trying to keep his stomach down with the hand of the Klingon ambassador on his shoulder at all times - it had not been a good first impression. He practised with the lirpa twice a week. He found Tellarite rules of discussion incredibly frustrating. His favourite place on Terra, which he had visited four times so far, was Australia. “It's a beautiful, if dangerous place,” he had mused over dinner. “As far as I can judge. All the red desert - the heat - It reminds me of home.”
On the same trip, one of his human colleagues had, as a joke, taught him how to play an “ancient Terran ballad” on the Vulcan lyrette, which he insisted to demonstrate to Amanda one evening.
(The second he strummed the first two chords, it turned out to be Wonderwall . Amanda didn't have the heart to tell him.)

With a frustrated sigh, she tossed her blanket away and rolled onto her side. The sheets underneath her felt slippery. She suddenly felt so silly - here she was, lying in bed in the middle of the night, worrying about a pretty guy like a schoolgirl. After all, they weren’t that close, she told her self. She couldn’t blame Sarek for “shrouding himself in mystery”, as Elise had commented. Every time she had tried to ask Sarek about his family, or his past, his career or his friends, he developed an incredible talent to veer the conversation into a different direction. Amanda wasn’t even sure whether he had friends - or whether he considered her one. 

Fucking hell. This was ridiculous. 

With a huff, she turned around in bed and pulled her padd from her nightstand. The framed picture of earth almost clattered to the side with the momentum. If she couldn't sleep, she could as well watch a holovideo. Or check her emails. Anything to get the thought of Sarek and his stupid enigmatic face and his stupid pretty shoulders and stupid fucking bowlcut out of her head. 

Their conversation on Vulcan marriage crossed her mind again. Sarek had been so reserved that she hadn't dared to ask whether he had a wife himself. She doubted it. Something about the way he had spoken about marriage - so impersonal, so sober - didn't read like a married man. 

Sovan, her supervisor, was entirely different. He didn't neglect to mention his spouse in every second sentence. There was a pronounced sense of pride in talking about their spouses that she had noticed in Vulcans. Maybe that came with being - metaphorically - joined at the head with your soulmate. 

But if Sarek was not bonded, Amanda wondered, why? 

He had made a rather impressive career - he was intelligent, caring, charming - and not bad looking either. Once she unlocked her padd, her chat with Elise and the pictures she had dug up, popped up again. Sarek's straight profile, his sharp cheekbones and striking eyes. It wasn't only his face though - he had strong, gentle hands. His waist was almost sinfully small. He was tall, too, without stooping. He stood upright, with his broad shoulders rolled back, the picture of quiet dignity. There sometimes was a certain sadness, like that of a human suffering from loneliness, in the way he carried himself. In a way, he reminded her of a Greek sculpture. Virile, strong and proud, but also noble, grave and thoughtful - but significantly more clothed. 

Unfortunately , she thought, and then pushed that thought very, very far away. 

Had his intended maybe rejected him? But then, again, why would she? And why had he not sought out a new partner? Amanda was sure many Vulcan ladies would have been more than delighted to be bonded to a man like him. Well. As delighted as Vulcans could be, after all. And he must have been joined to another child when he was about seven, if he had told her the truth. Where was that woman now?

A cold shiver raced down her spine. They had talked about that, too - the void that was suddenly left in someone's mind when their partner severed the bond or died.  Like half of your entire being, your home and haven, had suddenly been swallowed up by the universe. Sarek had described it as some cauterized, sterile wound in someone’s mind - devoid of feeling, pain as well as tenderness. Had he perhaps been bonded, only for his wife to die, in some terrible accident or of a lingering illness, perhaps? That would explain the melancholy in his eyes, and the way he so tightly held onto Surak's principles of suppressing all emotion. Amanda couldn't even imagine what grief of this depth might feel like.

She swallowed hard. If that was the case, her flirting with him had been more than inappropriate. Or was her tired head running away with her morbid fantasy?

The picture of Sarek on her padd flimmered, and for a moment it seemed like his eyes fixed her with their usual challenging questioning. If he was a human, Amanda would be fairly sure that he had flirted with her as well. But Sarek was not human. He was Vulcan, self-disciplined, emotionless, and secretive. And he had obviously taken root in Amanda's mind. 

Her padd chimed and pulled her out of her worrying. It was a new comm from Starfleet. Squeezing her eyes shut and blinking, she focused on the text flashing across the screen in tiny all caps.

//GRAYSON, AMANDA: ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER - Please update personal information on file!//

Having nothing else to do, and desperate to think about something else, she clicked on the message. It was a rather simple instruction to please update and verify her new address in her internal personal data file. Someone had apparently already transmitted her new communicator code as well as her address at the Starfleet HQ, but she still had to check whether the machine hadn't mixed up the entries again. Starfleet databases and bureaucracy were a mess, still entirely unable to catalogue all the different members of different species. She scrunched her tired eyes again and clicked on the link leading her to the personal database. 

Then a thought crossed her mind. 

There were six separate Sarek's listed in the Starfleet personnel database. Three were already dead Vulcans, two of them from first contact missions. Another one was a 150 year old advisor on the council for agrarian industries on developing planets, living out his retirement on the other side of the planet. Two were mismatches - an Andorian named Ka'al Misarek and a Terran named Sareka Doughal. 

S’chen T’kara Sarek was only listed as an important allied embassy member. His personal file was impressive - apparently, Vulcans were not shy when it came to listing their academic or career achievements. Amanda stopped reading after the third mention of a political science scholarship and skimmed the rest of the paragraph on education. Sarek had graduated as the second-best of his class at the VSA (she had no doubt that the “second” still stung him), and had straight been employed at the embassy as a personal attaché. He had visited so and so many planets, spoke this many languages, had been co-signer on so many interplanetary treaties and ratifications- Amanda yawned and scrolled faster. Place and Time of Birth, Education, Career, Notable Achievements flew past her. Her finger tingled when she finally clicked on “Personal life”. 

The familiar layout appeared: a sober table listing parents, siblings, marital status, name(s) of spouse/partner/associate and number of children. But the table stayed clear. Entirely clear. 

Nothing. She tried again. The page marker on top of the screen rotated for an awfully long time. Then a grey pop-up appeared. 

//Error 41: The following section is locked for unauthorised members. Please refer to the Vulcan High Council of the Vulcan Embassy if you wish to request further information. //

That was weird. Amanda reloaded the page and tried again, to the same message. She tried logging in with her VSA account. Still no use. Sarek had apparently locked any and all information on his personal life. 

She suddenly remembered what he had said to her when they discussed her fruitless endeavour to borrow poetry from the Vulcan State Library.

Vulcans do not lie. We withhold the truth, occasionally.

He still kept his word. When Amanda arrived the next morning at her office, caffeine only feigning to wake her up from her five hours of sleep, T’Pali and Solik were already there (a chill as cold as Andorian solstice between them), and so was a heavy, parchment bound book on her table. It had been placed inside a protective plexiglass container - what it was supposed to protect, the book from the reader or the reader from the book, wasn’t clear. Still, Amanda had to supply her personal identification number and her fingerprint scan before the metallic clasp on the container snapped open with a smooth clicking noise. 

Much like the Vulcan children in the park, the heads of her two assistants immediately perked up. A little like meerkats, Amanda thought to herself. 

Solik was even so interested that he untethered himself from his ever growing list of papers on modern Vulcan media (225 articles and counting) and moved over to her desk with his hands clasped behind his back. 

“May I-” he asked, and the tips of his pointy ears became a shade darker, “- We would have pinged you, Doctor, but we weren’t sure whether that would be rude. Can I ask what this book is?”

He sounded a bit unsettled. When Amanda lifted the book from its plexiglass box and placed it very carefully on her table top, he even took a step back. It didn’t look old - not in the way some 200 year old Terran books looked old, at least. Apparently, Sarek’s father and the VSA after him had taken great pains to preserve this book, salacious though the content was. The string wrapped around the book to keep it closed and secure was still unfrayed - maybe it hadn’t been opened much at all. The parchment binding must have been almost off-white at some point, made from precious, fine, bleached leather, with the name of the author imprinted on the middle of the cover in old fashioned Vulcanur letters. Marvellous. The leather was in incredible condition, only small cracks around the edges - 

Solik cleared his throat. “Doctor Grayson?”

“Pardon?”

“I was just asking - uh-” he swallowed hard, and then almost whispered: “What is that?”

“Oh!” Amanda gave him a conspiratory grin. “That, Solik, are the complete works of Shanor.” 

The poor boy flinched so hard that he probably pulled several severely neglected facial expression muscles. T’Pali lifted her head from her padd with the same meerkat-like notion. Her wide eyes met Solik’s, thoughts no doubt flying across their telepathic bond. 

Amanda took a step back and tried her best to sit through the uncomfortable silence like a Vulcan would. Finally, T’Pali willed herself to speak. 

“Pardon me, Doctor Grayson, but I am confused. I thought you were conducting xeno-anthropological research. Scientific study.”

There was a strong, but carefully veiled sense of distaste in the girl’s voice. Amanda squared her jaw. 

“I am. I have had an interest in Shanor’s texts since I started studying Vulcanology. Precisely because they are banned.”

“They are banned for good reason!” Solik threw in. “They-” His enthuiasm wavered as quickly as it had come. “Uhm. I am sorry, Doctor, but value is there in-” He struggled to find the word. “In - smut literature?”

Amanda chuckled, before she realised that that probably made her look like a psychopath to the two Vulcan prodigies. “Trust me, I promise I will be able to handle it. I’m not going to make you read any of it, if you don’t want to. But I promise a book of love poetry won’t hurt you.” 

“Love poetry is a very euphemistic term for graphic descriptions of-”

“Solik!”

The emotion in T’Pali’s voice was now unmistakeable. The girl wasn’t abashed - not even disgusted - but genuinely afraid. 

Amanda let go of the book and turned to sit down at the edge of her table. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t aware Shanor was regarded as such a taboo topic. I talked about it with Ambassador Sarek and got the impression that the ban on his work was mostly an antiquated idea of propriety. I-”

At the mention of Sarek’s name, Solik’s tense shoulders had softened. “The ambassador gave you permission?”

“He did. He’s the only reason why I got my hands on the book at all. I explained my scientific interest to him and he agreed with me.”

“Ah.” The two exchanged looks again. T’Pali’s face had regained her neutral, cold regality. “Then there must be logic in the decision.”

T’Pali nodded faintly as her fiancé spoke. “I think we must apologise as well, Doctor Grayson,” she said after a moment. “I read your study on Surakian education in Vulcan secondary schools, and while I don’t agree that our education on Vulcan history is somewhat distorted, I think you’re right that- That we can never be neutral. But I hope that you understand that Solik and I - well. We wouldn’t like this to show up on our academic record. If that would be possible.” 

Before Amanda could say something, her other assistant cut in. “Please do not take offence, Doctor. It is a very logical decision. T’Pali and I both want to go into teaching. I’m afraid the mention of Shanor on our resumes could be an obstacle.”

“What, you’re worried that no school would hire you because you read a little too much poetry?”

She sounded more offended than she was. Of course, she knew how incredibly rigid the qualification assessments for Vulcan learning centres were. After all, Surak the “Reformer” was a rather ill-translated title - Surak the Teacher would be more accurate. Instructing the next generation was one of the most prestigious responsibilities a Vulcan could have. 

Not that it inspired a lot of respect, Doctor Amanda Grayson, first human academic to research and teach on Vulcan, now realised. 

Solik’s ears had turned a dark greenish-yellow, betraying his otherwise unmoved face. “It is a possible outcome. We already took a risk when we-”

“When what?”

He paused. There probably was a telepathic debate being held over how not to offend an illogical human. Then he muttered: “When we applied to work with you. Doctor.”

From the way neither he nor T’Pali could meet her eyes, neither of them had wanted to put it this bluntly. The touchstone of the whole affair, Shanor’s damned complete works, was still lying innocently on the table, as prim and proper as a textbook on construction statics. 

Amanda folded her arms and tried to wait out the awkward silence that followed, then remembered that Vulcans were perfectly unaware of when a silence became awkward. 

“So that’s it then?” She tried to suppress the shaking in her voice. “Mutiny, outright?”

When still no response except for shamefully drooping eyebrows came, she blew her hair out of her face, resisted kicking the leg of the table and wished she had a Vulcan’s composure. 

“Fine. Fine. You’re both dismissed for the day. If anyone asks, you, T’Pali, are looking up whether there are active archaeological digs around ShiKahr and you, Solik, are updating my list of publications for my conference talk. And proofread the slides. I don’t need you in my office for that.”

The poor boy immediately scrambled to put his padd into his bag, carefully avoiding the icy stares both from Amanda and his fiancé. T’Pali closed her bag and slanked across his way like a cat stepping over a puddle.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said quietly. “We meant no offence.”

“None taken.” Bless that Vulcans were terminally tone deaf. “I hope this agreeable?” Amanda added coldly. “Or does it offend precious Vulcan propriety again?” 

“It does not.” T’Pring closed the clasp on the scarf around her shoulder and straightened her back. “I shall see you both here tomorrow. Peace and long life.” 

Then she strutted out of the door and down the hallway without looking back. Solik only had time for an embarrassed ta’al before he hurried after her. His “K’diwa, wait-” did not slow the clicking of T’Pali’s steps. 

Amanda wished she could slam sliding doors shut, grabbed her padd, the Fifty Shades of Shanor, and got to work. 

She had managed to get five hours of translating done before her stomach violently demanded something to eat. Usually, her assistants’ scuffling at precisely noon or Sarek’s overly formal text messages had alerted her that it was time to get something for lunch, but the two junior Puritans had disappeared (she had sent them a link to an article about Terran book bans of the 21st century and hoped that it stuck) and wherever Sarek was, he was not responding to any messages. She considered looking for new assignments on his Federation page. But he wouldn’t have left for another planet without telling her, would he? 

The sad little twinge in her chest was probably hunger. Why would Sarek have to tell her anything, really. 

She still went to have lunch at the embassy. 

It was different to be here alone, she quickly realised. With Sarek shielding her from the curious stares and distracting her with conversation, the long queue leading up to the counter seemed excruciating, too quiet, and lonely. The Vulcans, usually in small groups of two or three, all seemed to drop their conversation topic the second a flash of copper red hair entered their field of vision. She had never realised how quiet the entire place was. And no matter how she stretched up on her toes and looked around, she could nowhere make out the tall, lean frame of that one particular Vulcan she had hoped to see here. 

She thought of the picture of earth seen from the moon that someone had put on her night table. Earth. Small and fragile, and so far away. 

Balancing her tray of plomeek soup with dumplings in one hand, she finally found a spot at a table by the window. The one Vulcan still sitting there answering messages cleared his place so quickly as if she had the plague. Or maybe she smelled bad. Poor sensitive Vulcan noses. Poor humans, not used to walking through a breezy 32 degree heat just to get some lunch. 

One spoon in hand, she started scrolling through her private messages. Elise had sent her a picture of Nola with a small viperkitten in her purple arms. The kitten looked up at her with big, round, very indignated eyes. In the second picture, it was pawing at the camera with what was probably a terribly ferocious kitten meow. 

13:24: Isn’t he the cutest??? We still need a name for him!

Amanda tooka bite out of a dumpling and typed a response. 

15:07: What about |

“I’m sorry, love, is that seat still free?”

That was definitely not a Vulcan. 

Amanda looked up. The woman opposite the table was very pretty, very pregnant, and very, very green. When Amanda said nothing, she shrugged and blew a strand of pink hair out of her face.

“Sorry, I just, I thought you wouldn’t mind, since you’re-”

“No! Of course!”

She almost spilled her plomeek soup into her lap as she pulled her bag and scarf from the chair opposite to her. The lady sat down with a relieved sigh and stroked one hand over her round belly. 

“Thanks. This one is giving me a bit of trouble.” 

A smile, very wide, and so refreshingly human, lit up her face. Amanda could have cried with gratitude. 

She stretched out her hand. “You’re Terran, right? Do we - uh -”

“We shake hands. I mean, at least my brand of Terran does.”

“Great!” Another smile and a surprisingly firm handshake. “I’m Orla.”

Orla was a PR manager in the employ of an Orion ambassador stationed for five months on the space station orbiting Vulcan. Due to her condition (“Six months, and they’ve started kicking!”) she had been allowed to stay on dirtside, where she wouldn’t have to deal with space sickness and where the Embassy’s doctor, who had a sound training in multispecies medicine, could check on her. She was pretty, and talkative, and smart, and, according to herself “incredibly lonely and bored”. 

Amanda regretted that she had skipped some lectures on Orion culture in university (in her defence, there had been an experimental reconstruction course on ancient Vulcan catapults which had been absolutely fascinating ), but she did remember that they placed incredibly high value on spending time with their community. Orla was no exception. 

“I’ve been calling my husbands every couple of hours since I arrived,” she joked as she tore through her hummus with grilled vegetables. “They’re so worried about me, of course, I had to keep Ranu from beaming down here this morning. And the other Vulcans - I don’t know, is it the same for you? They just don’t talk to me! And they smell -” She drew in a long breath, savouring the pheromones in the air “-well, that’s the weird part, they don’t smell at all!”

She cocked her head. Her dark brown eyes softened at the edges and she leaned forward as much as her stomach permitted. Without hesitation (oh, Amanda already loved her - but maybe that was the Orion pheromones), Orla took her hand. “I’m sorry, I know this is weird for people who can’t do this, but you smell a little lonely. And upset. Are you alright?”

“I-” There really was no reason to deny it, was there? Maybe it was because Orla was the first being to actually show her a feeling - actual uninhibited compassion - in months, but Amanda suddenly felt like crying. 

“Are human smells so similar to Orions?” she asked instead, past the growing lump in her throat. Orla shrugged.

“Similar. Not the same. I’m sorry, did I misread you? I know, it’s weird, I didn’t want to-”

“No, please.” Amanda pushed her hair back behind her ears and gave her new friend an apologetic smile. “I’ve been having a shit day, is all.”

“Hm.” Orla scooted closer and pushed her bowl of strawberry dessert over to Amanda. “Tell me about it?”

“Oh Tabadi’s tits, that’s ridiculous!” Orla laughed so loud that the pink curls fell forward over her shoulders and several Vulcans turned their heads towards them. Luckily, it was likely that only few of them understood a single word they were saying. Orla had learnt Terran English when she had spent three years on Earth, and the Vulcans had little interest in a language that was so obscure and insignificant (and so illogical, too!). It felt like a fresh rinse to the brain to speak English with someone other than Elise again. 

Orla hiccuped and tried to rein her explosive laugh into a slightly more Vulcan giggle. 

“Oh, the poor boy!” Against her will, Amanda had to grin, too, when Orla fixed her hair and tried her best at respectable Vulcan composure. It reminded her too much of Solik trying to hide his embarrassment.

“I mean, I knew these poor Vulcans are repressed, but I didn’t know it was that bad,” Orla said more quietly. “I’m sure Surak was a great guy, but by Mother Earth, he can’t have been fun in bed.”

Amanda was more than sure that that sentence alone would have the Vulcan High Council in a crisis meeting by evening. 

“It’s a cultural thing, I guess. I mean, I think a 19th century Terran would also collapse if you showed them Rigelian bodice rippers.”

“You don’t think they’d appreciate the latest The Fiery Pirate ?” 

Amanda snorted. “I think it would blow the fringe right off their heads. My sister read all these novels. Her girlfriend’s Rigelian.”

Orla looked delighted. “ Fiery Pirate ? I love those.” She scooted closer to Amanda. “If you want to, I can lend them to you! My wife gave me her copies when I beamed down, to keep me entertained.”

“Sure,” Amanda conceded. “I’ll - I’ll have to see whether he can hold a candle to Shanor.” 

“What’s he like?” Orla asked eagerly. Her perfectly manicured pink nails tapped impatiently against the cup in her hands. “Please tell me he’s secretly incredibly freaky. Unlike Surak.”

Amanda hesitated for a second. 

“I actually don’t know,” she had to say. “It’s- It’s all High Golic, and I think he deliberately tries to sound more ancient than he is, and there’s a lot of euphemisms, so I don’t even know whether my translations into Standard are correct. There’s an awful lot of talk about fire and flames and all that.”

“Sounds hot.”

“It’s -” Amanda pulled her padd out of her bag. “Wait, I can show you, it’s actually kind of sweet.” She paused.  “Of course, you can’t tell anyone. I- I think Sarek already stepped on some toes with letting me have the book at all.”

Orla motioned zipping her mouth shut. “Not a word. Tell me everything.”

Amanda believed her in an instant.

“Here.” Her notes were jumbled, the padd still had trouble converting her chicken scratch handwriting into print. “That’s from somewhere in the middle - sorry, it’s not very poetic, I mostly tried to get the gist of the Golic - there -” She tried her best to keep her voice down. The Standard translation would, no doubt, raise some pointed eyebrows around her. 

“When my time has come, my lover, I will go out in the mountains, my lover, And let the fire consume me, my lover - I’m not sure about the consumed here, the word is closer to what I think became eating or devouring in Vulcan, but I don’t know whether he is consumed by fire or consumes it himself, you know- there - And she will cool my - oh I had a hard time with that one - she will cool my heartflame with her hands - The burning will cease at the hands of my lover - “

“Lots of hands.”

Amanda gave her a look. “Orla, you have no idea.”

“Don’t shake hands with a Vulcan?”

“I think you should buy them dinner first.”

She flipped through her pages. “Again - that’s a different poem - I burn for my love as she for me, my eyes are flame, my heart is flame- ”

“I mean, that is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

Orla had bowed over the table to look at Amanda’s padd. “Sounds like he and his lover are about to behave very illogically.”

“Do you think?” Amanda scrolled up. “But then why would he go to the mountains ? Shouldn’t he go to her?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know whether she feels the same?” Orla’s eyes became even rounder. “Maybe - oh, maybe he longs for her, but he doesn’t know whether she also wants him, so he leaves, but she follows him - wouldn’t that be romantic?”

When Amanda chewed on her lip and said nothing, Orla drew in a long, savouring breath and leaned back. “I’m getting you the Pirate novels, Amanda. You smell like you need them.”

She pulled her padd out of her handbag and balanced it on her belly bump. “Are you free this evening? My flat is here in the Embassy, we might even be neighbours.” She looked up, suddenly even greener in the face. “I’m sorry - if you want to, of course. I know, we often have a reputation of-”

“No!” Poor her, Amanda thought. Apparently not even Vulcans were immune to being jerks to Orions - Orion ladies in particular. “I’d - I’d like that a lot.”

She tucked back an embarrassed smile. “It’s been some time since I actually talked to someone who wasn’t preaching logic to me the entire time. And who is on the same planet. Thank you.”

“Then it’s a date?” Orla squealed when Amanda nodded and slid over her padd for Orla to write down her apartment number. Then she stacked her plates on her tray and held on tight to Amanda’s arm to stand up. Her steps were a little uneasy. 

“I’d invite you right now,” she said apologetically, “but I think I have to lie down a little, and finish some things. How about 1900 hours?”

Seven pm was usually the time Sarek invited her for dinner. But Sarek hadn’t messaged her all day. He hadn’t even answered her very official and professional Starfleet channel message thanking him for his cooperation in providing rare source material. 

And it’s not like she was going to beg . 

Amanda straightened and stacked the two trays before Orla could protest. “Sounds perfect. I’ll have to get back to my office and finish some things, and lock away that damned book. I don’t think Sarek would want it to fall into the wrong hands.”

Orla drew in a long breath. Her eyes glimmered with something like mischief and unbridled glee. 

“Perfect! But then you’ve got to tell me who that Sarek is. He changes your entire scent profile.”

While Amanda was sitting crosslegged on a sinfully comfortable Vonda bean bag and getting an entire rundown of the extended Fiery Pirate universe, Sarek’s hover car parked itself in front of a large, tall-doored and narrow-windowed town house in the outskirts of ShiKahr. The fountain in the stone garden was still sputtering water in the afternoon heat. Wasteful. Entirely wasteful. He would never understand his father’s fascination with such expensive trifles. 

The door swung open before he could put his thumb on the scanner. Of course. He was being expected. 

With a shamefully long breath, Sarek stepped through the door. The inner yard was overcast with shadow, now that the sun was slowly setting. A sharp triangle of sunlight hit the east wall. Still, the figure of his father on the steps leading up was a finely cut dark shape against the white walls. 

“Skon. Peace and long life.”

His father did not reciprocate his greeting. Neither did he move. Sarek closed his eyes for a second. A quote from Surak’s second philosophies entered his mind: 

When the mind is young, it grows fast, but it bends as a sapling. When it is old, it is as durable as an old tree, but just as stiff and unmoving. 

He took a step forward, bending. His father’s robe flowed down the steps like the knotted roots of an unyielding desert tree. 

“Was it necessary to summon me, sa-mekh?” he asked into the empty courtyard. “You could have called. Then I would not have to-”

“Kroykah!”

Skon’s withered face wrinkled, but he did not blink. 

“There was no other way, Sarek. As a father , I know of my responsibilities to you. It is time that you remember yours.”

Chapter Text

“Why the sudden interest in my private affairs?”

Sarek was kneeling on the floor in his father’s dining room. Skon was sitting primly on the low bench reserved for higher ranking family members in Surakian times. If his father was one thing, he was a traditionalist. 

“The reason is perfectly logical. It is you who cannot see it.”

Sarek felt the twinge of irritation at the base of his neck. The last time his father had pried into his personal affairs like that was when he had just gone through his first pon farr. It had been humiliating to bare his most vulnerable moment to someone who had no place in the ancient ceremonies. It was more humiliating still that his father seemed to think that Sarek had not grown since then. For Surak’s sake, it had been five years. 

Skon folded his hands in his lap. “You see no reason why your father should summon you to your family’s homestead?”

“None that has to do with my personal dealings. Is there another reason? Is mother well?”

The familiar face darkened, if only for a second. “She is in meditation. You have caused her much distress. I did not want her to be part of this conversation.”

“Did she wish to be?”

His father's eyes darted at him with unconcealed disappointment. “She did not, for I did not tell her you would be here.”

Sarek failed to see the logic in this.

“My personal matters are of importance to you, but must not be disclosed to my own mother?”

For a moment, he was tempted to feel for his mother’s katra over the bond, but he resisted. His father was right - he had caused her much distress. It was well for her to rest, believing that her husband would not leave her in the dark about their son.

Skon folded his legs over each other. He was comfortable, even if his rigid posture did not show it. The smell of incense burned in Sarek’s eyes. But he would persist. 

“Do you know what duties a son owes to his father?” he asked, almost carelessly. Sarek swallowed hard. How could he forget? 

“Obedience,” he started. “Patience. Humility. Care. Loyalty-”

“Incorrect.” 

Skon’s face was unmoved. His katra was walled off to Sarek. He started again. 

“Obedience, patience, humility, care, attentiveness , loyalty. Heirdom.” 

“Correct.” Skon seemed a little disappointed that Sarek did not anymore stumble over his own words like when he had been a young boy, kneeling on the same tiles. “Why are there seven principles, sa-fu?”

“You know that I know-”

“I am uncertain whether you forgot. Answer.”

A waft of incense smoke passed over his father's face. It was an old mixture of spices - sharp, burning, and pricking in the nose and throat.

Sarek breathed down his frustration.

“A numerological metaphor, sa-mekh. The seven is a prime number. Indivisible by any other part. Only all singularities together can constitute the whole.”

That was correct. It was the exact words Skon had him memorise when he was still too small to look over the edge of the incense table. Relentlessly. He was not allowed to get up before he remembered.

 “You are a son, Sarek. My son. With the immense fortune of still having a father to guide you in life. It is your duty to follow these principles. Now remind me-”

Skon’s eyes fixed his son - a man now, not a scared child. “What are the duties of a father?”

Something in Sarek’s mind seemed to twitch - a cauterized, leaking scar at the bottom of his mind, a gaping ache. A missing. And next to it, a faint, amber-red spark. 

He straightened his back. 

“According to Surak, the duties of a father are protection, teaching, wisdom, discipline, provision, leadership, and affection.”

“You remember them well.” Skon unfolded his hands and added: “Better than you remember your child.”

There it was. Skon saw Sarek’s - his son’s - face blank for a moment. Not in controlled blankness, just in utter bafflement that he could have mentioned this - that he had violated their unspoken agreement to never mention this to each other -  that it still hurt Sarek. Were Skon still able to feel his son’s mind, he would feel a pang of suddenly upwelling shame and regret, a surge that was suppressed as quickly as it was recognised. At least, he had not failed in teaching his son that. Sarek cast his eyes down. 

“I have no child.”

“You do.”

“The child you speak of has a father. He is not mine. He will never be.”

“He was fathered by you. By rights, he is the only heir of Surak.”

“By rights, the boy has no connection to me. He is T'Rea's son and her husband's through marriage.”

“Her husband is irrelevant!” Skon exploded. “That the child is yours is an open secret. That you abandoned him, another. That he is the only member of a new generation of Surak's House is a fact that only needs evoking!”

“The only one thus far.”

It was a logical comment, Sarek thought. It was impossible to predict the future. He was well capable of conceiving another child, should an eligible partner present themselves. Still, it made Skon rise with such violent emotion that Sarek instinctively ducked his head, expecting a blow. 

“And what good would another child from your loins be?” Skon breathed, eyes locked on the wall to Sarek's left. “You have rejected all my and your mother's efforts in securing you another, suitable partner. Where is your obedience? Where is your loyalty? Tell me, son, how old are you?”

Of course, his father knew. But once set in motion, he would press on in his argument, come what may. Sarek attempted to catch the breath in his throat. Unbending as a tree, indeed.

“Twenty-seven in Vulcan years, father,” he said. “I was born on the second of the fifth month.” 

“How long is it since your last- your last time ?”

His father could not look him in the eyes. Sarek himself had to lower his gaze to where his hands were hidden in his sleeves when the shameful subject entered their conversation.

“You know I cannot pinpoint it, sa-mekh,” he said quietly. 

“Estimate. Speculate, if you have to.”

“About - six years. Six and a quarter, though we must account for-”

“I have no interest in the specifics of your mindless coupling.” Skon's voice cut through the air like a lirpah. “The fact is that in half a year or less, you will have need of a partner, or need for a burial, and I am certain that your choice of a partner will be less than adequate, especially given the company you keep these days.”

Sarek surprised himself with his sudden, ancient and hot offense flared up in him. His father must have felt or heard how Sarek's head suddenly snapped upwards and fixed him with a glare. His voice sounded icy even in Sarek's own ears. 

“May I ask who you are referring to?”

“Does it dignify explanation?”

“It requires specification. I am a diplomat, and a busy one. My circle of acquaintances is naturally wide and colourful.”

That was a weak excuse, but it was one. Skon allowed it. 

“If you must know,” he gathered himself, “it concerns the Terran you bestow so much of your time on. You are aware that her situation is being reconsidered by the Vulcan Science Academy?”

Sarek felt something in his chest tighten. Reconsidered almost always meant rejected. Was Amanda to be expurgated, sent away, beamed off at the next notice?

“I was not made aware. Is there sufficient reason?”

“As if you would not know!” Skon turned on his heels. Something flashed in his eyes, something that Sarek knew was the only thing that still elicited a reaction as strong as this from his father: hurt pride.

“Can you imagine my indignation, my embarrassment, when I was summoned to a personal meeting with T'Pau because your human has come so dangerously close to prying into the most holy, the most intimate secrets of our planet? She's behaving like a child beating a stick into a nest of fire ants, and the worst thing is not  that she's frightfully efficient and entirely too dull-witted to see the extent of the damage she is doing, it's not that she has completely won the Starfleet Scientific Board over, it is that I have to stand in front of T'Pau to explain how this Terran got her mute hands on one of the filthiest texts in Vulcan history, which has been placed under my strict guard, and to see that my own son signed off on that descision!”

Skon's voice had bellowed through the empty room like a thunderclap. For a moment, Sarek worried whether his mother upstairs was stirring in her sleep. He did not want her to be distressed. 

“Is the situation that serious?” he asked. “Doctor Grayson's interest in Vulcan literature is purely scientific. My many meetings with her had, among others, the purpose to determine whether she is worthy of being welcomed to study our society like this. I consider her more than worthy.”

Skon scoffed. His face was a mask of chalk-white indifference, only his eyes burned behind it with a cold flame. 

“That serious. T'Pau is threatening to leave the Starfleet council over it.”

That made Sarek sit up straight. Removing T’Pau from the Starfleet board was unthinkable. It would send the entirely wrong message to the rest of the quadrant. To sacrifice such an 9mportsnt seat over a mere trifle-

“She ought to stay. It is her duty to this planet.”

“My son,” Skon replied coldly, “I think you are the last one to lecture about Vulcan sense of duty.”

The captain’s dark, watchful gaze seemed to penetrate her bosom, plunging right into the soft, yearning parts of her feminine heart. Melissa gasped as his gaze raked over her delicate form, shrewdly wrapped in the few rags of her silk dress she still had on her. Yet a shimmer of softness passed over his cruel brow. Then the bitter sea wind dragged his long mane of copper hair over his face and his expression hardened again. 

“Lay her in irons,” the rogue pirate exclaimed. “And bring her to my cabin!”

Amanda closed the book again. “ That is what my little sister has been reading all the time?!”

Orla, lying half on her side on the couch, with a pillow under her belly, just laughed. 

“Come on, how old is Elise? Twenty-three?”

“Twenty-two. Two years younger than me.”

“More than old enough for a bit of The Fiery Pirate, don't you think?”

“No!” Amanda laughed. “She may be a full grown woman with a girlfriend of one year and a master’s degree, but she’s still my baby sister!”

Orla's ears perked up immediately. 

“Uuuh! So does she have a partner?”

“Yep. Nola. Another scientist. They've been together for a while now. Elise is a little obsessed with her. And they are thinking of adopting a cat. I just hope they won’t name it Flint.”

The protagonist of the novel, the pirate captain, bore the unfortunate name of Flint Seabourne. 

Amanda closed the book and leant back into the sofa. Orla's quarters were warm and humid (something about Orion skin being similar to Terran frogs, in need of moisture and hydration), and either it was the heavy air or the Orion pheromones or the after-work cider they had replicated in Orla's quarters, but she was starting to feel pleasantly lightheaded. 

Orla popped another tulaberry into her mouth and sighed. “Oh, I love those books. You can borrow that copy, if you want to. I think I scribbled some notes here and there, but hopefully that doesn't bother you?”

She seemed actually worried. Amanda smoothed the front of the book down (it was bent upwards from many repeated reading) and just shook her head. 

“Not at all. Don't you worry. Why do you still have paper copies though?”

They were not rare, but bulky, and it had been some time since Amanda had held one in her hands. Apart from Shanor’s racy poetry, of course. That was something different. That was racy poetry she was reading for science. 

Orla shrugged her green shoulders. “I don’t know. I like it more. I get a headache when I look at a screen for too long.” She smiled her toothpaste advertisement smile. “Especially right now. I get awful headaches in the mornings.”

Her arms circled around her belly. It touched something in Amanda to see her friend - they were friends already, right? - put a hand on her rounded stomach. Orla had told her so much about Orion ceremonies already - how she would be surrounded by her loved ones and her spouses during the days following the birth, and that it was expected by the family members and lovers of a person to take care of them and the baby for several months while they made a full recovery. Orions were used to living dangerously - a baby having as many caretakers as possible was only, well, logical. There had apparently been a lot of protest against the Embassy’s decision to let only Orla beam down. Two of Orla’s spouses had challenged the Vulcan ambassador to a ritual duel. 

Amanda really hoped the Ambassador in question wasn’t Sarek. 

With a whack of her hand, Orla had snatched the book from Amanda’s hands. Her eyes were glittering. “You’re thinking of him again!”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were!” Orla grinned and turned the book over in her hands. The cover showed a very scantily clad woman with teal Rigelian skin, being tipped helplessly backwards by an Orion pirate captain whose frilly shirt, obviously, had no buttons and showed off his hairy chest. The backdrop was a moonlit night at sea. 

Nothing could have been farther from Vulcan, or from one Vulcan in particular, but Orla did not bother.

“So what’s he like, your Sarek?” she demanded. “Passionate and troubled like Flint Seabourne?”

“Definitely not.” 

“Sad, I bet he’d look hot in the outfit. Then, full of duty and courage like Agent Hawk?”

Amanda had to laugh. “No!” 

“Or handsome and gentlemanly like Prince Valiant? I have their books, too!”

Amanda threw a pillow at Orla, but only because she couldn’t help giggling. “He’s not a prince, or an agent, or some - some fuckboy pirate captain, Orla!”

“What is he then?! And why do you turn into a pheromone incense stick the second I mention him?”

“He’s-” Amanda kneaded the pillow in her hands. “He’s a diplomat.”

“ Hot .”

“Yes, you’re married to three of those, I know. He’s supervising my assignment, in a way, and sometimes, we eat dinner together. I suppose he’s a little lonely. Or he just likes Terra. That’s really all.” 

A curl of her had loosened from her hair-do. The pins were itching a little. Who cares, Amanda decided. There was no Vulcan here who would be aghast at the sight of untamed hair, so she might as well pull the pins out. 

As she reached for them, Orla scooched over. 

“May I?”

Amanda let her. Orla’s hands were very careful, and the hairpins landed in a seashell-shaped little bowl on the side table (Orla was the woman to buy seashell-shaped little bowls and colourful little candles and matching coasters. It had been a necessity to beam some of them down with her.)

“You know,” she said after a second, while she gently braided Amanda’s curls into a loose braid, “you seem really careful about even thinking about this Sarek being interested in you. Why? Don’t you want him to like you?”

Amanda opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. 

“That- uh. I don’t know”, she said then, surprised. “I want him to like me, of course. I mean, I like him. It’s just - he’d never- I don’t think he-”

“You don’t think he’d like you back.”

 “Can you guys also read minds?!”

Orla’s hands landed gently on her shoulders. “Nope. But. You don’t give yourself a lot of credit. Or a lot of chances.”

When Amanda said nothing, she withdrew her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m being- sorry.”

“No, no, you’re right.” 

Damnit. Maybe there was something true about the Orion charm. But Orla looked genuinely worried for her. There was a warmth about her that had nothing to do with the warm mist escaping the humidifiers around them. 

Would it be so bad?

“I guess after my last boyfriend, I didn’t really think it would be fair to be with anyone, you know?” Amanda said then. “I just- I was always hellbent on doing this. On coming here. Working on Vulcan, it never seemed possible, but I wanted to be out there. And-”

She bit her lip. “I was with someone, in the Academy. Paul. He was - sweet, you know? But I always felt like he took us much more serious than I did. He wanted to settle down, build a home, all that. And then I got my first deep space assignment for Andorian sign language, and he - well, he only looked over the paperwork and said ‘well, it’s a shame you’ll miss that.’”

Orla stopped braiding her hair. “What?”

“I know!” It stung, still. “He thought, because we were together, and Andoria would be so far away, I would - I would say no. But I just-”

“You didn’t want to give up what you worked so hard for.”

Orla finished the braid with a twist of a hair tie, and unwillingly pulled Amanda’s hair as Amanda nodded. 

“Yes! I-” Finally, someone got it. It did still hurt, for fuck’s sake. Not only Paul’s expectation that she’d put their relationship above all else, but his genuine hurt when she didn’t. He had cried when they said goodbye at the shuttleport.

“I guess I just didn’t feel like it would be fair to start anything with anyone else after that. Because I love my work. I just - I shouldn't be with someone if I only end up hurting them, right? No one would want that.”

She had barely finished saying it when Orla had pulled her in a tight, awkward, perfumed hug.

“Don’t you feel so lonely ?” she asked. Amanda had to wiggle a little so that Orla would let her go enough to give her room to breathe. 

“I can't imagine it. I've been away from my family a couple of days and I miss them so much -” Orla continued, and her voice shook a little bit. 

“I mean, it's different for you, isn't it?” Amanda tried to distract. “You have partners. I mean - You're having a baby with them. And you have a job that allows you to be with them most of the time. I guess I'm just not- I don't know. I work so much, I just don't have the time to feel alone.”

“So you do feel lonely?”

Amanda turned the question around in her head for a moment. It was weird that she hadn't thought about it before. But Orla, with her round eyes and her gorgeous hair and her family pictures with her husbands and wives and siblings reminded her that there was something lacking - something stirring in her that was yearning. 

“Not really,” she said instead. “Not in the moment. Not after-”

“After Paul.”

“Yeah. I have - I have my sister, and my colleagues, and my assistants, and weekly lunch with my supervisor, and Sarek, and you- I’m not alone. Just, when I look into the future - like, five or two or even one year - I only see me. And I just wish-”

Orla's hands slid from her back to her shoulder. Of course. Scent profile. Maybe she could smell the tears building up. Amanda swallowed hard. 

“I guess I just wish there was someone else, too. Someone to lean on. I want to be able to build something with someone. My own place. And-” 

She gave Orla a nervous look. “And I know I want to be a mom, someday. Like you. I think I'd love that. No idea whether I'd be good at it, but when there's a man I love, and we have the means, why would I not want to have his baby? Or just a baby with him.”

With a nervous laugh, she tried to blink the tears in the  corner of her eye away. “He doesn't even have to be some ginger pirate prince, to be honest. Just someone I can cuddle up to. I hadn't really allowed myself to think that it could be possible, I guess.”

“Until Sarek.”

Amanda tried to laugh through the first tear running out of her eye. “I’m not currently thinking about having Sarek’s babies, no.”

“But you might want to cuddle up to him.”

From somewhere, Orla had conjured up a tissue. Amanda cleaned her nose. It all felt so silly now. 

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think Vulcans are amazing cuddlers.”

“We’ll ask Shanor about that.”

Several hours and an Orion romance movie later, Amanda fell asleep in her bed, the half-read first volume of the Fiery Pirate (it was not a very long book) slipping out of her hand onto the bed covers. She hadn’t thought of Sarek. Of course not. Why would she?

The boards of the ship creaked with every splash of the cerulean waves. The moon was a silver coin in the cloudless night sky, casting flickering winks of light over the water. In the moonshine, Amanda looked more beautiful than ever. 

The torn halter of her silk dress had slipped over her soft shoulder, exposing her freckles to the soft kisses of the pale moonlight. Like his fingers, rays of moonshine caressed her pale skin. 

She stirred - still half-awake - and her body arched towards him like a wave seeking shore. He caught her waist in his strong arms before hers wound around his neck and her mouth grazed his in a soft kiss. His name fell from her mouth into his. Her kiss grew hungrier, and tender touches turned to passionate ones, his arms encircling her and pressing her bosom flush to his chest.

She felt so fragile under his fingers. A Terran woman, with her soft arms and full thighs, yielding to his touch, trusting that he’d protect her. It awakened an ancient flame in him, a fire that lapped up his sides right into his heart. She sighed into him as he drew her closer to him, ever closer, until he was certain she would feel the fire burning in his veins on her tender skin. 

She had noticed, too, of course, and her clear eyes looked up at him with intent, her lips slightly parted. With one hand, she drew his up to her bosom, right over her heart that was hammering under the white silk of her gown. 

“Feel it,” she whispered breathlessly. “It calls to you.”

To him- him of all people, a disgraced nobleman who made his living as a pirate, who had kidnapped her from her ship right as she was about to be married to a loveless man. A man who could never love her with the same burning passion she enlightened in his heart. But it was green blood that flowed through his veins, and she could not-

Her voice called out to him, lost in the rapture of their bodies. It took nothing else for him to abandon his thoughts and ravage the tender skin of her neck and bosom with his mouth. She writhed in his arms, urging him on, her nails digging into the rolling muscles of his back. Like a elegant cat, she thought. A sleek, dangerous panther. 

He caught the thought and growled, making her gasp. It excited her. The dig of her nails in his shoulders, the way she clung hungrily to him, excited him. Already he felt the call of her mind, to welcome him, open for him. His mouth fell on her heaving stomach, soft skin blooming pink where his hands held her.

Yet it was not enough.

He moved ahead, electrified by the sound of her moans, until her thighs parted for him and he could push up her skirt past her hips. Her fingers wound into his hair, and his breath ghosted over her skin. His tongue caressed her almost impossibly slowly, lightly, until she gave a pleading gasp and he raised his mouth to the pearl of her treasure, nestled safely into the rosy, alien folds. She tasted of iron and salt, like the sea, like pleasure. The taste filled his mouth, and a purr, long and deep and primal, escaped him. Unexpectedly, her breath hitched at that, and her thighs came together around his head, her hands scrambling to have him closer, deeper, harder against her. His tongue drew the sweetest, most wicked sounds out of her. 

How could she have acted so coy before? Or was it him who had awakened a woman’s desire in her, was it him she called out for, to have and possess him for her pleasure, and be had and possessed in return?

The next purr made her body lift as a wave from the covers, her desire now overflowing, shining out of her, trickling over him wherever they touched. She was fire, she was flame, feeding the kindling that burned higher and higher in him, two flames lapping against each other where his mouth lapped at her. 

“Amanda”, he breathed, in his thoughts, in his mind, his mouth, his heart, until she was all he could feel and taste and he buried his face in her, greedy now. She keened his name back to him, lost in the nameless pleasure he had instilled in her, until her lust swept her away and her body tensed around his, both aflame, burning, breathless, in one. 

As she lay in his arms, her red hair splayed over his chest, she looked like a goddess of the sea. Her body was a wave of smooth pearl, kissed by the first rays of the morning. The silk dress lay torn on the side of the bed - at some point, he must have ripped it off her. He would protect her from all the world, from her cruel father, even if he sent all his fleet after them, but here, in the quiet of their rooms, she was his. 

Her fingers caressed his hands, still sensitive, still tingling. 

“I am all yours, my captain”, she whispered, entwining their hands in a kiss. Her eyes were pools deep enough to drown in. He met her lips in a kiss of her people, and she savoured her own taste from his lips.

“As I am yours, sweet siren.”

Twelve kilometres away, Sarek, son of Skon, sole heir of the house of Surak (long may logic reign) awoke in cold sweat from his meditation. 

This had not been his dream. 

Chapter Text

Vulcans do not dream.

Or at least, not in the purely associative and highly illogical way humans do. Vulcan dreams replay their eidetic memories in selection, filing each image deeper into the Vulcan's psyche. It is not that Vulcans had aphantasia - but their dreams consist of newly combined memories and images, tainted by deep feeling that was as slowly yet constantly moving as the great dunes of the red Vulcan desert.

At no point did they dream of entirely imagined scenarios, Terran age-of-sail novels or alluring Earth women in skin tight silk.

Until last night.

Sarek muttered a low curse and balanced a bowl of tea to his mouth. His hands were trembling. His mind, supposedly occupied with agriculture treaties, was running through every image, sound, taste, texture of his inexplicable dream.

Oh, the taste of her. Salty and metallic against his tongue, with its own, strange fragrance, its intoxicating richness-

With a heavy clunk, Sarek set the bowl down on the glass top of his desk and determinedly pushed his fingers into the steaming hot tea.

It bit. It burned. But at least this was a healthy burning, one that claimed his mind from these selfish thoughts. Thoughts of a woman he should not think about. A woman he could never have.

His reflection stared back at him from the flat, black surface of the holomonitor. And to think that his involvement in the whole case had put her career in so much danger. It wasn’t only his father’s unfortunate prejudice against humans that had influenced the descision, Sarek knew. Skon was furious in his hurt pride because his son had disobeyed him - had acted behind his back. And T’Pau’s and Skon’s opinions rarely differed - now that Sarek’s mother was not anymore acting as a cushion of brilliant, empathetic logic between them even more.

No. Amanda was to be hurt to demonstrate to Sarek that he was not to disobey his father. It was as cruel as it was ridiculous. Sarek was in full confidence that he had done the right thing. Nothing would change his conviction in that. Despite the respect he owed - still felt compelled to owe - to his father, his own will was set. He was his own man.

Except that he cared about Amanda. He had long given up to refer to her as Doctor Grayson when he thought of her. She was Doctor Grayson, a brilliant, no, genius scientist, with just the touch of empathy, rigour, and occassional ruthlessness that would pave the way to stellar achievements. Vulcan should pride itself that a woman like her had taken such interest in their history.

But she was also Amanda. Amanda, with her chirping laugh and her radiant smile. Who could best him in discussion and tease out his humour. Who baffled and excited him in so many ways. He tried not to picture her face, the soft, pale skin with some shy freckles that wre teased out by the merciless Vulcan sun. Her flowing, dark hair that shone in all shades of red whenever the light hit it. Her hands, gentle, soft, and so deeply alluring in their movement. How often had he caught himself imagining trailing his two fingers down her palm, a touch so innocent and innocuous to her, a touch that would surely drive him to ecstasy with the lewdness of it.

With a groan of frustration, he withdrew his aching fingers from the scalding tea. The tips were red, swollen, and tender, but not burnt. He’d have to use a dermal regenerator on them later. It was hopeless. Amanda was an exercise in control and a distraction of joys and passions. But he had once let his passion get the better of him and had suffered every day for it since. Amanda would not be bound up in his misery. All he had to do was save her from his father’s revenge and stay away from her.

He felt how a deeply buried, pre-Surakian instinct cried out in pain at the thought of being without her. But he could bear it, he reminded himself. The pain was far preferable to causing her misery. They were not, and could not ever come to be.



Solik’s desk was empty.

Instead of the usual twin pair of aides, Amanda was only greeted by a strangely ruffled looking T’Pali. The poor young woman looked tired and worn out, her cheek bones jutting out sharply in her pale face. She turned like a startled meerkat when Amanda’s heels clicked on the tiled floor.

“Something the matter?” Amanda immediately asked when T’Pali took more than the acceptable second to wrangle her face into the stone-faced Surakian expression. “You look worried.”

The girl’s narrow lips got even narrower. “Worry is a human emotion, Doctor. Anxiety about the future is a result of faulty logic.”

“Sure.” Amanda stepped over and mustered T’Pali. The sash fastening her student’s robe was tied in a single double knot, not the complicated bow that was required by dress code, and her updo looked a little wonky.

“T’Pali,” she said with some sternness, “if you are ill, I would like you to stay home. You shouldn’t come to work if you’re not feeling well.”

“I am well,” T’Pali replied just as stubbornly. “I am physically and mentally sound, Doctor Grayson. Do not trouble yourself. If there are problems, I will alert you to them immediately.”

“I sure hope so”, Amanda muttered as she turned to check her padd. Vulcans were stubborn, but if the girl became even one shade paler, she would order her to go home and take a highly logical nap. Louder, she added: “Is Solik perhaps ill? I didn’t get any message from him.”

Her padd had been pinging all morning, but Amanda had overslept and had no time to look at them before arriving at the office. Still, the personal VSA-channel she and her aides used to communicate, was empty, except for her question from two days ago whether they liked Orion blue cheese crackers (Orla had ordered way too many out of a pregnancy-induced craving).

When T’Pali spoke again, her voice was icy. “I am not informed about Solik’s well-being. I apologise.”

“Oh?” Amanda turned with a raised eyebrow, but T’Pali didn’t meet her gaze. “Sorry, I thought, him being your boyfriend and all, you’d-”

“Solik’s and my relationship is currently indeterminate,” T’Pali replied, her grey eyes still fixed on her screen. Her hands were clenched very tightly in her lap. “As such, there is no reason why he would inform me of his motives. But I can contact him, should you wish.”

Amanda snorted. Oh, great. Lovesick young couples were one thing. Lovesick young Vulcans were completely new ground, even for her. Then T’Pali made a very small, stifled sound and Amanda immediately regretted it. Of course. She and Solik had been betrothed. T’Pali was twenty-one, the traditional age for young Vulcans to marry. The poor girl had probably already picked out a dress.

“Hey.”

She pulled up Solik’s chair to face T’Pali. She looked small. Her clear nail polish was clearly chipped. It reminded Amanda of Elise’s cheap black nail polish that always started splintering off after only a few days. And just like Amanda’s little sister, T’Pali also looked like she would rather bite her tongue off than admit that something was wrong.

“I know this is probably weird”, she said, hesitantly, “because I’m your boss and all, but, trust me, I know how you might feel. So. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

“There is nothing to talk of,” T’Pali answered, with just the slightest quiver in her voice. “I am sure Solik’s decisions are motivated by a logic that escapes me. Would he consider me a compatible companion, he would share them with me. Besides, Doctor Grayson, I would have thought that you have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Just in time, Amanda’s padd gave a chirping sound. She pushed it further away and fixed T’Pali with her gaze.

“Such as?”

“Such as your re-evaluation by the Academy Board.”

Amanda’s chair slammed back with a creaking sound. “My what?”


Amanda cursed herself. Her trembling hands were gripping at the sonic sink in the small bathroom at the end of the corridor, and her reflection looked back at her with an equal parts frightened and angry stare. If only she had checked her messages last night instead of rubbing one out to a fucking pirate novel. If only she hadn’t taken up Sarek’s offer to get Shanor’s fucking poetry. If only she, for once, had stuck to her fucking research question ad hadn’t run headlong into-

Her forehead met the cool glass of the mirror a little too hard. The sting cut through her whirling thoughts with painful clarity. She forced herself to take a breath.

Kaiidth, she reminded herself. What is, is. It almost sounded like Sarek’s voice. Oh, how she wished Sarek were here. Surely he would find a solution.

But then why had he not written to her? In the flurry of messages in her inbox, none were from Sarek or the Embassy. The first message that she had gotten last night at 11pm was a very sparsely worded notice that her research position was being reviewed by the Academy Committee because there were “reasonable doubts to the scientific merit of the research project and the researcher’s scientific integrity”. What exactly those were, they didn't deign to inform her off. It was a catastrophe.

The next one, sent barely an hour later, informed her that her aide, S’reen T’mer Solik, had quit his position as her research assistant for “personal reasons” with immediate effect. Mutiny. Outright. It was a wonder T’Pali was still here, distracted and distraught as she was. Amanda hoped that the girl’s decision to keep working for her hadn’t been the reason for the break-up.

More than ever, she wished for a Terran sink with a real tap, only to splash some cold water into her face. Or to wash off the treacherous mascara stain running down her cheek.

She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry. It was just a job, after all, and she hadn’t been fired yet, and there was still so much to do-

A small sob escaped her throat before she could stop it. Her hands shook against the cold porcelain. She should just have stayed home. Of course, she should have stayed home. Home. Earth. Paul.

No. Her break up with Paul had been entirely reasonable. Logical, even. They would not have made each other happy. Amanda defiantly scrubbed a sheet of dry toilet paper over her tear-stained face and took a deep breath. There had to be a solution.

Her heart twisted painfully at the thought that, surely, Sarek would find a solution if he was here. But of course, he wasn’t. Surely, if he had been able to stop any of this, he would have. He was an ambassador, after all.

No. She couldn’t count on Sarek.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. Before Amanda could scramble herself together, T’Pali’s quiet voice echoed through the door.

“I apologise for the unpleasant surprise, Doctor Grayson,” she said. “I recognise that it must elicit an unpleasant emotional response.”

Amanda only laughed dryly. Unpleasant was one way to put it. Then she took a deep breath and pulled herself together. “Don’t worry. I’ll be out in a second.”

A moment of silence passed. Amanda could not discern the sound of steps disappearing down the hallway. Then again, Vulcans were very quiet-

“I have brewed tea. I believe it would improve a human’s mental situation?”

She couldn’t fight the small smile. Right. She would have to include somewhere in her introduction just how British Vulcans could be.

Then she called Orla.

Chapter Text

“Could this be something?” Orla looked up from the padd that she was balancing on her belly.

She was sitting on one of the meditation mats, propped up by a pillow against the wall, while Amanda and T’Pali were scouring material at their desks. Orla claimed she and her hypermobile joints were much more comfortable on the floor, thank you. She had also brought crackers (there were still so many) and a thermos full of coffee (which T’Pali had declined with a very aristocratic wrinkle around her nose). 

Amanda felt a little bad that her friend had rushed to her office in her heavily pregnant state as soon as Amanda had texted her that something bad had happened, but when Orla had folded her (and a very stiff T’Pali) into a bone-crushing hug, she knew that all resistance would be futile. Orla was very bored, very helpful, and, as it became clearer and clearer, a wonderful friend. 

Amanda looked up from the rules and regulations for VSA research grants, in which she so far hadn’t found any reason why her proposal should be denied. Her eyes were stinging. 

“What is it?”

Orla turned her padd over to her. A website in Orion script, which looked like it had been coded in the 21st century, lit up.

While Amanda was still trying to decipher the pixelated screen and remember her Orion lessons, T’Pali had already cocked her head, deliberating. The work of the past four hours had warmed her face, and her eyes had their scary, cat-like laser focus back. Maybe it was good for her to keep herself occupied. 

“It does sound promising,” she said, hesitantly. “But I do not know why there is no trace of this project in the VSA database. Is it affiliated at all?”

“That’s what I first thought, too,” Orla cut in, then zoomed in on the bottom of the page with two meticulously manicured green fingers. “It’s not the VSA, but the Vulcan ministry of education. Close enough?”

“I’d be inclined to agree,” T’Pali replied, and then added: “Yes. Close enough.”

“Could one of you translate for me?” Amanda asked. “What are we talking about? Sorry, my Orion isn’t as good as it was.”

In the same moment, her padd pinged. Orla had sent both her and T’Pali the link to the holo-site. For a second, her friend struggled to get up to show Amanda her padd, then slumped back against the wall, hand on her belly. 

“Oof. Would you mind sitting down here, Mandy?”

Before T’Pali’s eyebrow quirked up in a silent question over the nickname, Amanda was sitting on the floor next to Orla and gently took he padd from her. 

“It’s an ongoing research project,” Orla explained. “Apparently, there’s still some native Golic speakers in the K’Sama region, further south. It’s a regional dialect, but what it definitely isn’t is Standard Vulcan.”

She looked up at Amanda. “I mean, that is what you wrote a thesis on, right? Expressions of emotion in High Golic and post-reform Vulcan?”

Amanda nodded fiercely, eyes fixed on the padd. The UT was still tearing through the text to translate it all into Standard. 

“Why are there still native speakers?” she asked. “I hoped for it, but all I read everywhere is that Vulcan standard is the first language everywhere.”

“That was Surak’s goal,” T’Pali said, quietly. Both Orla’s and Amanda’s eyes shot up to her. The young woman straightened her shoulders, and continued: “Surak was convinced a common tongue, purified of senseless emotionalism, would unite our people. And he succeeded. But K’Sama has a multitude of shrines dedicated to the katras of their ancestors, and the duty to care for these is passed down in the family.”

“So people do not tend to move away from their village an awful lot,” Amanda concluded her sentence. T’Pali blinked, then remembered human sociology lessons, and nodded. 

“That, yes. Also, some regions of K’Sama see heavy sandstorms every year. In my engineering course in first year, we had to construct electricity and subspace stations that would withstand K’Sama sandstorms. It was a major difficulty in the early days of Surakian reform to implement technology that brings standard Vulcan education and news programs to the region.”

Amanda bit back a comment and scrolled further down the page. The UT had processed the entire website by now, and the headline flashed with “Vulcan logic in linguistics: a program for emotional regulation in Betazoid and Orion children?”

Orla’s arm snaked around her shoulder. “They’re looking at how Vulcan meditation could help telepathic children to cope with the emotions they’re feeling all the time. Especially Orions and Betazoids, because we can’t turn it off. But Vulcan is kinda hard, because there’s just not that many words for emotions. That’s why they’re working with dialect speakers.”

She looked over at Amanda, who was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “It sounds so interesting,” she said after a while. “And if I could do some interviews, I- but it’s an Orion and Betazoid project, and it started just two weeks ago. I mean, how would I get a foot in the door?”

“Oh, there’s a good chance you will.”

With a splitting grin, Orla tapped on the “Speakers” tile in the corner of the screen. Portraits of several Orion, Betazoid and Vulcan researchers appeared. Orla’s fingernail tapped with a loud click on the portrait of a very handsome Orion of indeterminable gender, whose name was “Gerani Pasal, Chief Coordinator”.

“Because Pasal,” she said triumphantly, “is my husband’s cousin.”

On the way to the shuttlebay, Amanda felt her eyes stinging. They'd drafted the paperwork and Amanda’s proposal for a workshop in K’Sama as quickly as possible, with T’Pali proofreading them for the tiniest comma mistake at record speed. Orla had called up the vast number of relatives, spouses, friends and colleagues she had at the Orion ministry of education and in the embassy. And Amanda had scheduled a meeting with Sovan, her supervisor, to talk about why the fuck she was being reconsidered, the next day. Her presentation in front of the administrative board would be in three weeks - that was not a lot of time. But at least they had a plan now.

The air out in the street had cooled to an  She felt tired. Tired to her bones, actually. More than anything, she dreaded coming home to an empty flat, replicate something, eat, pack, take a quick sonic - the list just kept growing and growing. If she was honest, there was a selfish desire to just curl up in her bed and cry herself to sleep. 

But she mustn’t. 

Instead, she squeezed herself into the maglev train with T’Pali and Orla, who had sheepishly declared that she didn’t feel like she had the energy to walk the twenty minutes back to the Federation Embassy. Back pressed to the wall, Amanda tried not to sway on her feet when the train set off from the station. Her body seemed to be exhausted just from all the thinking, the panic and feverent searching. And despite her tiredness, she was sure even without touch contact, every Vulcan in the wagon could feel the restless, nervous thrumming in her head. Orla must definitely smell it. She, too, loooked tired, both arms protectively crossed over her belly where she was sitting. T’Pali, once their work was finished, had retreated back into a kind of detached shell. She, too, was probably going back to an empty flat.

They didn’t talk. Vulcans were entirely silent on their commute back fromwork, as if there was some unspoken rule to use the time travelling back to their homes for quiet meditation. Only in the back of the wagon, Amanda could hear the quiet, even tone of a Vulcan father speaking to his toddler-child about the health benefits of not chewing on one’s socks. Amanda closed her eyes and tried to drown out her whirling thoughts in the monotonous whirring of the train tracks.

The clatter of her purse being carelessly dropped to the ground echoed coldly in her empty, dim kitchen. For a second, Amanda pawed at the light switch, then abandoned it and slumped down on the bar-stool in front of the countertop with the replicator. Her padd was still beeping with unread messages, and even though she knew she should look at them, all she could think off was to drop her head into her arms and sleep. 

The replicator made a start-up soud and garbled out a request for an order. At first, Amanda thought it was just her fried brain that didn’t understand the command, but when the replicator chimed again- 

“ Makasei tona waihe?”  

That was Tellarite. Fuck. She had tried a Tellarite breakfast roll this morning, because Orla liked them. She lifted her head from her arms and tapped at the screen. Vertical rows of Tellarite script flashed up. Double the fuck. Apparently, in her rush this morning, her request for Tellarite food had altered the replicator’s language settings. 

She did not speak a lick of Tellarite. 

After two failed attempts at finding the settings on the now vertically oriented display, Amanda gave up and dropped her head onto the cool stone top of the counter. Her legs felt numb from exhaustion, and her eyes stung. She wouldn’t cry. Not over a broken replicator. Not- 

The door bell chimed. 

With a long sigh, Amanda dragged herself upright to stumble towards the door. If it was this late, it was probably Orla, and then she should help her - maybe her keycard had fallen to the ground and she couldn’t bend to pick it up, late pregnant as she was- 

Amanda took a deep breath and blinked her eyes open. As the doors slid open, she could feel them falling closed again. 

“What's wrong, Orla? Do you need-”

“Doctor Grayson.” 

In an instant, Amanda’s eyes snapped open again. 

In the doorframe, stooped due to his height, but still as broad-shouldered and stable as ever, stood no other than Sarek. His hands were demurely hidden in the folds of his navy-blue ambassador’s robe, but even that could not hide the slight quiver of concern that swept over his brow the moment he saw the dark rings under Amanda’s eyes and the exhaustion in her body. So the sudden feeling of fear and nervosity that had appeared in his mind this afternoon had not betrayed him. It should have. This should be impossible-

Amanda swayed a little on her feet. Standing like this, Sarek seemed impossibly far away. For a moment, from sheer surprise, she felt like she was going to keel over cold on her feet, her cheek making contact and nuzzling into the soft expanse of his chest, those strong, gentle arms folding around her-

“I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour,” Sarek said stiffly and snapped her back into reality. “But I was just in the Embassy to have your proposal signed by the Federation’s representative for academic cooperation. It went over my desk this afternoon, as I am assigned to your case. You will not receive the message of this until tomorrow, Dr. Patel’s secretary had already left, but I thought the - the news might alleviate your mind.” 

It took a second for Amanda to compute the words. 

“I- what- but we sent the proposal only a few hours ago?”

Sarek nodded. It must be a trick of the light, Amanda thought. Surely, he cannot be blushing. 

“I am aware of that,” he said, quietly. “However, I consider you - your research as of great importance. The VSA must not refuse it. If I may be of assistance in that, it is freely given.”

He looked down on his hands - one of them still concealed in the folds of his robe. “I may say that I find their actions illogical and motivated by prejudice, but that is of little importance to you. I believe, Dr. Grayson, what I would say, were I human, is that I am… sorry.” 

Like this, his head bent and the fringe of his slightly wavy hair obscuring his eyes, he looked almsot impossibly soft. Amanda gave him a sad smile. 

“I appreciate it. But it’s hardly your fault, is it?”

For a second, he seemed to hesitate. Then Sarek drew a deep breath. “No. I suppose it is not.” 

He straightened his back and folded his hands behind him. 

“You appear fatigued. I should leave you to your evening routine. Please, apologise the interruption.” 

“No, no.” Another smile. They still felt - looked - alien to him, but the way it made Amanda’s lips curl, her soft, strangely rosy cheeks soften, had his heart hammering in his side. Her hand hovered for a second over the door button, then she dropped it and asked: “You don’t happen to speak Tellarite, do you?”

He did. 

Fifteen minutes later, Sarek had reset the replicator interface to Standard and had replicated Amanda a dumpling soup while she had bundled up at the small kitchen table. Her eyes were fluttering closed still, but at least the warmth of the soup had made her cheeks a little more rosy. She was aware that she might be staring a little bit - Sarek's profile against the glittering expanse of Shi Kahr beyond the window was hardset, but with a softness in the lines of his chin and forehead, like stone worn down by water. His eyes, dark and soulful, caught hers and she dropped her gaze back into her soup.

“This is really good,” she mumbled between two bites. “Reminds me of matzo. Is it Vulcan?”

Sarek leant against the counter. He was not accustomed to feeling out of place. Yet, here, in her kitchen, he felt profoundly awkward. If his father knew he was here-

Amanda’s questioning gaze rested on him, so he nodded once. “It is. My mother used to make it for me as a child. I have treasured it ever since.”

“What’s the name?” Amanda inquired. 

Sarek raised an eyebrow, almost teasingly. “You couldn’t pronounce it.” 

“Try me.” 

Both eyebrows went up. “My mother used to call it k’ksheni-t’nul .”

“K’ksheni-t’nul,” Amanda repeated, flawlessly. When Sarek didn’t respond, save for a definitely, absolutely not stunned silence, she teased back: “I did make Vulcan language my career, you know?” 

“Still,” Sarek replied. “It is considered rather difficult for foreigners to master the Vulcan tongue.”

“Oh I endeveaour to master the Vulcan tongue alright.”

The second the words had left her mouth, Amanda already spluttered and covered her hand with her mouth. “I mean- I- sorry, that wasn’t -” 

The flutter between them beat its strange little wings. Sarek knew he was entirely doomed. With sheer brute force, he just shoved the feeling - the image - the memory - far back down and only nodded. 

“I did not interpret it in such a way.”

That did not seem to calm Amanda. Furiously blushing, she ate her soup in silence. When she had finished (Sarek had been anxious that she was too tired to eat - she was not), she dabbed her mouth on the napkin and quietly said: “Well. Thank your mom from me. This was delicious.” 

“Were she still with us, I am sure she would appreciate it.”

Her face shot up. “Oh!” Then: “Oh, Sarek, I am sorry, I didn’t know-”

“Again, Doctor Grayson, you are not at fault.” This time, his face truly was a neutral mask of - it was not contentment, Amanda thought. Not neutrality. Something more like calm, yet profound sorrow. 

“It is my regret that my mother is not able to meet you,” Sarek continued. “I am sure she would have appreciated your opinions. She, too, was an exceptional woman.” 

Only later, afrer Amanda had almost fallen asleep and he had had had to lightly tap her shoulder to remind her of going to bed, as he was driving back to his lonely flat, did he realise jut how much he had given himself away. He had touched her. 

Logic failed him. He had failed logic. More than ever, he realised that his closeness with Amanda had already almost ruined her career - yet that the thought of leaving her - alone, desolate, deserted - in her flat also tore at his heart. He missed her. 

There was no logic in it, yet it all seemed inevitable. He must not love her, he reminded himself. 

But could he live without her, either?

Chapter Text

Hawk kicked in the glass door to the Galactic Chroniclers headquarters. Once, twice, until cracks started to show in the duranium-blend of the security glass pane. These windows were supposed to withstand phasers, harmonic grenades, yes, even hover cars. 

But they were no match for the fierce violence of a man protecting the woman he loved. 

The window burst into thousands of glass shards after the third kick. The alarm blared even louder, mingling with the sound of police sirens in the street. Hawk raised his phaser and stepped inside the building.

The rebels’ attempt at intimidating the Chronicler by cutting their power supply and wiping their memory server had sent the entire building into lock down. Every door, every lift, every window was sealed. Luckily, most civilians and reporters had already escaped - except for one. One brilliant journalist, who was trying her damndest to save her article on the corrupt rebels’ plot to infiltrate Starfleet's force, had stayed behind when the evacuation alarm sounded. 

She was so stubborn. So incredibly, infuriatingly, illogically stubborn. It excited him.

Hawk stalked slowly through the lobby and towards the lift, his phaser lifted at eye level. From the windows, he could look down into the street, where the red and blue lights of the police cars were flimmering in tune with the blaring sirens. He didn't know where to find her, only that whatever security officer might get to her could as well be a rebel, ready to kill her. 

He was the only one she could trust. 

He was the only one who could save her. 

Not knowing why, he followed the direction his heart called him to. 

There was a pounding on the door. Amanda flinched and curled tighter underneath her desk. The memory drive with all the files of her research dug into her palm. Instinctively, she reached for the taser next to her and gritted her jaw. There was no way out. Whoever was behind that door, she would have to fight him and make a run for it. No one would come to save her. Not even Hawk. 

Another pounding shook the door in its hinges. Then a deep and all too familiar voice called out: “Amanda? K’diwa, are you in there?”

Hawk! Her mind cried out in relief. So he had come! A wave of joy rolled from her slender shoulders through her body, setting her heart aflame on its way, and she scrambled up towards the door.

“Yes! Yes,” she answered. “I am here, I'm unharmed, but I cannot open the door.” 

A moment of silence followed. Amanda tried to still her hammering heart. 

Hawk is here, she reminded himself. All would be well. But the thought of him, his sharp, gentle eyes, his noble and dark face with the slanted brows only made her heart beat faster in rapture. 

A loud clicking sound woke her from her thoughts.

“Step away from the door, woman”, Hawk growled.

She scrambled backwards, ducking behind the desk, and only when she gasped out that she was safe, Hawk activated the explosive patch on the door lock. 

The door was thrown out of its hinges with a loud, rushing sound. The plaster of the wall flew up in thick clouds, seinding projectiles of metal and brick across the room. Amanda covered her ears as her heart leapt within her. It was okay, she reminded herself. Hawk was here. 

Then she felt two strong, cool, Vulcan arms gently circle around her waist. Hawk emerged from the thick fog of plaster dust, his tailored black robe streaked grey with the debris. His hand immediately searched for her face as she blinked up to him. 

“Oh, Hawk-” she could only whisper before his lips found hers in a desperate, tender kiss. His arms were locked around her, careful and soft, only sparsely cloaking the immense masculine strength of his Vulcan muscles. When Amanda dragged her limp arms up his sides, she could feel his heart hammering under her fingers. Or it might be an echo of hers, she conceded, since her heart seemingly could not decide between easing at the thought of being cradled safely against Hawk’s broad chest - or leap with a woman’s awakened passion at being cradled safely against Hawk’s broad chest. 

Before she knew it, she was weeping with relief. 

“Fear not,” Hawk murmured as his hand protectively covered the back of her head and pulled her closer into his embrace. “I will not let them hurt you.” 

The coffee from the field-synthesiser tasted like piss. Amanda flinched when she gulped down the first, luke-warm, bitter sip. Maybe a cold shower would have been better to wake up - then again, Vulcans didn’t do water showers. So cold, thin coffee it was.

With a heavy sigh, she set down the cup and stared out of the window of her room. The locals had been so kind as to rent out rooms to the research group, which was a blessing, since Tashee, the village selected for the first leg of the study, was, really, tiny. It barely counted 200 houses, no guest house, and half of the buildings were farmsteads, scattered wide in the mountains surrounding the central valley, where the inhabitants sheltered in the stormy winter period. She had assumed that the locals would be apprehensive towards a human, but apparently, the arrival of the Orion-Betazoid researchers had already softened them - in her stoic, but insistent inquiry into whether Amanda was feeling comfortable in her room, her hostess had seemed almost cheerful. For a Vulcan.

Alone in her room, Amanda allowed herself to chuckle about it. Vulcans were getting easier to read the more she spent time with them. Of course, they were all different - but the crinkle around T’Jeen, her hostess’ eyes when she asked whether Amanda needed another ventilator was not unfamiliar to that on Sarek’s face when he had dropped by her flat to tell her of the VSA board’s decision. At least, she thought, two Vulcans were genuinely worried about her. 

They just didn’t have a replicator with human dishes. So Amanda had nicked one from the supplies in the Federation field research kit. 

She took a second sip of the coffee, only to grimace again. It really tasted awful. 

Fine. She might go downstairs and ask T’Jeen for a cup of spicy Vulcan tea. There was too much to be done to face it half-awake. 

The sound of laughter and a mixture of voices, too many for the UT to all translate at the same time, echoed faintly up the wide staircase as she made her way downstairs. T’Jeen’s house exceeded the name - it was more of a mansion, really, for a once prospering Vulcan family of priests and mentors. Now, it was almost deserted - generations of young Vulcans that were not bound up in taking care of the family shrines had rather moved to the big cities than stayed to found families of their own. Only T’Jeen, her wife, and their son and grandchild still lived here, leaving the majority of rooms empty. 

Not so now. The large kitchen and dining room were filled to the ceiling with all shades of laughter and chatting. The research group only consisted of twelve scientists, but with their assistants, their enthusiasm, and them being Orions and Betazoids, it sounded more like four times the number of people were crowded around the long, central table. Amanda, for one of the first times in her life, was glad she wasn't telepathic.

T’Pali, who was sitting on the other side of the central table, and stirring a very logical and nutritionally balanced oatmeal, was not so lucky. In fact, the poor girl looked a tad overwhelmed from trying to listen to about four conversations at once. As soon as she caught Amanda’s eye, she shot up from her chair.

“Doctor Grayson!” she exclaimed over the noise and scurried around the table to greet her. “I hope you slept well? You can have my seat, if you wish to.” 

“That's very kind, but-”

“I do not mind,” T'Pali hastily asserted. “I have eaten, and would like to meditate before we depart.”

Her eye twitched a little as she said it, and Amanda immediately took the hint. She had been looking for an excuse to get some alone time, but apparently the Orion research assistants around her had not understood a very blunt Vulcan signal to please be left alone. 

 Sure. For someone with such acute telepathic abilities and a sound belief in logic, the conversation must have been a lot. 

T’Pali had volunteered immediately to join Amanda on the brief field trip - of course, she proclaimed that it was only to support her academic work and gain some extra Science Academy credits for field work, but Amanda was pretty sure that the logical appeal of getting away from the breakup was part of the equation. Solik hadn’t even sent a message, and T’Pali had been very adamant on switching the topic when Amanda had gently asked her what had happened between them.

As the young woman squeezed past her to meditate upstairs, Amanda only hoped she’d get over it easily. Or at least, find some distraction. In a crowd of chatty Betazoids and Orions, though, that should not be too hard. Maybe she could lend T’Pali Orla’s copy of Top Secret Love that she had read last night - the idea made her grin as she crossed around the table and slipped into T’Pali’s empty chair. It was hard to imagine the stoic Vulcan girl - or any Vulcan, really - swooning over a sexy spy named Hawk Dalton. 

“Fiery Pirate? Really?” 

Amanda flinched so hard she almost spilled hot spice tea over the hand holding her cup. The Betazoid man sitting next to her laughed apologetically. 

“Sorry, I- telepaths. My apologies, that was rude,” he murmured and tucked a strand of his long, auburn hair behind his ear. Amanda was too embarrassed to place him - she was sure she had seen him at the meet and greet, but her brain completely blanked. Not only because he had just read her thoughts about Hawk fucking Dalton , special agent, but also because he was, as Elise would say, “a real snack”.

Oh fuck, he could probably hear that, too. 

“No need,” Amanda stammered, tried to stretch out her hand, and in doing so, almost spilled scalding hot tea over her hand again. Luckily, he caught the teapot before she could accidentally smack it into someone’s face. 

“Thanks.” She gave him a slight smile. “You don’t have to feel sorry. I mean, with Vulcans and Betazoids and Orions, it must be weird to have someone at the table whose ESP ratings are a solid zero. It’s my handicap, not yours.”

“Don't worry about it.” He leant back in his chair and stretched out his hand. “Darion Bel. You’re Dr. Grayson, right? I read your paper on emotive vocabulary in Vulcan children’s TV shows.” 

“Oh God, Surak Street ?” 

“Exactly that one. No, don’t be shy, it was brilliant!”

As he smiled, his dark eyes seemed to glimmer. Fine, he really was handsome. Only logical to admit fact. Sprawled relaxedly against his chair, the sleeve of his t-shirt rode up a little, revealing a beautifully curved tattoo winding around his biceps. It surprised her - it was such a nice contrast to the nerdish round glasses, the low half-bun that gathered his auburn hair and the stubble framing his slender jaw. Then again, his dark, friendly eyes were also framed by thin eyeliner.

She was probably staring. Or maybe there were too many Orion pheromones in the air.

Darion didn’t seem to mind, but just waited until she had taken a sip of her tea and cleared her throat. 

“You can just call me Amanda,” she said then. “I’m so sorry, I don’t seem to recall your research. What are you working on?”

His face - oh, bless Betazoids being so expressive compared to Vulcans - lit up. “I did a PhD on developmental psychology in orphaned Betazoids,” he answered and leant forward to gesticulate. Amanda, surprising herself, felt herself lean towards him, too. Obviously only to reach the plate with the breakfast buns. 

“Like, usually Betazoid children learn to control their telepathic input from being closely linked to their parents mindscape, but orphaned children don’t have that close link,” he explained. “So they often become more easily overwhelmed or try to, you know, dial down their telepathy-”

“Like Vulcans in public settings?”

“Yes, kind of! And then-”

Her tea had gotten cold by the time they left the table as the last two people. 

The wind had gotten much sharper when Sarek exited the shuttle at the entrance to the Tashee village, and the breeze whipped his long robes in large gusts around his arms and legs. The portal in the old city wall was much too small for his shuttle to fly through, and as by last year, the village was sheltered from the seasonal sandstorm by a forcefield dome covering everything within the ring of the ancient wall. So he would just have to walk the last couple hundred metres. From here, the village, nestled between the red hills and mountains, gleaming in the midday sun, seemed strangely picturesque, hidden behind an orange veil of wafted up sand. It had been some time since he had gotten out of the bustling, glimmering Shi’Kar, where his mind could only rarely feel at peace as much as it did here. 

He took a deep breath. Sand. The dunes of the desert around his childhood home. The precise image of his mindscape when he needed rest.

The peace of mind was, of course, disturbed a moment later, when T’Pau exited the shuttle door behind him. She was still, though reluctantly, wearing her Starfleet associate uniform, but had “forgotten” to pin the Starfleet badge to her lapel. It was petulant - childish, even. It was unnecessary to monitor Amanda’s- Dr. Grayson’s work. The pursuit of knowledge was noble. Her human instinct was to be commended- 

He clenched his hands and tried to stop adding more arguments to the growing list he had drafted on the long, silent shuttle ride. T’Pau, much like many Vulcans of her generation, felt it rude to make conversation on long shuttle rides, and never had Sarek been more grateful for it. Now, T’Pau cleared her throat for the first time in four hours.

“Is there something on your mind, Ambassador?” she asked sharply. “If so, I would recommend that you inform me of it.” 

Her steel-grey eyes didn’t turn to him, yet he still felt the urge to straighten his posture. 

“There is nothing, T’Pau. I would not withhold information from you.” 

“That is satisfactory.” Her head made an undecided twitch in his direction, then she added: “I know that you do not agree with my opinion, Sarek. Yet I am sure that, in time, you will see the value of your father’s actions, and mine.”

“I will patiently wait for that day.” 

With that, he stepped down the ramp and began walking towards the village without giving T’Pau another glance. 

He spotted her almost immediately. The research group had called for several workshops and rounds of interviews with village elders and volunteers at the town hall, located in the very centre of the village, and in the crowd of sleek, black Vulcan hairstyles, with the occasional green-skinned Orions and elaborate Betazoid wigs, Amanda’s vibrant copper hair immediately stood out. When Sarek entered, she was sitting near the snacks table, interviewing a Vulcan woman who looked well into her 160s. Single curls escaped her tight bun, but Amanda’s face was a schooled, proper expression. Just as the door swished closed behind them, the old lady said something that made the corners of Amanda’s mouth twitch in amusement. 

Sarek was sure his reaction to that was entirely logical. He was also, once again, glad that Amanda was not a telepath. How, then, would she react, if she caught wisps of the thoughts that involuntarily rose from the depths of his mind as soon as he saw her, wearing the same dress he had bought her - it seemed ages ago. 

I am plagued by dreams of you, his mind seemed to project at her, clear as day and ever so bright. I do not know where they come from, only that you are all I see when I close my eyes. My mind calls to yours. 

A month ago, he would have been shocked at his indulgence of emotion. A month ago, he would have stamped those thoughts out and continued on with only the memory and the shame of his lapse. Now, he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

Next to him, T’Pau shifted on her feet. Apparently, she had caught him staring. That should also bother him, Sarek recognised. Only that it didn’t. 

Most of all, I will not let them hurt you.

A moment later, he recognised that that line had appeared in the completely inexplicable and illogical dream he had had the night before. And that did bother him. 

Before he could turn to T’Pau and suggest that they first unload their luggage at the guest house, Amanda’s head perked up, searching around the room. Sarek felt his heart make an unacceptable quiver. 

Could it be that she had sensed that he was- 

Her gaze glided past him, one of dozens of unassuming Vulcan bowl cuts in the town hall, and fixed on a tall, auburn-haired Betazoid man making his way towards her through the crowd with two cups of coffee. He was tall, and aesthetically pleasing by human standards, and smiled widely and unashamed. Sarek immediately despised him. Amanda's face, however, lit up when she saw him, one beautiful, soft hand lifting to wave him towards her. She had freckles on the back of her hands. Surely that Betazoid hadn’t noticed her beautiful freckles. 

Instead, the man gave Amanda her cup of coffee, brushing their fingertips together, and Sarek suddenly felt an emotion - so strange and sudden, so piercing and red-hot - that for a panicked moment, he was sure he was entering plak tow . How did this man dare to fondle his colleague in such a manner, in public, with a woman like her- 

Then Amanda jerked her hand away from the hot cup with a silent noise of pain, blew on her burnt finger and  - oh, Surak - reflexively sucked on the tip . 

The room seemed to freeze. The eyes of the Vulcan matron next to Amanda seemed to get twice as large, the only display of emotion she permitted. Sarek felt all his blood rushing from his head to… more southwards, leaving him dizzy with rage and shock and - something.

This was so much worse than plak tow . For a second there, it had been just like pon farr .

“Admiral,” he pressed out, turning to T’Pau. “I will leave you to move my luggage to my assigned guestroom.”

“But Ambassador-”

Oh Surak, he remembered the way she had felt in his arms in his dream, the image of her human-pink, plush lips tightening around her own fingertip- 

Sand. Silent dunes in a silent mindscape. Hot red Vulcan sand against pink human skin, sweaty with exertion- 

“Live long and prosper, T’Pau.” 

He almost stumbled over his own feet on the way out. He needed to meditate. Immediately. 

It took Sarek precisely 27.4 minutes to reach his guest room, settle in his meditating position and take the matter of his unacceptably messy mindscape into his own hands (take that as you will), change into a different robe and re-enter the town hall. 

Those 27.4 minutes were, unfortunately, enough for T’Pau to almost reduce Amanda to tears. 

It had all been going so well. T’Vara, an old friend of T’Jeen’s, had agreed to an interview with the curious human researcher about her experience teaching Standard Vulcan to dialect-speaking children for the past 130 years. She had been so kind, and so uncannily open and funny for a Vulcan that Amanda had filled several pages on her padd with notes within minutes. And even though T’Vara’s accent was thick, Amanda quickly realised that her knowledge of High Golic would come to some use here. 

That, of course, had been before T’Pau had appeared, perched behind her like a hawk, with a laser focus on whatever she was writing down on her padd. Amanda could feel her hands starting to shake. 

“Do you mind?” she asked, trying to mask the quiver in her voice. “You can read the results when I present them to the board in two weeks.” 

T’Pau’s steel grey eyes bored into hers immediately, seemingly making Amanda’s outh feel even more dry.

“I am not motivated by interest in your trivial research,” the imposing older lady snapped back. “My colleague and I are here to monitor your academic integrity.” 

Before Amanda could protest - she had earned two Daystrom scholarships, surely no one had to lecture her on academic- T’Pau was already scanning her padd. 

“I expect you will transmit a clear and structured manuscript of your field notes to the VSA board by the end of the day?”

Amanda swallowed down the lump rapidly growing in her throat. A manuscript? Why?

“I was not made aware that this was a requirement,” she said instead, as evenly as she could. The elderly Vulcan lady opposite to her was shifting uncomfortably in her chair. Good. So even for Vulcans, T’Pau was being intense. 

T’Pau only tossed her head. “It is a requirement for field research undergoing consideration by the Academy board. Daily reports and transmission of field notes, for archiving purposes. It is necessary to make sure that research by outworlders is up to our standards.” 

Her grey-glittering hawk eyes fixed back on Amanda with an icy glare. “I’m sure that you have been sent the forms.”

“Ma’am.” Amanda could feel her throat constrict around the panic welling up in it. “With all due respect, for the field notes I will have to transcribe the interviews, make linguistic notes on etymology and pragmatics, and run some language models comparing my findings here to Standard Vulcan. If I -” Her voice had floundered as she realised what kind of workload T’Pau was talking about. “If I had been made aware that daily reports were required for my research here, I would have structured my schedule around it instead of allotting time at the end of the trip for detailed analysis. Now, all of my time here is planned through. I do not understand how I was not informed of this change.”

“Do you think you are exempt from the regulations on research deemed potentially compromising to Vulcan integrity?” 

“No, I-” 

Several bowlcuts turned to face them. Amanda immediately lowered her voice, but could not resist glaring back at T’Pau. The older woman didn’t even blink.

“I am just saying that I was not informed of the reclassification of my work in full detail, and that the workload it entails is almost impossible to shoulder, if I want to continue doing research that adheres to the highest scientific-”

“It would not be impossible for a Vulcan.” 

T’Pau’s voice was cold, and factual, and just a tad too loud. Or maybe people had just stopped their conversations to direct their attention to them. Amanda could hear some feet nervously shuffling while she fixed her eyes on her trembling hands and tried not to cry. 

Don’t cry. You’re in a room full of Vulcans who you’re trying to convince that you’re an honest, good researcher, you have to keep your job, you can’t start crying like a child - 

Vulcans do not typically sneer, not since the Reform, but whatever T’Pau did with her face came very, very close to it. 

“Of course,” she said quietly, “I should have expected that Vulcan standards are simply too high to be met by a human.” 

Amanda almost shot up from her chair, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. The pen to her padd fell to the ground, but she did not care, until - 

Until a gentle, warm hand landed on her shoulder and insistently pressed her back down into her chair. 

Before her heart could jump into her throat with excitement, she noticed that the arm connected to it was naked up to the shoulder and adorned with a swishy tattoo. Darion shot her a brief, worried expression, then turned to T’Pau, his body one long, defensive line of almost provocative nonchalance. 

“I’m sure Doctor Grayson will surprise you with her abilities, Ma’am, if you’ll let her get on with her work,” he said with a wide smile. “T’Pau. It’s such a pleasure to have you. Have you met the rest of our team? I’m sure you’ll see some familiar faces-”

He did not stop talking until he had escorted a fuming T’Pau to the other side of the room and set her up with the chattiest of the Orion researchers. When he noticed that Amanda excused herself from her interview partner for a quick break and had slipped out of the room, he was still at T’Pau’s side. 

Just as he turned around, sure that Vaska Lar (incredibly nice, but also incredibly garrulous lady) would surely keep T’Pau occupied for the next hour and a half, if you let her, a man behind him cleared his throat. 

“Pardon me. Have you seen Doctor Grayson?”

Darion whipped around. The man that had just entered was a tall Vulcan with a heavy, aristocratic jaw, wearing the uniform of a high-ranking diplomat. He didn’t look nice. He definitely belonged to T’Pau’s train. Darion immediately disliked him. 

“No,” he hissed out. “And I am pretty damn sure that the last thing Amanda wants right now is to talk to another one of you guys. Now if you’ll excuse me-” and he shouldered his way past the guy, who was projecting anger and disdain at incredibly dense psionic frequencies, “- I have some orphans to take care of!” 

He stormed off, presumably to find the woman who had loooked so grateful when he had brought her Terran-style coffee, and Sarek - for one of the few times he allowed himself the feeling - felt his heart drop to his knees.

There was a very quiet knock on the door. Amanda tore her eyes away from her screen - fuck, how long had she been sitting? When she had started her manuscript, the sun had just been setting-

“Doctor Grayson?”

It took a moment for her tired brain to register the voice as T’Pali’s. The girl had been a true gift - she had spent the entire day filling out forms and coding language models. And yes, the amount of work the Vulcan got done in one afternoon would have taken Amanda days. For fuck's sake, the girl could type blindly. Maybe T'Pau was right.

T'Pali stepped into the room in a wide, but tightly clasped meditation gown,her padd clutched to her chest and her long black hair in a loose braid.

“I have finished the transcription proofread you asked me about,” she said. “You were correct, the UT did not grasp some of the dialect expressions. You can look them up in the notes, and there are also some fossilised Golic words that I have marked up. I-”

“Thank you, T’Pali.” Amanda gave her a weak smile. “I- Really, thank you. You’re doing so much more than I can expect from you.”

“I wouldn’t do so if I wasn’t convinced it was for the right reasons.” 

Amanda sighed. “Yes, and I'm grateful for that. Still, it doesn't seem fair, what with you working for two people. Literally, with Solik quitting and all that-” she added absentmindedly. 

Immediately, T'Pali's neutral face became rigid. 

“Solik's entirely illogical decision to terminate his employment had nothing to do with you,” she said sharply. “He refused to rise to a - a challenge within our relationship, and to instead forgo his duties. I have never known you to do the same. You deserve my help.” 

She said the last sentence with a defiant little toss of her head. 

“Besides-” she added and placed - well, almost slammed - the padd in front of Amanda. “I must apologise if I have ever acted as though I would find the topic of your research distasteful. I have grown to see its scholarly value. It is an honour to further the understanding of Vulcan society, both to the outside world and ourselves.” 

“I - thank you?” Amanda brought out. For a Vulcan, T’Pali’s address had been exceedingly passionate. “If only T’Pau would think the same.” 

There. She was almost sure that T’Pali huffed at that. Then again, could be a trick of the light. 

“T’Pau and her associates are traditionalists. They don’t speak for all Vulcans. They do not even speak for most of the VSA. While I, of course, follow Surak’s teachings-”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

T’Pali stalled for a moment and cocked her head. When Amanda said nothing, she continued. “- I think that their attempt to hinder your research in the name of Vulcan propriety and tradition is illogical. And the way that T’Pau and Skon exert their influence over the Embassy and the VSA is unjust. We must further science and understanding, else-”

“Hold on.” Amanda sat up straight. “Skon. As in, last heir of the House of Surak Skon?”

As in, famous Vulcan tight ass Skon?

Her assistant blinked down at her. “Obviously. He and T’Pau are cousins of some degree. Doctor Grayson, I thought you would know, given your closeness to his son. Another entirely illogical manoeuvre, to first acquaint you with a member of their circle, only to then sabotage your research.” She really was getting fiery now, dark ochre blush rising to her still impressively neutral face. “I mean, what are we, a swarm of backstabbing Romulans ?!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Raising one hand to calm T’Pali down, Amanda tried to get her tired brain to sort all her thoughts. T’Pau was related to the notoriously conservative House of Surak, apparently with connections to the VSA advisory board to block unsavory research. T’Pau had her grey eagle eyes on her research. T’Pau was in the house down the street. 

But still- 

“T’Pali, I think you’ve got something confused. I don’t know Skon. I never even met the man, much less any son he might have.” 

That, at least, made T’Pali’s mouth fall open. It made Amanda’s stomach coil into a tight, queasy knot. Fuck.

“But, Doctor-” T’Pali stammered. “Surely you know. Skon is the father of Ambassador Sarek.”

Chapter Text

The site of the katric shrine was shaded by several large sun sails, blending neatly into the red slopes of the red and rocky mountains. The shade was a small comfort to the researchers who had spent the last two hours climbing up the steep, sandy mountain side in the scorching morning sun. The shuttles had had to stay behind a few hundred meters below the temple, since last night’s wind had filled the hot, thin air with sand particles that would ruin the exhaust pipes. But under the sun sails, some refreshments had been laid out on tables in front of the burial temple. Some novices in red and white tunics were swarming around, carrying large pitchers of cold tea, ever under the watchful eye of an elderly Vulcan priest who did not seem to sweat at all under his long, stiff robe. Amanda envied him a little. 

She had - stubbornly - refused to wear the Vulcan clothes she had picked out with Sarek weeks ago, not after T'Pali's revelation last night. She would not give this guy the satisfaction of even controlling what she was wearing, thanks a lot. 

She would also never admit that the inside of the blue Starfleet dress had begun clinging to her sweaty underarms and thighs. Some loose, sweaty strands of hair were plastered to the back of her neck, and she was glad she had pinned it up in Vulcan fashion, even though this morning she had had a mind to let her hair flow in a very illogical manner. Just out of spite. 

But she did not have time for spite. Or for ruminating on how Sarek had lied to her, and clearly deliberately so, otherwise he would not have set his personal information to private in the ‘Fleet's internal system. This was not an oversight. This was intentional. Of course, T’Pali would have insisted that Vulcans do not lie, but Amanda was too tired, and frankly also too pissed to debate the difference between telling un-truths and deliberately leaving out rather important details. It made no sense. After all their long talks, after him dropping by her apartment and making her soup to make sure she was okay, he still hadn’t felt the need to tell her that he was the Skon’s son?!

Maybe the sleep deprivation was getting to her, she thought as she emptied another cup of cold tea. She and T'Pali had stayed up quite a while after the girl had dropped that Amanda's - well - friend was the son and grand nephew of the two people most opposed to her research, an omission that could not have escaped him. They had tried to reach Elise - but the signal for a call to earth was too weak - and Orla, but Orla's comm code had only spat out an automated message that she could currently not be reached for medical reasons. That, of course, hadn't done wonders for Amanda's mood. 

In retrospect, it explained some things. T’Pau and the VSA council had always been very well informed about the status of her research. Sarek had always been so interested in her research that she had thrown caution to the wind and told him about her ideas for future projects. Hell, he had been the one who had brought up Shanor’s fucking poetry! If it had all been a sham - and that seemed completely illogical, but what other explanation was there?! - she had fallen for it, entirely, and hopelessly. Last night she had caught herself wanting to throw the copy of Top Secret Love across the room for making ehr such a sentimental little idiot. 

The crack of the styrofoam cup being crushed in her angry hand brought her back to reality when the rest of the cold tea ran down her arm and into the sleeve of her dress. 

“Fuck.” 

“Need any help with that?” 

Like out of nowhere, a familiar Betazoid with brown curls had appeared next to her. With a sympathetic smile, Darion extended a tissue to her. 

“Better be careful, that stuff is sticky as hell. I never thought Vulcans would have that much of a sweet tooth.” 

When Amanda only took the tissue with a toneless “thanks”, his brows knitted. 

“Are you okay?”, Darion asked, more quietly. “I’m sorry, but you look like you haven’t slept, and all the vibes I am getting from your mind are bad .”

He was probably correct. She was tired, and with the dark bags under her eyes, her messy hair and her stupid dress being damp from sweat stains and tea, she probably also looked like a hot mess. At least Sarek had not shown up yet. Among the meticulously dressed Vulcans and a chatty group of styled-up Betazoids and unfairly gorgeous Orions, she must stick out like a sore thumb. And-

“Ahm.” Darion awkwardly cleared his throat. “I know this is rude, but, uh. I can, you know, hear all that-”

She abruptly stopped rubbing the tissue over the sleeve of her dress. “Oh fuck, right, I am so sorry-” 

“No no no!” A reassuring hand landed on her shoulder. With a sigh, she forced herself to look into Darion’s dark, iris-less eyes. “I only wanted to say that, well, you’re beating yourself up over nothing. You’re great at what you do. Hell, when we were preparing for this trip, we read a bunch of your papers on Vulcan’s educational system. You’re the expert. And a critical one, too, otherwise some tightass like T’Pau wouldn’t go to such lengths to stop you from doing what you’re doing.”

Shit, there was that lump in her throat again. Before she could start sniffling about just how tired and stupid she actually felt, Darion’s hand had disappeared from her shoulder and he flashed her a smile. 

“Besides, I think it would be impossible for you to look terrible.”

Against her will, she laughed. “Right, that’s enough mind reading for today.” 

Her colleague raised his hands in an ironic apology. “Just saying!” 

And with another smile, he disappeared in the direction of the next table with refreshments to get her a new cup of tea. Amanda only looked after him for a second - he was handsome, she decided. Not in the way she usually went for - Darion was a bit lanky, and his long hair, the eyeliner and stubble gave him a touch of sophisticated hippie look that she usually found pretty, but not particularly attractive. But he seemed to like her. Genuinely. And with his Betazoid bluntness, he was about as far from a secretive (“lying bastard”, as her sister Elise would surely have put it) brooder like Sarek as Vulcan from Earth.

Or any Vulcan, really. Sarek was only one Vulcan out of many. That is how she would view it from now on.

But just as Darion leant forward to fill a cup from one of the water pitchers (damn, he had a great ass, too), Amanda’s eyes caught one the tall, broad figure of a Vulcan in diplomatic robes who was just speaking to one of the priests. Sarek looked as  he always did - tall, dark, unfortunately handsome, and with an entirely blank, stoic face. Even his robes looked ironed and meticulous. Disregarding her thirst, and the fact that her flare-up of indignation and anger made several Orions turn their heads towards her, Amanda clenched her fists and walked away to hide somewhere until the tour began. 

An hour later, Sarek had still made no attempt to speak to her. And it pained him to no end. 

At T’Pau’s side, he was trying his utmost to keep his thoughts and tongue in check. Just as he had talked to the priest of the katric temple, he had discovered that T’Pau had entirely misconstructed Amanda’s research and presented her as some salacious fetish-dabbler obsessed with Vulcan sexuality. It had taken some convincing from Sarek’s side for the old cleric to accept that Amanda was merely interested in the cultural shift around such basic concepts like emotion, desire, and interpersonal relationships, and even more to convince him that she, as a human, was capable of grasping the Vulcan traditions he would explain. After all, she was one of the most intelligent beings Sarek had ever met. 

And one of the most beautiful. Across the semi-circle that had formed around the obelisk in front of the temple entrance, she was currently scribbling notes into her padd, only interrupting her writing to tuck a loose strand of dark red curls behind her ear. She wore the same dress as on her first day, a blue that brought out the colour of her hair and hugged her arms and shoulders in the sweetest way. What had Shanor said? My beloved is as a spring in the desert, her eyes as clear as the water, her shoulders as smooth as pebbles in the stream-

It was his great shame that he had turned to Shanor instead of Surak last night, when his confusion had reached a peak. Sarek had sat on his meditation mat for hours, unable to concentrate, because his thoughts had returned again and again to the way the Betazoid man had spoken to him last night. 

The last thing Amanda wants right now is to talk to you.

Of course he had seen how this man (Darion Bel, Betazoid psychologist, unmarried, blood type C+, not a single dark secret, except for 6 library fines. Sarek had done some checking.) had just talked to her. How his hands had lingered on her shoulder. And how she had not once seemed uncomfortable with it. With a man she could only have known for two days! But whenever Sarek entered the room, she disappeared!

 Just now, her gaze wandered across the crowd, but before they reached him, her head snapped back down again as she wrote something down with precise, quick, angry strokes. She was avoiding him, and Sarek could find no logical explanation for why.

What had happened? Had he not made clear that he would do anything to protect her research from traditionalists like T’Pau? Had his grand-aunt somehow managed to drive a wedge between them, now that it was impossible for him to speak to her, lest he wanted to lose the facade of neutrality he needed to evaluate her work?

And if he had done something that had offended her human morals, falling to his knees in apology before her would be just as destructive - it would only reveal the depth of his unacceptable feelings for her, compromising his position, and who then would be left to fend for her? No - he could not make his affection for her obvious, as much as he was sure that the fire in his heart must be obvious to everyone around him. 

Such and other questions had kept his mind reeling in circles last night, and none of Surak’s mantras about lettings one's emotions flow away like sand in the wind had calmed him. So, for the first time since he was nineteen, Sarek had unearthed the files he had made of Shanor’s poetry, curled up on his meditation mat, and read until his eyes had stung. 

Shanor had written an entire poetry cycle about being separated from his beloved wife, T’Saku, when she was held at the fortress of his rival Seket, who fed her the lie that Shanor had betrayed and forsaken her. Hiding in the nearby hills with a slowly growing army, Shanor had taught the birds T’Saku’s favourite melodies in the hopes that she would hear them singing under the window of her cell. His poetry about the pain and longing for his imprisoned wife, whom he could not speak to for months, was some of the most earnest and vulnerable Sarek had ever read. 

He was pretty sure that he was beginning to understand the feeling. 

“She looks exhausted”, T’Pau said, bringing his thought process to a screeching halt. Her tone was just an iota on the side of smug, but Sarek noted it. He forced himself to breathe out through his nose. 

“Does she?” he answered with fake neutrality. “I had not noticed it.” 

“I suppose the climb was too taxing on her,” T’Pau continued. “I saw the medic giving her an additional di-ox compound to help her breathe.”

“The air is thinner here than on her homeplanet.”

The older woman only wrinkled her nose at his defense. “The air is the air. What can be done?”

“I do not know. A di-ox compound would come to mind.” 

Whatever reply T’Pau had in mind for that, it was cut off by a rumble. Several heads, including that of the priest who was just explaining some inscriptions, turned to the horizon. A dark, red cloud had just wafted up behind the mountain ridge, rolling over itself with the wind. Another crack followed, echoing through the valley. 

“It is going to storm,” the priest declared loudly. “If we keep going, we should have enough time to complete the tour before it reaches us.”

Taking that as an excuse, Sarek strode away from T’Pau, clenching his hands in his sleeves as he went. 

Amanda , he thought, k’diwa, I will not forsake you.

The inside of the temple was simply breathtaking. It had been chiselled deep within the bedrock of the mountain, with almost impossibly slender columns supporting the high ceiling. Shimmering golden and bronze veins of mineral gave the columns and walls a shimmer that seemed to move like waves of a gentle sea when the light danced over them. 

The columns themselves were ringed by alcoves containing the katric arks of long-dead Vulcans. Apparently, the ancient Vulcans had placed their katric arks as high to the ceiling as possible, since the styles became more and more elaborate and pre-Surakian the higher up the arks were placed. Amanda also noted that many of the sculptures lining the larger niches in the walls still bore the markers of pre-Surakian deities, and had not been replaced by sculptures of Surak, like in many other temples. This really was a traditional region. Darion, who - and he made it look so coincidental! - had again appeared at her side, was rubbing his temples. 

“The noise in here,” he whispered as they passed another column filled with katric arks. Amanda looked up to him. Except for the hushed whispers of the other researchers, only the wind weaving through the columns was audible.

“Hm? I don’t hear anything?”

He made a motion with his finger against his temple. “Nah, in here. There’s a lot of dead Vulcans in here and they all have opinions.”

He chuckled as her eyes went round at that statement. “No, I can’t talk to them. It’s more like a - like a really loud buzzing. I guess if I was Vulcan and could meld with one of these stones, I could make out something, but like this it’s just. Loud.” 

“Damn.” 

He laughed quietly, a sound that still echoed through the hall and drew the disapproving glare of the Vulcan priest. “Trust me, if I could talk to some ancient Vulcan, I would.”

“I would not advise it.” Across the room, the Vulcan priest had fixed them with another hawk-eyed glare. Damnit, even in his 150s, his hearing was still great. When Darion and Amanda exchanged a half-embarrased glance, he cleared his throat and addressed the entire group. 

“As many of you are also telepaths, I would advise all of you to wear the gloves we handed out earlier before conducting more hands-on research. Many of the katric arcs are still psionically active, and with a sandfire storm on the horizon, the electrical tension will only further stimulate them. Please make sure that you touch none of the artifacts with your bare skin -” and here he shot a pointed glare at Amanda, “- not even if you are psi-null. Is that understood?”

Feeling everyone’s eyes on her, Amanda hurried to comply, glad that she had pocketed a pair of gloves while she was hiding from Sarek. Another loud rumble obscured her quiet curse when the rubbery material caught on her sweaty skin. The storm was getting closer, the air feeling more and more tense with electricity created by billions of tiny particles of sand rubbing together in the wind. Hopefully they’d be able to make it to the old temple school before the storm forced them back to the shuttles. 

When the tour continued at the same leisurely pace and the groans and cracks of the approaching storm grew closer and closer, Amanda felt her patience fray away. T’Pau was somewhere in the crowd, and though Amanda couldn’t always pinpoint where the old hawk was, she felt her eyes on her at all times. Sarek was somewhere in the background, no doubt dutifully slouching behind his grand-aunt. He hadn’t even had the guts to talk to her yet! And as interesting as the rest of the temple was, none of it so far was of much interest for her research proposal. She had banked on some old documents about emotional regulation and telepathic education being available in the former temple school, but as long as High Priest Shonev kept droning on about regional burial rites, she might as well pack up her stuff, book a shuttle to Earth, and go home. 

When they had finally gotten through the lengthy explanation of the Rumarie harvest festival which had been celebrated in the region until the Surakian reform (something something fertility rituals and worshipping the rich soil, something something, Amanda hadn’t really been listening), she dared to step up to High Priest Shonev. The man was ancient, even by Vulcan standards. White hair in a meticulous bowl cut framed an ascetic, but gentle face, with clear and dark blue eyes under paper-thin eyelids. 

“Doctor Grayson. Peace and long life. Has something caught your attention?” he asked, the picture of neutrality. 

“Your Eminence. Live long and prosper, I was wondering -” Another rumble rolled through the long hallway. The sunlight had dimmed to a more dim red as the storm clouds came gathering in. Amanda shot a nervous glance to the temple exit, but Shonev didn’t even blink. 

“It will be another hour and thirty seven minutes before the storm arrives here, Doctor,” he said matter-of-factly. “We will sound the alarm bells when you have to return to the shuttles. You were saying?”

“Yes.” Amanda cleared her throat and checked her padd. “I was wondering whether you would allow me to look at some of the inscriptions in the temple school? I had hoped that, like other temples, this one would have an inscribed list of instructions for students and novices in the main lecture hall. It’s part of my research.” 

“Ah!” The old man’s eyes lit up with interest. It was something she had noticed - the Vulcans of this region were generally more expressive than the ones she had met in Shi’Kar. Fascinating. 

“Of course, Doctor Grayson,” Shonev said. “The temple school was built in the second century, 200 years before Surak’s birth. When Surak’s teachings reached us, there was debate among the elders whether his commands should replace our ancient rules or whether they should be placed side by side - we decided or the latter, and-”

“May I see them?”

Stunned at her interruption, the priest’s eyebrows shot up. “Why-” he replied, perplexed. “Certainly. This way.”

A novice, a young woman with a round face and long braids, led Amanda to the old lecture hall, now apparently a space for the novices to meditate in peace and go over their philosophy readings. It was a wide, semi-circular room with an open front leading out to a terrace hewn into the stone, and overseeing the mountainside. If Amanda squinted through the rising red fog, she could make out the shuttles parked several hundred meters below their position. None of the Orions or Betazoids had followed her, as they were more interested in the telepathic rituals surrounding the welcoming of a new child that Shonev had been explaining when she had left. And T’Pali had stayed behind in one of the shuttles, coding away at a language model that would hopefully translate a bunch of the regional dialect to them. Privately, Amanda thought that the girl was a bit of a post-break up workaholic. 

When the novice had left, Amanda had immediately begun scanning the huge, stone wall panels containing the centuries-old code of conduct for novices of the temple. Even though the language was High Golic, and a phonetic transcription of the spoken dialect at that, she quickly made out some of the rules she had been hoping for. Her pen couldn’t fly over the surface of her padd fast enough. 

Joy is doub[led] when it is shared. Be sure to share it with your friends [... as well as?] as your enemies [2 missing words] be gracious in the dispensing of it. 

Let none disrespect you, your mother, your father, or your house. [Defend]ing the house of your lover is a [labour? act?] of love. 

Fear not [male verb ending, addresse exclusively male?] the time when your blood burns, for your love will grow stronger with it. Go into the mountains and wait for your friend [female form? A lover or a fiancée?] to come [to you]. 

This was incredible. So many other educational institutions had mostly or entirely scrapped these ancient regulations for Surak's new doctrine. But this was well preserved, astonishingly so! And again and again this reference to burning blood and plak taw or tow, something she could only approximate as blood fever. An illness, perhaps?

Fear not [female verb ending] the time when your beloved’s [word missing, probably blood] burns, for he [cannot/will not] hurt you. Come to your friend [male form] without fear/fearlessly. 

That sounded more like a natural cycle. Amanda furrowed her brows. Maybe there had been some sort of initiation ritual once the Vulcan’s of this region hit puberty? Some ceremony to re-establish a betrothal? And why was this in a temple? 

The stones gave no answer. Safe for her pensive hum and the distant crackling of the approaching storm, the room was entirely quiet. 

“Doctor Grayson-”

Amanda jumped so hard at the voice that her pen clattered to the ground. “For fuck’s sake!” 

In the doorframe, almost timid, stood none other than Sarek. As she bent to the floor to retrieve her pen, he raised an eyebrow. Right. She had spent the entire morning glaring daggers at his back, and cursing him for not having the balls - well - the chenesi to talk to her, and now she wanted nothing more than to tell him to piss off. 

“Do you have to sneak up on me like that, Ambassador?” she demanded, blowing an escaped curl out of her face. 

Sarek’s face betrayed nothing. “I did not mean to startle you,” he said evenly. “And I was not sneaking. Perhaps you did not hear me-”

“Sure, probably because I am a human who doesn’t have superior Vulcan hearing,” she shot back. “Your auntie made that much clear.” 

His eyebrow quivered. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Beg.” 

She regretted it the second it escaped her mouth. But she was tired, and upset, and she only had about an hour left before they’d have to leave because today, of all days, a sandfire storm was rolling in, and she still had to scan several walls, and write a paper to keep her dream job, and then this fucking guy had come in to pester her-

Yet Sarek seemed undisturbed, which only pissed her off more. Of course, nothing she would say would convince him that he was wrong. She was only a lowly human, after all! He only exhaled pointedly and stepped into the room, fingers steepled in front of him. 

“My auntie ?” he inquired. Amanda resisted the urge to roll her eyes. How stupid did he think she was?!

“T’Pau,” she answered, determinedly looking at the inscriptions in front of her. “I mean, it’s no secret to me that she’d not exactly thrilled to have me here, and hey, I can work with that, even when I am just trying to do my job, but you lied to me.” 

Her lips were pressed together to a thin line. Even without his plentiful experience with human emotionalism, Sarek would have seen that she was distressed. He hadn’t meant to distress her. 

“I have never told you an untruth,” he tried to explain, but was cut off by a sound like a dry laugh. 

“Spare me. You didn’t care to mention that you’re having afternoon tea with the lady who is trying her damndest to end my career and have me shipped back to Earth, and in all the while we have been talking, and meeting up for drinks, you never thought you’d mention that?”

Before he could open his mouth, she had already restarted. “And now I don’t care whether you think that kind of secrecy is standard on Vulcan or not! Among humans, that is pretty rancid behaviour. So if you will excuse me, I have a job to do, and if you don’t leave, I will.” 

And as if to underline that sentence, she ripped the small holoscanner from where it was suctioned to the wall and moved on to the next inscribed wall panel. 

Sarek, his heart leaping into all manners of directions, didn’t feel the courage to follow her. 

“You will leave?” he asked, trying to mask the emotion in his voice. So this was it. He had driven her away.  “You wish to terminate the expedition?”

Sarek could not deny the quiver of horror that sent to his core. But Amanda just scoffed and tapped the touchscreen on the holoscanner.

“Fuck no,” she replied. The vulgarity slipped past her lips with such ease. It oddly charmed him - there was something so robust about these fragile humans. Then he had to shake that thought when Amanda's lips parted and she caught the tip of her gloves middle finger between her teeth to pull the glove off. 

Sarek felt his mouth go dry. Oh, Surak-

“Fucking touchscreen”, she muttered as her naked fingers danced over the display, the plastic glove still hanging between her teeth. This was definitely not the moment to tell her that such an act - such a tempting display - by Surak- 

Her head shot up, freckled, beautiful human face framed by her red curls, eyes glinting with irritation. 

“Will you please leave me alone?” she said with fake-politeness, and given that all his mental walls were being torn apart by such conflicting emotions and his blood was rapidly rushing south, Sarek found no reason to disagree.

“A word with you, Admiral.”

Sarek had spotted T’Pau immediately as he had returned to the great hall of the temple. She was looming - or trying to loom - over the shoulder of a particularly tall Betazoid woman who was examining the katric arks of several deceased Vulcans. As she heard his hurried steps (no, he wasn’t sneaking! He always walked like this!), she fixed him with her glare. 

“Can it wait?” she asked sharply. Not because she had anything better to do, Sarek knew. Just because she could make him wait. He took a deep breath. 

“No,” he said then. “No, Admiral, it cannot.” 

Her nose wrinkled in just the slightest disapproval. “Well, young man, if you lack the patience-”

“Do not speak to me with such familiarity.” His voice was too sharp, he knew, but it did not bother him. Maybe his brain lacked blood right now. Given that he was trying very hard for it not to be occupied elsewhere.  “I am not a child to be chided by an elder. I am an Ambassador to Vulcan, and as such, I see it as my duty to remind you of our responsibilities towards our guests.” 

T’Pau blinked at him. The Betazoid researcher had hurried away, but was very much still in earshot. With a miniscule twitch of her eyelid, T’Pau made clear that she did not approve of this. Another thunder rolled through the silence of the hall. Then T’Pau folded her hands in front of her body and, in a lower voice, said: “I assume this is a conversation we should have outside.”

“It does not matter where we conduct it.” He planted his heels firmly into the ground. Skon would hear about this, but just this once, he would not care about what his father had to say in the matter. “Must I remind you, that, as a Federation citizen and as a human, Doctor Grayson is entitled to certain measures that make sure that her opportunities and chances are equal to that of Vulcan citizens?”

“Affirmative action is Federation protocol,” T’Pau answered, with a clear disdain in the tone of her voice. Sarek pressed on. 

“So you do know that Doctor Grayson is entitled to an additional twenty percent of preparation time in all assignments to compensate for the difference in average human and Vulcan speed of information processing? You are aware that, when any changes to her research position are made, she must be informed two weeks prior, in writing, in both Standard and her first language? And you are aware that, in the case of weather conditions unsuitable for her human anatomy, she is more than entitled to medical attention, including however many tri-ox compounds she needs?”

His voice had risen at the end of that sentence. Sarek didn’t know where his head stood. He had not been this emotional since his last pon farr . He was a disgrace to his father. 

But maybe, just maybe, this would mean that Amanda would not lose her job. That she would stay. 

Admiral T’Pau’s face had become a rigid mask. “Then I do not see how a person so ill-equipped for handling the Vulcan way is allowed to conduct research on our culture,” she answered coldly. “If her human mind and body cannot keep up with us, then she should have stayed on Earth, or wherever she can be useful.” 

“So you are biased towards her because of her species?” 

That might just cost her the admiralty. Surak , what was he thinking?!
The air around them crackled, whether it was because of the sandfire storm or because of the glare T’Pau had fixed on him, he didn’t know. 

“I accept her,” T’Pau said sternly. “As I accept the entire diversity of the Federation.” 

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations is not something we must simply accept, but something we must actively protect,” he quipped back. “T’Svana, Meditations III.” 

T’Pau whipped around to him. “Are you quoting trite verses at me, boy?” Her silhouette was a dark, finely cut shape against the darkening, red light streaming into the temple and casting long shadows behind the columns. 

“No,” he said, trying to sound as even as possible. “I am reminding you of our duty to protect and support Doctor Grayson as we would any researcher of the Vulcan Science Academy. And you will be reminded that she is fully entitled to the resources I have just listed, as well as that her work be evaluated by an impartial jury of the Academy Board before she receives permission to publish it. And if these regulations are not followed-” He lowered his voice, “Then it will be my duty as ambassador to file an official report to both Starfleet and the Ministry of Research and Education for hindering the progress of science.”

T’Pau hadn’t blinked for one second. Neither had Sarek, but he would not start now. With an - hopefully - neutral face, he straightened up to his full height again. 

“But of course, you know all that,” he said. “After all, you are an admiral.”

T’Pau’s mouth opened, but her scathing reply was cut off by the sudden, shrill, shattering sound of a storm siren. Reflexively, Sarek covered his ears, blocking out the three long hoots of the siren and the confused and frightened curses of the Orions and Betazoids scrambling for their padds and scanners. An Orion man yanked at his elbow. 

“What’s that?!” he yelled over the loud ringing. “I thought we had another half hour!”

The sound broke off, immediately replaced by the deafening crack of thunder outside. Right in front of the entrance, he could see the priest, his arms outstretched, the long sleeves being whipped in the gust of wind forcing itself through the temple entrance. 

“The storm has arrived quicker than I anticipated,” his voice bellowed down the hall. “Please, gather your things and assemble at the entrance, quickly!” 

He didn’t have to say it twice - the next crack of thunder was so loud that the Orion and Sarek both instinctively looked towards the ceiling for cracks. 

Sarek was glad two of the novices were leading their group downwards to their shuttles. The eye of the storm was still half a mile off, but closing in fast, and the air was thick with red sand, the wind so strong Sarek could feel it tearing at his hair and ripping his words right out of his mouth. His second eyelid had closed as soon as he had stepped outside, but still, he could only see as far as his arm stretched. The Orions and Betazoids were not so lucky. Squeezing their eyes shut against the onslaught of wind and sand, they were being led down the slope of the mountain in rows, sixteen people per shuttle. The first had descended before Sarek’s group had reached the exit, and the second was underway. He could feel his heart hammering in his side. Where was Amanda?

“Next group!” An older novice, the one with the long braids, yelled over the wind, grabbing the hand of the man - Betazoid or Orion, it was impossible to tell through the red mist - first in the row. Sarek counted them as they went past him - fourteen - fifteen - fifteen hunched over creatures, covering their faces with hands, arms, shawls, whatever they could find - he looked behind him. He was the last one - the old priest had joined the first group, since he knew the terrain best. Sarek would be the sixteenth. So Amanda must have been in one of the other groups. Surely. Surely she had heard the bell and had rushed to the assembly point, and he simply hadn’t seen her. 

“Ambassador!” The Orion lady last in line yelled over to him. “We have to go!” 

Sarek risked one last look at the temple - the gate was almost invisible through the red haze of sand. With a loud crack, the first lightning hit the mountainside just above, and for a flash, illuminated the tall, unmoving pillars. Surak, he thought, let Amanda be safe. Then he grabbed the Orion’s arm and followed her down the mountain. 

They stumbled more than they walked down to the hovercrafts standing by on a ledge a few hundred meters below. The trail had been rocky and steep on the way up - downhill, in wind so blasting that Sarek thought it might knock him over several times, and with most of their party blinded by the sand, it was a minor miracle no one got hurt. Halfway down the path, one of the Betazoids had slipped and only the fact that the Orions behind and in front of him had held on to his arms with all their might had saved him from tumbling down the mountainside. He was still reeling when they reached the last shuttle, the others already hovering a meter in the air, but determined to leave no one behind. Sarek more lifted than helped the Orion lady who had called out to him up the last few steps before leaping into the hovercraft. The novice who had led them down the hill clambered in behind him. The wind, together with the unpredicatble cracks of lightning, filled his ears.

The novice girl folded the stairs up with a slap of her hand and pulled herself up into the shuttle, her braids whipping in the wind and yelled “Close the hatch, T’Vara, we have everyone!” 

“Are we sixteen?” the pilot yelled back. The hatch hissed closed, just a moment before the novice pulled her last foot in. 

“Sixteen,” Sarek confirmed, and the novice girl added “Take off, before we’re struck by lightning!” 

As soon as the hatch closed and the rumbling of the storm lessened abruptly, Sarek felt his head clear. Their little party looked dishevelled, but uninjured - their clothes were dripping sand to the floor and the elaborate Betazoid hairstyles were torn apart, stiff and dusty, sticking in all directions. Several faced were streaked with red dust where their eyes had started tearing up against the onslaught of wind.

He counted again. Sixteen. With the two pilots, there was space for eighteen people in every shuttle. Sixteen. Everyone had made it. Everyone was here.

Except - Except that the Tashee village did not have that many skilled pilots, and they had only had one pilot per shuttle, leaving one extra seat in each. Sarek felt his gut tighten as the hovercraft’s engines geared up. He stumbled to his seat, his heart racing. The other shuttles would not have left if they had not counted sixteen passengers and a pilot.  He felt his mouth go dry. 

“Computer,” he asked loudly. “Locate High Priest Shonev.” 

The passenger in the row in front of him turned around. Sarek was too focused on the tightening knot in his stomach to recognise him as the same Betazoid man who had so obviously wooed Amanda. 

“High Priest Shonev is on Shuttle Two, position 13.5 mark 2,” the computer answered. His heart pounded in his ears, the rush of blood mingling with the sound of the wind.

“Computer, on which shuttle was High Priest Shonev on our outward journey?” 

A small beep. Sarek prayed. 

“High Priest Shonev was not a passenger on the outward journey.” 

A shriek escaped an Orion man when Sarek leapt from his chair at the back of the hovercraft to the pilot’s seat. The pilot looked at him with concerned eyes, her fingers flying over the console, the viewscreen a mess of red swirls. 

“What are you saying?” she asked. 

“Turn the ship around.” 

“Ambassador, we are three meters in the air in a sandfire storm, I cannot-”

“Turn the ship around !”

“Will you sit down-”

“ We are missing someone! ” Sarek yelled, and that finally got her attention. Behind him he could hear several noises - a gasp, something that sounded like a shocked cry, and several curses. “High Priest Shonev was already at the temple when we got there. Now, if all shuttles are still bearing only sixteen passengers, and he is one of them then-”

A hollow voice behind him finished his sentence. “-then we’re missing someone.”

Dead silence fell. For a moment, only the howling and cracking of the storm outside the ship’s hull could be heard. For some reason, to Sarek’s ears it sounded louder than ever. 

“Computer,” he asked into silence. “Locate Doctor Amanda Grayson.”

“Doctor Amanda Grayson is not on the shuttle crafts.” 

His heart plummeted into his stomach. 

When he looked up, he saw that all eyes in the shuttle were fixed on him. An Orion lady had started crying. Two Betazoids were panickedly whispering to each other. Then the same Betazoid man from earlier shot up from his chair. 

“We have to go back,” he said, his voice just barely trembling. “We can’t leave her out there, it’s-”

“As I said,” the pilot interrupted, “I can’t turn the ship around. Our nacelles are currently being shot to hell by sand, my scanners aren’t working because of the ionisation, and if we’re struck by lightning, navigation might fail. We need to get under the village’s forcefield and wait it out.” 

Sarek could feel his hands tighten into fists. The pilot was right, of course she was right, she had been living here her whole life, she knew the dangers, but that was Amanda out there-

“We can’t leave her out there!” the Betazoid protested. “What if she- she could-” 

“If Doctor Grayson is still in the temple, she can shelter there,” the novice interrupted. Her face looked decidedly pale. “The - the further she retreats into the temple, the safer she will be. There’s underground chambers. It’s not going to be comfortable, but-” 

She left that sentence hanging in the air. But she would survive . The Betazoid man slumped back down to his chair, burying his face in his hands. With an uneasy look to Sarek, the pilot turned again to her console. 

“I regret to leave someone behind alone as much as you,” she declared, adjusting what looked like a slowly failing power nacelle, “but I cannot risk the lives of seventeen for one. The needs of the many-” 

Something in Sarek snapped. 

“What if you didn’t leave her behind alone?” 

“Ambassador, what are you imply-”

With two strides, he had crossed to the rear of the shuttle. “Open the hatch.” 

“Ambassador, we are five metres in the air!”

“ Open the hatch! ”

Several people were shouting, jumping up from their chairs and being ordered to sit the fuck down again, and someone grabbed his arm as he slammed his hand on the emergency release button. He couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t feel the shards of the fragile polymer cover over the emergency button as he slammed his fist against it again. Amanda was out there, and she was alone. She was human. She needed help. 

The hand on his arm wrenched him away from the door just as the hatch open. Wind rushed into the shuttle, sending it tumbling to the side. His feet slid along the suddenly tilting floor. Someone yelled as the momentum of the near capsizing craft sent them flying against the nearest wall. 

“Are you crazy?!” the Betazoid - Darion, right, that was his name - who had grabbed him yelled. “You’ll never going to find the temple, let alone Amanda, not in that storm! You’ll only get yourself killed!” 

With a shove, he made himself loose and grabbed onto the frame of the open hatch. They might be five metres in the air, or fifteen, or fifty - it was impossible to make out the ground below. The wind tore at his robes as if it wanted to rip them away. He breathed in and locked eyes with Darion. 

“That,” he said quietly, “is not going to stop me .” 

The wind drove under his sleeves, spreading them out around them. A crack of thunder rolled over them, so loud that it made Sarek’s bones vibrate. He closed his second eyelid.

K’diwa, I will find you. 

And without another word, Sarek jumped out of the flying hovercraft.

Chapter Text

Sand. 

The winds whipped around her with a howl, never pausing even when the next lightning slammed into the ground with an ear-deafening rumble. The air was electrified, having every hair on her body standing up as another gust of wind almost forced her down onto her knees. 

Amanda couldn’t see anything. Not only was the air so thick with dust that one could hardly make out the shapes of the temple which had to be fifteen, maybe twenty meters in front of her, she also could barely open her eyes without them being hit with gritty desert sand. I was everywhere - her feet were already covered in it where they were facing the wind. It collected in the folds of her dress, against her neck, making their way into every crevice, into her hair, under her clothing. Her braid was long destroyed, hair whipping around her head whenever the direction of the wind changed. There - for a second, a blue shimmer somewhere in that red inferno - maybe a hover craft - 

She strained against the wind, shielded her face with her hand and yelled as loud as she could. Her throat burned, but the sound did not reach her ears. Struggling to keep her eyes open she scanned the sky again - nothing. Nothing. The sky was indeterminate from the horizon or the ground. She was too late. 

Surely they’ll scan for life signs , she thought, desperately, slamming her comm badge, again, and again. They’ll beam me out in a second. They’ll-

No. The ionisation. They couldn’t beam or scan. Amanda could feel panic spreading through her like ice. Her eyes welled up with tears, for fear or the thousands of gritty particles being forced between her eyelids, she didn’t know. No one was coming.

Another crack, another thunder rolled over her. She stumbled, crouching to the ground with an arm in front of her eyes. The next blow of wind slammed into her side like a giant fist, and she groaned in pain.

The temple. She might crawl back, curl up in the great hall or the adjoining halls until the storm quieted. She had to find shelter. 

The next thunder rolled over her with the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. It had been only a few seconds, but her hands and forearms were already encased in a layer of sand. She’d have to be quick. 

Her muscles protested every movement against the wind. She was pretty sure the terrace of the hall she had been in when the alarm sounded was right ahead, slightly to the left. Blind, her eyes in her elbow, she crawled forwards. This time, she was sure lightning hit closer. She’d either be buried alive or be electrocuted out here. Her knee dragged forward through the slippery sand, but as the wind whirled around her, she was sure she would be knocked over sideways if she got up. 

Amanda gritted her teeth and crawled another step into what was hopefully the right direction. The air was so hot, so dry, and every heave for air felt like she was inhaling just as much dust. With sudden clarity, she knew that she could and would die out here. 

“Come on,” she spat out as she pulled herself forwards. “You want to see Orla’s baby. You want to have seder with Elise. You-”

She had to pause. Her arm holding her up was shaking, her mouth was so dry her tongue felt like a piece of wood. Her heartbeat seemed to pulsate in her eyes, small squiggles swimming in her vision. With every second, her lower legs were buried deeper in the sand. With a frustrated yelp, Amanda squeezed her eyes shut, changed arms and kept crawling. Desperately, she felt the sand for anything rocky, a ledge, or a step, anything indicating that she was getting closer to the temple. 

She’d no idea how far she’d crawled. The  thunder tried to flatten her onto the ground, again and again, and by sheer force of will, she lifted herself up on her arm and continued. With every move, she could feel sand running in and out of her shoes, like brackish water. Water. What she wouldn’t give for water. She didn’t dare open her eyes, fearing that they’d become two wooden marbles in their sockets. She’d have to reach the temple soon, right? Right? 

If the storm hadn’t quieted for a second, if she had answered the thunder with another yell or a gritted sob, she wouldn't have heard. But just as she started counting (“five more steps. If you can do five, you can do five more-”) she heard the faintest trace of her name. 

“Amanda!” 

Again. She stopped dead in her tracks. Her blood was thrumming in her ears, but the next gust brought it again. 

“Amanda!”

“Here!” she answered, louder even than she thought she could still give. Relief, then panic shot through her. Was someone here or was she hallucinating? Was this third man syndrome? She decided to keep crawling to not get buried, yelling “Here! Here!” at every step. Fuck, if another person was here, she had to get them to safety. Where was that fucking ledge-

The voice grew closer, responding to each of her answers, and she risked a peek between barely opened lids. A faint shimmer - a figure appeared between waves of red dust in the air. The closer it got, the more she could make out - long sleeves, billowing in the wind like wings, tall - 

She managed to prop herself up on her knees for a second, flailing her free arm over her head. 

“Here! Over here!”

The joy was quickly replaced by new panic when the wind caught her and slammed her to the side. 

“Amanda!” the voice sounded distinctly alarmed. Her head pounded where it had hit the sand. She spat out what little moisture was left in her body with the dust, reached out her arm and -

Was grabbed by the forearm by the tall, dark figure with incredible strength. The figure knelt down, crouched over her, enveloping her in his long garments to ease the full force of the storm on her body. Her hands, by primate instinct, fisted in his robes and she greedily inhaled air. She knew this scent. 

“Sarek?” 

It was him, his jaw pressing into the crown of her head, his strong arms around her. Her mind was racing. Why was he here? Why him of all people? But most importantly-

“Can you see anything?!” she cried out, but could scarcely hear herself. Sarek shifted, his hand cradling her head, fingers pawing at her temple. 

It made a lot of sense. They couldn’t yell at each other, not when Amanda already felt like every breath in made her ribcage burst. Still, the thought of melding with Sarek, even superficially, irked her. He drew closer around her with the next thunder, his body shaking against the impact. Even on him, the storm was heavy. Amanda squared her jaw, then nodded. 

Sarek caught it, braced his fingers against her temple and in the next second, they were going under. 

Amanda, though a scholar on Vulcan culture, or perhaps because of it, had never melded with anyone before. She'd read all the descriptions, the textbooks, the diagrams on cerebral electrical activity. But nothing could compare.

Sarek's mind felt - warm. Gentle and controlled, like the skilled hands of a masseur, shielding and holding her. His thoughts seemed to ghost over hers, again like sand, red and golden grains mingling with each other.  

She could still feel her own body - Sarek's trembling hand on her temple -, but she was filled with a warm and reassuring calm, like the warmth of hot tea spreading through her. Then - Sarek's voice, a golden thread thrumming in her head. 

Will you allow me to enter your mind? his serene voice asked, brushing featherlight over her consciousness. She felt herself gasping. It was his voice - but there was a depth to it, a tenderness that surprised her. Distantly, the thunder rolled over them clinging to each other. Tendrils of Sarek's thoughts swept over her, circling over her mind with reassuring touches, patiently waiting for her approval to breach her shields and unite them. 

“Yes”, she tried to say but she must also have formed it in her mind. For only a moment, she felt a wave of joy and fulfilment from Sarek's side, so visceral and short-lived that I was surely just a mirror image of her own relief - then Sarek's mind gently pressed into hers. 

It left her breathless. Sarek and her seemed to be blending, until she felt what he felt, breathed as he breath, as their hearts, as if on translucent film, were laid over each other and became one. 

When Sarek opened his eyes, she saw what he saw - second eyelid be blessed. The storm had worsened. Around them, still, were only whipping red waves of sand, broken open suddenly with lightning. It was coming closer. But as Sarek turned his head, he could make a slightly darker rectangle. Amanda felt her - their - heart quicken. The entrance to the temple. It was right there! She had almost made it! 

I will share my sight with you, Sarek projected at her. But we must make haste.

Amanda nodded. Sarek lifted his hand from her temples, keeping the other one on her hand to not break the skin contact. Then, Amanda felt him nudging her forearm away from her eyes and wrapping cloth around her head, covering her eyes, nose and mouth. 

You will need both your arms. Hold onto my hand and follow. It is only about 50 metres. 

Damn. She had not been that far off course then. 

Something like a Vulcan chuckle flickered over the meld. 

Indeed, you were not. 

He interlaced her fingers on the top of his right hand, positioning himself next to her in a crawling position. 

Are you prepared?

Amanda took a deep breath. The cloth covering her face was thick, and soft, but it was a thousand times better than having her face and eyes be assaulted by the wind and sand again. She could breathe without tasting iron and sand in her mouth. Steadying herself on both her arms, she nodded and thought, loudly, yes.

It was odd to see through Sarek's eyes while crouching blindly next to him. Every step, the muscles of her arms protested, and her body willed itself against curling up on the ground. She gritted her teeth and pulled Sarek forward, and soon they found a rhythm, stepping forward with their joined hands and pulling the rest of their bodies after them.

Come on, she reminded herself again and again. If he can do it, so can you. If you can do it, so can he. 

Sarek steered them forwards in a straight line, pawing the sand again and again for stable rock. His discomfort slowly seeped through the bond, the ache in his shoulders and the burning in his eyes. He acknowledged the pain and moved on. 

Then- finally. Just as a roar of thunder, louder than any before, ripped through Amanda's eardrums, she felt her hand hit hard rock. A carved step. A ledge. Her relief sang over the bond. With returned strength, she pulled herself up and dragged Sarek with her. They'd reached the main entrance - the great hall was cast in complete darkness, the hot Vulcan sun had disappeared between thick clouds of dust. Sarek's sight adapted to the darkness, and he nudged them around the corner, past the doorway. 

Immediately, the wind lessened. Amanda felt her body swaying as the familiar pressure on it suddenly disappeared - she felt like a child lying down on the beach mat again after being tossed to and fro by the ocean waves. Her ears were ringing. Sarek slumped down against the wall next to her, but it was only a moment until he rose to his feet again.

We're not safe yet, he projected. Can you walk?

As soon as the wind turned, it would press more dust and wind through the narrow entry, and they would still not be safe from exposure. They'd have to make their way to the deeper caves at the back of the complex. 

Amanda nodded defiantly. I can. Help me up. 

He didn't yet dare to take the cloth - the sash of his robe - off her face. Still, the air was hot, dry, and dusty. Her eyes would start tearing up, costing her precious moisture. And there was no water here. 

With surprising determination, Amanda grabbed his arm and tried to pull herself up. Her legs were shaking, the skin red and bruised from sand filing away at it. She groaned in frustration and tried to steady herself, but her knee gave away under her, and before she could hit the ground, Sarek had already swept her up in his arms. 

I CAN walk, she protested, her mind a mess of uproaring emotions. Sarek hoisted her up, gently, and slung an arm under her legs. 

I know you can, he replied. However, you don't have to. You were out in this storm much longer than I. Allow me to help. 

She stiffened her back, but then conceded. Her body went limp in his arms. It wasn't a long way to the entry of the caves, but still, Sarek could feel the effects the storm and his landing in the sand from fifteen metres of height had taken on his body. His knees ached from crawling, and his heart was rabbiting quickly. Amanda needed water. His poor, resilient, courageous human needed water, or she would dehydrate within half a day, and there was little saying how long this storm would last. Usually, they moved along within two hours, but that was no guarantee. 

The tunnels grew colder and quieter. Amanda, in his arms, drew her hands around his neck. 

“It's cold,” she said weakly and Sarek held her tighter. But she seemed to relax - yes, for her human body, the drop in temperature must be comfortable. He was glad for her warm, human weight across his chest. The back of her dress against his arm was drenched in sweat, and the odour of it tickled his nose. It was such an alien smell- so salty and musky, and his Vulcan desert senses, keyed by evolution to notice any slight moisture, reacted with pleasant surprise. 

He shook his head off it. Amanda was vulnerable in his arms. Humans found sweat distasteful. And Amanda was still angry at him. He had to suppress any inappropriate reaction at her - very normal and human - bodily functions. 

He tried to block her smell out - salty, musky, so lavish - and breathed in again. Somewhere, deep in the ancient bedrock of the caves, there had to be a spring. That had been the reason for the ancient Vulcans to dig deep caverns into the rock, to shelter from the murderous midday heat and preserve water. The springs were kept in meticulous condition, symbols of fertility and life, and of the continuous stream of Vulcans, past and present, who endured against the desert heat. 

There- a faint trace, the smell of fresh water. Amanda groaned when Sarek quickened his pace, stumbling along the corridor which was only lightened by small miner's lamps. The sound of the storm had quieted behind them, and they had penetrated deep into the temple, towards the most ancient, pre-Surakian halls. Sarek felt a feeling of fondness when he thought that Amanda would probably want to scan every wall of inscriptions and reliefs before getting beamed out.

Rounding the next corner, they suddenly found themselves in a rounded chamber with a dome-like roof. The smell of moisture became stronger, as did the faint gurgling of water falling from a spout into a meticulously carved round basin, just behind a massive raised platform. 

Amanda shifted in his arms, and fingered for the cloth over her face, pulling it up over her mouth.

“Is that water?” she asked, hopefully. Her voice sounded dry and brittle. Sarek nodded, then added: “Yes. I will lay you down. Careful-”

He bent over the raised platform and she rolled on the smooth surface with a bone-deep sigh of relief. He waited until she had shifted onto her back, then gently lifted the cloth from her face. 

“Don't yet open your eyes,” he said quietly. “I will rinse them.” 

She only nodded, and hummed in contentment when she stretched out her bruised arms and legs on the cool rock. Sarek shook out sand and dust from the sash, then went over to the basin and drenched it in the cold spring water. It ran over his sensitive hands in fat droplets and made him catch his breath. His mental shields were still flimsy from the unexpectedly intense meld, his fingers still tingling and sensible. With the wet cloth in hand, he returned to where Amanda was lying down. 

“Lie still,” he murmured, and brushed a lock plastered to her forehead away. Even now, she was beautiful - her pink human skin flushed in the cheeks, her lips open and twitching sensually whenever she drew in another long breath. Her long, dark lashes fanned beautifully onto her full cheeks, dotted more visibly with those uniquely human freckles where she still squeezed her eyes shut. He gently raised the cloth over her face and wrung it out. 

Instinctively, she closed her eyelids tighter, but then relaxed and let them flutter, allowing Sarek to rinse the dust and sand out of them. The water trickled down her temples, caressed her qui'lari before nestling in her beautiful red hair. When her eyes opened, their green-blue seemed more vibrant and deep than ever before.

She smiled weakly up at him, then coughed dryly.

“You look like shit.” 

Sarek's face, which only for a moment had looked- soft. Almost vulnerable -, immediately retreated back to “purebred cat whose tail has been stepped on”. 

“I will interpret this as your concern about my health inferred from my outward appearance”, he said stiffly. 

Amanda lifted herself up on her elbows and cocked her head. Sarek did look like shit. His robe hung loose and tattered around him, his eyes were still a little red, even though the second eyelid had retreated, and his hair stuck up in several directions, stiff and matted with dust. 

“Sorry,” she coughed and dragged herself upright to get closer to the basin of water. “Human expression. Are you alright?” 

“I am uninjured,” came the haughty reply. 

“That’s not what I asked.” She staggered over to the water basin and dropped to her knees in front of it. The droplets on her face had been cool, almost cold, and she greedily dipped her hands into the wonderfully clear and soothing water. Her hands burned. When she formed a bowl with them and drank deep gulps of water, she couldn’t suppress a relieved groan. 

Sarek’s eyes were following her the whole time. It tingled at the back of her neck, but his gaze was less taxing than it had been before. He looked broken open and soft. When she turned back around to him, he was trying to smooth down his messy hair, but immediately stopped when he caught her eye, as if she had intruded on something private. 

Okay. He looked adorable. 

“I am well,” he replied evenly. “And glad to see you are, as well.” 

 With a groan, Amanda lifted herself on her feet again and staggered back to the platform. The water had refreshed her brain, but that didn’t mean that she could make sense of the tangle of conflicting emotions milling around in her head. She was still mad at Sarek. She was also stuck in a cave with him. He had rescued her from a sandfire storm, melded with her, even. If she concentrated, she could still feel the golden-red touch of his mind at the back of brain. 

“So,” she asked awkwardly. “How long do you think it will take them to beam us out?”

Sarek drew his robe tighter around himself, his back still ramrod straight. “I cannot say with certainty. Storms of this magnitude often only last for a few hours, but it is impossible to predict how long the ionisation will make beaming impossible. Also, we are deep within the rock - it will take some time to make out our life signs here. But, given the fact that the crew is aware of our situation-”

“The same crew that forgot both of us down here?” 

Sarek turned to face her. “A grave, and unforgivable error. I will take this up with Vulcan Aviation Security as soon as we return to Shi’Kahr. Exposing you, a human, to the elements because of a simple calculus error is unprecedented, not to say embarrassing. You should not have been left behind. Not even if the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.” 

His voice had risen with barely concealed anger at the end of this, and Amanda could not think of a more appropriate reply than stunned silence. When nothing followed, he blinked. 

“What?”

“That’s who you’re blaming?” she asked, but the layer of irony was brittle over her words. “No sermon about my insufficient human abilities, my illogical mind, no allusions to how I won’t last another day on Vulcan?” 

“Why would I do such a thing?” 

Amanda crossed her arms in front of her body. “I don’t know. Given that your entire family seems to be stacked against me, I kinda didn’t expect you to swoop in, knight in shining armour style, to rescue me.” 

His eyebrows wrinkled. “I did not rescue you. You have shown admirable resilience. I am sure that, even without my intervention, the probability for your survival would have been about 60 percent. My involvement only heightened that probability to about 75 percent.” 

That was probably the highest compliment a Vulcan would ever give her. 

“Wait,” she asked before her mind could dwell on that, “your intervention? I thought they also left you behind?” 

Sarek only shook his head. “I discussed with the pilot to go back for you after we noticed that you were missing. They asserted that such an action would put the passengers of the shuttle in jeopardy. I protested, they refused, I vacated the shuttle.”

Amanda’s eyes went round. “By vacated you mean you jumped out?!”

“It was not yet so high.” 

She made a chortled noise in her throat, trying and failing to hide her shock. 

“You jumped out of a flying shuttle to get me? Are you insane?! Why didn’t you say so from the start?!”

Her anger confused him. It was illogical to ascribe such importance to an act that had been entirely logical. Amanda had needed to be rescued, and vacating - well, jumping out of the hovercraft - had been the only way. There was no undue heroism in such an act. He shrugged. 

“I did not wish to impress on you the feeling that you owe me a debt of gratitude. What matters is that you are safe, not what I have done.” 

He could feel her gaze on his profile, but didn’t dare to look at her. Surely she would see the burning behind his eyes, betraying all decorum and unemotional blankness. The first touch of her mind had been like the first rain after the bone-dry Vulcan summer. Still, he could feel her bubbling, dynamic human mind swirling against his. Every touch of hers was a temptation to revel in her mind, to indulge in the sweetness of her thoughts. He had damned himself by rescuing her life this way.

“I thought you hated me,” she said then, quietly. 

His voice turned much softer. “Hate is an emotion.” 

“Yeah, I know,” she breathed out through her nose and reformulated: “I thought you… did not approve of my research. Like T’Pau. Like your father. It just. It hurt, because I trusted you.”

She had knitted her hands in her lap. How he longed to touch them, to kiss her, to make it all the more clear how much she was in the wrong-

“My father and I do not see eye to eye on many things,” he said instead. “Too much has passed between us, and with the… absence of my mother, our contact has worsened. I do not approve of his attitude towards humans, nor do I think that T’Pau’s treatment of you is just. I agreed to accompany her on this trip not to assist her in sabotaging your work, but so I can give accurate testimony of your diligence and integrity. I am so-” He cleared his throat. “It is regrettable that this has led you to the assumption that I have some sort of … animosity towards you. On the contrary, my father has chastised me quite severely in his disapproval of our connection. I merely tried to appear as neutral as possible so my support of your work should not be scrutinised as the result of an inappropriately emotional attachment.” 

He could still not look at her, not now that he had bared himself so much. More than ever before, he wished for her human impulsiveness to break through, to shatter his defenses and just take what he had laid out for her. None of this could ever get past his lips. 

Amanda tucked her hair behind her ear and said: “That’s very… valiant of you, but it still doesn’t explain why you never told me that you’re Skon’s son.”

“You never asked” he said and before she could answer, he added: “To not mention my attachment to Skon is as much his decision as it is mine. He is under the impression that my success could only ever be due to my connection to his name - I, for my part, see no honour or prestige in being tied to a man who has so sullied the memory of our ancestor Surak. It was not a fact that I hid from you specifically, Amanda. I take no pride in calling this man my father - to stand for myself with my name only has become habit more than decision. I have removed any reference to him from my personal records, although, of course, in the upper echelons of Vulcan society, it is an open secret. But by the time I figured that this would become a point of struggle between us, your… company had already become so precious to me that I did not wish to lose it. It was a selfish act. I do not expect your forgiveness nor your sympathy, but I am asking you to accept my help from this time forward.” 

Still, no word. Anxious to see her reaction, he turned to face her. “Please. Let me help.” 

Her expression was one of frozen, awed surprise. When their eyes met, she quickly fixed hers back into her lap and dropped the hand she had extended towards him. Heat rose to her soft cheeks. 

“That - ahm. That would be lovely,” she said awkwardly, feeling how her cheeks grew even hotter. “I have to say, Sarek, I was mostly hurt because your company is also really important to me. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions.” She smiled hesitantly. “So we’re friends again?” 

A quiver that was almost a smile ran over Sarek’s lips (damn, she had never really looked at his lips before-). “To indulge the human expression,” he hedged, “yes. Friends.”

A quiet, not intensely awkward, fell between them. When both said nothing, Sarek rose and drank a few handfuls of water from the fountain. When he bent over to the basin, Amanda forced herself not to look at his butt. That was probably inappropriate (but it was also a very nice butt, and the man belonging to it had just confessed that he had gotten into a fight with his daddy over her, and - for fuck’s sake, Mandy, get a grip. )

Instead, she cleared her throat forced herself to study the reliefs opposite to her. The style was ancient - far, far pre-reform, probably Early Golic antiquity. Her brain kicked into gear immediately when she thought how incredible these things would be for a museum. The temple had perfectly preserved the carvings - even the fine lines of the hands and mouths of the ancient Vulcan warriors on these walls were still clearly discernible. She could make out some hunting scene, Vulcan warriors of all genders with their hair bound up in high braids and outfitted with protective armour on their left side, where their heart was. A dancing scene in which bundles of grain and a speared le-matya were placed on a central stone surrounded by the pillars of a koon-ut-kahlifee site. Priestesses in long robes, their sleeves trailing behind them in the wind formed a ring around it. The boundary between each panel was the frontal figure of a Golic guard, in their traditional attire with the bird-like face mask and the exposed chest.

When Sarek still made no word, she grabbed one of the miners lamps and made her way along the wall. 

“What kind of cave is this?” she asked as she reached the next panel - she couldn’t quite make out what was happening in the low light - it looked like a tangle of limbs, maybe a fight? A ritual battle? She raised the lamp a little higher. 

When Sarek raised his head, his ears were tinged a deep ochre. 

“I am no expert,” he hesitated, “but given the inscriptions and the water basin, I would assume that this cave was used for the annual Rumarie festival.”

Amanda’s head whipped around. 

“A real Rumarie site?! I thought Surak had them all defaced!” 

“A common misconception.” Sarek felt his stomach tie itself into a knot. It was an embarrassing, uncivilised thing to speak of. “Especially in the rural areas, the local people were tasked with defacing these vulgar depictions for the sake of reform. Many refused, or did simply not carry this task out.”

“So what did they use it for?” Amanda had already whipped out her holoscanner again, their entire conversation forgotten for the sake of more research. Sarek could not suppress the thought that she was a woman in the true Vulcan spirit, always in search of knowledge. It was… admirable.

But why, Surak, did it have to be this knowledge. 

“What do you know about the Rumarie festival?” he asked, hoping to Surak and logic that he wouldn’t have to explain. 

“Only that it is a fertility festival,” Amanda said, her eyes fixed on deciphering the Golic inscriptions. “Hell, I think I poured over every text there is on this festival. Grain and the body of an animal are presented to the gods and then shared at a banquet, children born within the year are presented to the community, and there seems to be an awful lot of fighting?” 

Her brows furrowed over her nose. “Or do you know more about that?” 

So she did not know. Sarek bit his lip. She would also not rest until she had found out, so better he told her before Shanor did. 

“You know that Vulcans are bonded - betrothed - at seven years of age,” he started. “It is imperative for the development of our mental capabilities. We require a mate for our-” survival “well-being. However, in those… ancient days, if one has reached adulthood, but one’s mate has died, or has released the bond, temporary attachments to other unbonded Vulcans could be formed during the Rumarie festival.” 

“Like a pair the spares dating thing?” 

“I am entirely unfamiliar with that expression.” 

Amanda laughed. It echoed in the cave. “Alright, so all the singles get together at your local fertility festival to let off some steam. Sounds very normal to me. You’d be surprised how common that is for humans. Oh, Valentine’s day parties at the Academy were a nightmare -” 

“I think the barbarity of these happenings would even shock a human,” Sarek replied tautly. “These caves - they were used so the… singles could retreat from the festivities. They would be equipped with food, water-” he gestured towards the basin, “and a resting place. After three days, they would emerge again and, if they had found a suitable partner, announce their bonding.” 

Amanda raised her brow at the circular platform, almost five meters in diameter. “Sounds like an awful lot of place for only two Vulcans to get fri- oh.”

She turned to the fresco of the “fight” again. About twelve Vulcans engaged in a tussle of limbs. No armour. Not a weapon in sight. “ Oh .”

Embarrassed, Amanda turned away from the wall panel, trying pointedly not to think about not one, not two, but several sexy hunky ancient Vulcan warriors amusing themselves in the exact same place Sarek was standing in.

Great, she thought. I’m stuck with a cute guy in a Vulcan sex cave.

“I don’t think you need to be embarrassed about that,” she said, also to convince herself. “It’s a very - rational way of going about it. Your people have always been very logical.” 

Right, a very logical group orgy. 

Sarek’s eyebrow quirked up in that usual way when a remark of hers had surprised or amused him. “I suppose you are correct,” he replied and sat back down on the platform, very unbothered by the fact that they now both knew that it was part of a prehistoric sex-dungeon. “It is illogical to deny one’s heart what it needs to survive.”

“And they say romance is dead.” 

It was intended as a quip, but came out so much softer - both because she was relieved how easily they had fallen back into their comfortable discussions, and because, well, it was kind of romantic. 

Sarek seemed to feel emboldened by her reply, because he raised his eyebrows and settled more comfortably before he replied.

“Since we presumably have a few more hours until the basecamp can make contact with us, and we have cleared up the misunderstanding between us, please indulge me. Why are you so interested in the - I presume humans would call it romantic - aspect of human life? After all, your research is mainly founded on the history of emotion in pre- and post-reform Vulcan, is it not?” 

Amanda fixed the last know of the holoscanner - if she was lucky, she'd be able to make a full scan of the entire room in the next hour - and sat down next to him. 

“Because I think it's often related,” she said. “Don't get me wrong, I get your concern. The stories Orla tells me about people who come to Vonda to ‘research Orion culture' and turn out to just be creeps who think all Orions are loose nymphomaniacs-” 

“I never thought you to be one of this class of people,” Sarek interrupted her with a wrinkle in his aristocratic nose. 

“No, but it would be understandable if you were wor- concerned about that!” Amanda continued. “But also. It is kinda fascinating that that's the kind of thing, romance, you people as a species don't talk so much about. Across the entire planet, Sarek, I can't even tell you how rare that is. And I entirely respect if that's a religious taboo, but I thought after the reform, your credo was all for knowledge, all for logic . Keeping such a huge part of life secret is - well, it does make me curious.”  

Sarek eyed her under his brows, as if he was carefully probing how much she knew. So there was something. Well, she'd be damned if she didn't find out. 

“So you find it illogical that we do not expose our most intimate affairs to public scrutiny?” he asked. “Rhetorically, of course.”

“Is anyone wondering that?” 

“It might be a question the VSA board is considering.”

Amanda cocked her head, her smile already blooming again in the corners of her mouth. 

“You're training me!”

“If you so wish. It might be useful at your hearing with the VSA board. I told you, I will do what is within my capabilities to support your project. Answer me then: why would Vulcan romantic customs be of interest?” 

Her brows furrowed. “Are we doing this now?” 

“Your holoscanner needs another hour, and we will not be contacted for several hours. I suggest we make the best of our time. Let me offer it as help.” 

She hesitated for a moment, then settled on the stone with crossed legs. 

“Fine. Hit me with it.” 

“I would never hit you with-”

“Oh for fuck's sake-!”

Sarek's mouth twitched. “Number one: human idioms are not unknown on Vulcan, but pretending to not understand them unsettles the conversation partner. Either they try to explain the linguistic image and realise how ridiculous it sounds, making themselves look illogical, or they make a joke, which makes them look aloof or like they are making fun of the Vulcan they speak with.” 

Amanda's mouth fell open. “That is so bitchy!” 

“It is a rhetorical strategy. If you know it, you may avoid it. Knowledge is power.”

“Francis Bacon.”

“No. Surak, Aphorisms II, Book 4, verse 12. Let us continue: Why does the rest of the galaxy need to know about Vulcan emotional history?” 

They fell back into their quickfire style of discussion immediately. Sarek was grilling her mercilessly, but always explained to her why. He'd passed through the same rigid school of Surakian rhetoric as the older VSA board members, because his father Skon had preferred a “traditional” education for his son. He had apparently fought tooth and nail to be allowed to study politics at the VSA instead of being instructed by his father. But the more she understood his twists and turns, the quicker she could topple him, winning an approving glance or an amused twinkle in his eye. Occasionally, they trailed off, when she remembered something interesting from her course on early Reform treatises, or her paper on Surak Street (“my father did not permit me to watch this show as a child.”), or how she and Orla had stayed up all night discussing the political implications of Vanna Lightheart strapping E’rik The Bear to her bed in Vonda Vikings: Chains of Love. 

Sarek seemed to relax, now that they'd cleared up their misunderstandings. When their little mock-examination had started, they had both sat cross-legged and opposite to one another like the early Vulcan philosophers - by now, Amanda was facing sideways and had busied herself with combing her tangled hair with her fingers, and Sarek had stretched out his long, long legs to get more comfortable. It was, she realised, not aloofness, but a genuine interest in analysing and challenging his conversation partner that made him seem so reclusive. It wasn't easy to read him, but it almost seemed like he enjoyed the chase. 

Tease, she thought to herself with a smile. 

It took him a while until he ran out of scathing questions and had to catch his breath by telling her of his first assignment to Earth - or about his English instructor, whose fault it was that Sarek's English, when he spoke it, sounded like a mid-20th century British lord. At some point, he fell into another rant about his father’s complete inability to actually grasp Surakian teachings - it seemed like this was a touchstone of almost all their interactions. When Amanda hesitantly asked about what his mother had thought about his constant friction with Skon, Sarek had wetted his lips and volunteered quietly that his mother had not died - on his third assignment to Romulus, as a young attaché of 21, he had been poisoned severely by drinking from the glass intended for the then-Vulcan ambassador. His action has saved the man's life, but Sarek had been shipped back posthaste to Vulcan, in agony from the neurological poison - his mother had melded with him to alleviate his pain and had damaged her own psyche and telepathic nerves so deeply that she now required extended periods of rest and couldn't bear too much mental or sensual stimulation. Which, of course, included shouting matches between her son and her husband. It still seemed to haunt him. Although he told the story as if he was reciting a mission report, Amanda thought that the sterility of his language might just be deliberate to hide the depth of his feeling. More than anything, Amanda wished she could hug him, or at least hold his hand, even if nothing could be done by now. 

They arrived at holding hands only half an hour later. Sarek had turned the conversation of his own volition, asking Amanda about her family, and then grilling her about any embarrassing relative that the VSA could dig up (except for Uncle Ted, who lived on Starbase 6 with his - what was it? Fifth? Betazoid wife, there was luckily none). Amanda could feel her stomach rumbling by now, but like so often with a conversation that kept flowing like a steady, skipping river, she simply did not want to stop to ask whether the ancient Vulcan swingers had stashed some rations somewhere. Also, Sarek had just mentioned that his grandfather had been the Solkar, which of course was amazing and prompted Amanda to mention the infamous first contact handshake (“for which I, as a citizen of Terra, profoundly apologise!”) and how Solkar had ever lived it down that he had let an ignorant alien kiss him in the Vulcan fashion right then and there. 

“That was not a kiss,” Sarek interrupted. His eyes were cast down, but intent. “Inappropriate, maybe, and intimate, and embarrassing for all parties involved, but not a kiss. The most sensitive parts of the Vulcan hand are the fingertips. Thus, when we want to convey our affection publicly, we-” He extended his first and middle finger and folded the others across his palm. “We touch like this.”

Amanda’s breath hitched. His hands were beautiful. Long, delicate fingers that still conveyed strength. She remembered how soft they had been on her temple when they had melded in the storm. She tried to imitate his gesture with her hands. 

“Wait, so…” she aligned her fingers horizontally, the tips of each pair resting at the base of the other. Sarek’s ears were blushing even deeper, but she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as well. Her heart had picked up its pace, like something was pulling at it magnetically.

“Not quite,” he said, his voice low in his throat. “If you’d allow me, I would - show you.” 

A flutter rose up in her stomach as he extended his fingers towards her, questioning, gentle. The same man who had just mercilessly examined her in Vulcan rhetoric now couldn’t even look at her with those deep, open, vulnerable eyes. 

“Sarek,” she asked, incredulous that she was taking this step, but unable to stop her own voice, “are you asking me whether you can kiss me?” 

His eyes were dark, but so soft around the edges, dark pools she could drown in. All plausible deniability, all hedging had fled from them. It was like the wind of the desert had stripped him off his carefully erected walls.  “The first time you touched my hand was a mistake. Since then, I have been hoping that the next time wouldn’t be.” 

For a moment, her heart almost seemed to stop, and grind her brain to a halt. There were still so many questions - so many things she had not asked, so many problems waiting to be solved - but just for this moment, she felt entirely how right his honest request felt.

The first touch felt like the initial jolt when a spaceship had broken the sound barrier and was soaring at warp speed. The hair on her arms was standing up. Their fingertips met with a featherlight touch that still sent both of them gasping. A tingling, like electricity, spread through Amanda’s hand, trickling down her palm into her arm and making the skin all the more sensitive. 

“Oh-” 

“It is psionic energy,” Sarek answered her unspoken question. His voice sounded strained, and his mouth had opened to draw in a shuddering breath as his fingertips slowly grazed down her fingers and up again. It felt - so sensual, the way he caressed the soft inner side of her fingers, how his fingernails very gently scratched over her skin on the way up. Amanda felt a shudder run through her body. He was so gentle. When Sarek’s fingers had made their way up again, sweetly pressing against her fingertips, she couldn’t resist, and slid hers down, all the way, into his palm, where she drew them slowly a circle. Sarek let out a sound that sounded surprisingly like a very un-Vulcan moan and yanked his hand away. 

“Amanda-” he brought out, his hair falling into his eyes whose pupils were dilated, dark, almost predatory, his body quivering with withheld primal tension, “If you knew how forward you are by Vulcan-”

“I’m human,” she interrupted him, breathlessly, and pressed her hand on top of his, “I think we have a habit of being forward.” And then she slid her hand back to interlace their fingers. Sarek looked at her with incredulity, but he did not draw his hand away - instead, his eyes were fixed on hers with unspoken admiration, even as his lids fluttered half-closed when their hands interlocked. Psionic waves sparked over to her, washing into her mind. How Sarek felt like his hand was held in pleasant flame, every point where they touched seeming to send sparks of heat and light and pleasure into his core. 

Their faces were only a hand’s breadth apart now, and she could feel his laboured breath fanning her face. His lashes were so long, so beautifully casting long shadows onto his cheeks. She ached to place her lips onto those cheekbones. Steadying herself on her knee, she raised her other hand to place it on Sarek’s shoulder. 

“I can’t believe,” she whispered, “that you jumped out of a rescue shuttle to get me. Where’s the logic in that, Mister Ambassador?” 

“It is -” his breath hitched. She wondered what she had to do to his hands to make him whine. “It is illogical to preserve one’s life while neglecting what makes it worth living,” he answered. She chuckled and dragged her thumb in circles across his palm again. He gasped. Oh, this was fun . 

“Have you ever seen Titanic ?” she blurted out. 

His eyes opened again with that signature eyebrow raise. “If you allude to the scene in the ancient Terran film in which the protagonist gives up her place in the lifeboat, I assume you would be Jack, and I Rose?” 

“Oh my God , Sarek, kiss me.” 

He did not protest - as new as the sensation was for him when Amanda surged forward and pressed her lips to his, it only felt natural. Her mouth was still dry, her lips chapped, but she kissed him with such longing that his hand, as if by its own accord, cradled her face and reciprocated the kiss. 

Like this, her thoughts were a whirlwind, an ensemble of shapes and colours and feelings, enveloping him in their warmth. He felt that he was holding something invaluably precious within his arms- the trust of a woman who knew what she was risking by accepting his love, by baring herself to any number of unknown dangers. She loved him, and she loved him fiercely, with the same fierceness that she had been disappointed in him. 

Her mouth opened slightly in a gasp when his hand slid into her hair and she could feel his wave of admiration - it was so soft under his hands, exactly like he imagined it when he had gently stroked and combed it in his dreams. Amanda opened her mouth, letting him taste the tip of her tongue, the sweetness of her mouth, and a line from one of the poems in his youth was borne up by the currents of his mind. 

My love is like a well in the desert to me, like honey in the Forge / every glance I catch of her in the courtyard is a rain shower / every touch during the dinner a full and dripping honeycomb. Oh, were all the onlookers gone, would all the walls crumble / that my love may be an ocean, and a buzzing hive of bees in spring! 

Amanda chuckled against his lips and broke the kiss to catch her breath. 

“Shanor?” she teased. “You dirty boy.” 

He did find that amusing, he must have, because his arm wound around her waist and pulled her tighter.

“I will blame it on your corrupting human influence.” 

Another laughter. No, he got it now. That sound, so foreign, yet so reminded of the tittering birds in spring who signalled the coming of the first rain. 

The beautiful woman in his arms turned her head. “I’m sorry if it’s rude that I can still hear your thoughts, but, you’re quite the romantic, Sarek.” 

He entwined their hands again, relishing the drag of their fingertips against each other as he nosed into her hair and breathed in the same heady scent that had distracted him so much earlier. “Am I?”

“You’re comparing me to a songbird. That’s pretty sweet.” 

If their meld was still as strong, she could probably also feel how pleased he was at himself with that. He had worried so much about whether he would be sufficient at following human traditions of romantic gestures, and just by instinct, he had done it right. 

“It’s not rude,” he said as he made his way back to her mouth (he already grew fond of human kisses. They seemed so — all-consuming, the way they robbed both of them of speech, sight, breath, anything distracting.) “It’s considered good partnership to know what the other if thinking and feeling.” 

“Oh? Mmh-” Their lips met again, but Amanda pulled away, breathing hard. “Yeah? What am I thinking, then?”

He steadied himself, trying to focus. Her mind was so un-Vulcan, so chaotic and vibrant. Like a lavish garden without a clear layout, full of colours and scents and buzzing insects. And to make matters worse, she was also still doing unholy things with her hands on his. 

“You’re- hm. You’re thinking about how you will explain to your sister that you did, in fact, ‘hook up with the hot ambassador man’.”

Amanda blushed a very deep shade of alien red, and his er face in his neck. 

“I am not - ”

Sarek preened. “I will admit, it is not a very present thought. However, it was the only one I saw fit to utter aloud. The others are quite a bit more…” He paused, then teased, “... human .” 

“That so?” Amanda scooted nearer and lifted one of her legs halfway up, apparently ready to climb into his lap, and never had Sarek been more thankful for long and flowing robes and sandfire storms. A twinkle shone in her clear eyes, and her other hand, the one not currently massaging the base of his thumb, teased the hair at the back of his neck. “Come on, tell me all about what you’re seeing in my illogical human mind. Who’s here to judge?”

Her comm badge chirped. 

“ Doctor Grayson? ” a female voice asked through rough static noises. “ Doctor Grayson, please respond! ” 

Amanda, disappointment and relief clashing in her mind like two complimentary colours, froze midair over Sarek’s lap. 

“Grayson here. T’Pali, is that you?” 

Disorganised noise blared out of the comm badge - probably relieved applause from the rescue shuttle. Then the female voice returned. “Doctor Grayson, we are relieved to have confirmation of your survival. Is Ambassador Sarek with you?”

Amanda shot him a glance and teasingly rubbed the tips of his index finger between hers and her thumb. Sarek bit his lip.  

“Yes, he’s with me, alive and well. T’Pali, we cannot hear you well, we are in one of the caves under the temple. Can you get a lock on our life signs?” 

The connection cracked loudly. 

“ We will soon be in range to beam you out safely. The storm has quieted sufficiently. And we will have a medical team standing by as soon as we reach the village. Please prepare for beam-up.”

They exchanged an alarmed glare. Immediately, Sarek scooted backwards while Amanda fixed her hair and pulled her dress down as far as possible before she leapt to grab her precious holoscanner.

 “ Wonderful!” she said cheerfully as she tried cooling her still red cheeks and swollen lips with her hand. “We- We’re so glad you found us. Grayson out!” she finished and switched her comm badge off. 

“Ahm.”

“Hchrm.” 

Amanda crossed her legs and shot Sarek a nervous glance. 

“I reckon we don’t tell people about this?” she asked, nervously. Sarek shook his head. 

“Not until your hearing at the VSA board is through. My involvement and support towards you could otherwise be constructed as nepotism, or worse, as an attempt of mine to procure sexual favours from you in exchange for that support.” 

She inclined her head. “I hardly think what we did counts as sexual favours.” 

“Maybe not,” Sarek replied with that same haughty cat-expression on his face. “But I did see what you had in mind, human woman.” 

She laughed, caught off guard, and leaned over to him. A loose lock of her brushed his cheek. 

“Alright,” she whispered. “No word of this, then, until we’ve convinced these people I can stay.”

“No mention to anyone.” 

“Got it.” She chuckled to herself. “Damn, it’s like one of Orla’s romance novels. Look at me, the secret mistress of the sexy Vulcan ambassador!” 

His look of disapproval was probably not very convincing. “I will endeavour to avoid such unnecessary melodrama.” 

“Of course,” Amanda replied, still with that unfairly happy grin and fixed her hair. Her stomach was still bubbling. “I mean, other than Officer S’kan of Vulcan Love Slave , you don’t have a secret wife and kid, do you?” 

Sarek said nothing. In the next second, Amanda felt the familiar tingling of a transporter beam in her stomach.

Chapter Text

The Vulcans had insisted that Amanda spend two full nights at the hospital, to monitor the toll that exposure, dehydration and skin abrasions had taken on her human body. Despite Amanda’s protests, she had been beamed into the nearest hospital, where a whole team of nervous Vulcans had pampered her with several rounds of dermal regeneration (some against sunburn, some against bruises), medical scans, and plenty of plomeek soup. The next two days, she was told, she was supposed to rest and be monitored for other symptoms. She was exhausted. The first day, she only slept.

It had some positive sides, too. Darion, the sweet, dear guy, had sent her a truly lavish bouquet of flowers and called to see whether she was okay. She felt a tiny bit bad that she couldn’t tell Darion about her involvement with Sarek. He seemed to genuinely like her. 

Even though it was more than regrettable that her visit to Tashee was cut short, Amanda had collected more than enough material to bolster up her research portfolio, and now she even had the time to go through it. Not even T’Pau could be mad at her for missing  impossible deadlines when she was hospitalised because a very logical and precise Vulcan pilot had been unable to count. So she had plenty of time to sit on her hospital bed, her padd on the tray in front of her, and type away at her research proposal. T’Pali’s input had been invaluable - in addition to being an anthropologist, she had also taken a course in programming for linguists, and had written Amanda a program that transcribed all the scanned inscriptions in record time. Amanda was just poring over some detailed advice for temple novices when the door bell chimed. 

“Come in!” She half-expected it to be Orla (who could still not be reached by phone) or T’Pali, or another nurse with a hypospray. Instead, when the door hissed open, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in dark robes entered. 

“Sarek!” Quickly, Amanda pulled up her blanket - some replicated leggings and shirt were fine for her friends, but for Sarek- “What are you doing here?!”

He quickly motioned her to shush and waited until the door had shut. Then just the flicker of a smile graced the full bow of his mouth. 

“Doctor Grayson,” he said, with a playful lightness lifting the formal title. “I hope you are well? I’ve come to formally apologise on behalf of the Vulcan embassy and the Vulcan Science Academy for the injuries you sustained.”

From his robe, he pulled a heavy looking envelope that, no doubt, contained a very formal written apology. Amanda felt some bubbling feeling of schadenfreude rising in her. Did they make T’Pau sign that one, too?

“No. She refused,” Sarek said quietly. Apparently, she had been thinking too loud. Would she ever get used to that?

Instead of waiting for his answer to that, Amanda just nodded and grinned at Sarek. “Thank you, Ambassador. I do accept the apology. Thank you for your visit.” 

The mock-formality drew a tiny huff from Sarek that, Amanda knew by now, was the Vulcan equivalent of an eyeroll. 

“I needed to find a formal reason to visit you,” he replied, walking over to her bed. “Being ambassador has its advantages.” 

“And what’s the informal reason, then?” she asked. Sarek’s eyes met hers as he sat down, and for a moment, they seemed incredibly open, soft, and vulnerable in their warm brown. Under the cover, she reached out her hand to him, and he met her fingertips, featherlight, with his. 

“I wanted to see you,” he replied simply. His eyes were taxing her - her loose braid and tired eyes, the way her pink, human skin looked sallow under the hospital light. Her frame looked almost fragile. Still, she was so beautiful. She lowered her eyes under his stare - maybe it had been too long for human customs.

“I’m okay,” she said quickly and squeezed his hand - only to then blush and apologise when the touch drew a small gasp from him. “I- oh, I’m so sorry-” 

“Do not worry.” Sarek quickly found her hand again and gently stroked his thumb over her knuckles. “It is good that we are alone though.”

That, for some reason, made the blush worse. The curious round shells of her ears had gotten a deep pink colour. Still, Amanda laughed. 

“I guess so.” Her clear eyes found his again, taxed him in turn. “How about you? Are you okay?” 

“Perfectly.” That was not a lie. “I need to take some eye drops to repair my second eyelid, but other than that, I am perfectly healthy.” Well. And he had broken one of his metatarsals when he jumped out of the shuttle, but that did not need to worry Amanda. Besides, nothing that an ossuary regenerator couldn’t fix. Still, her face darkened with concern.

“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I’ve made you such trouble, haven’t I? Fuck, I don’t even want to know what kind of verbal thrashing you got from T’Pau when they beamed us back.”

Sarek just shrugged. “I am not concerned with her opinion of me, frankly. What matters most is that you are well.” And before he could stop himself, he had already pulled Amanda’s hand out from under the covers and pressed his lips to her knuckles. It was only a split second - his head still reeling from how bold he had been - but the way the figment of Amanda’s mind in his lit up at the touch sent his head spinning with delight. 

Her expression melted into an awed smile. 

“You are quite the romantic, Ambassador.” 

“A romantic Vulcan?” he teased back. “You should make me the object of your next study.” 

“Oh, don’t mind if I do.” Her fingers intertwined with his, and from the glint in her eye, she knew exactly what she was doing. Amanda leant forward to brush her nose against his. “But you should know that I have to be very-” her lips brushed over his - “very thorough with my research.” 

“Well.” The word was almost lost in the remnant of space between their lips. “You know how dedicated we Vulcans are to science.” 

She kissed him for that. It was soft, so incredibly soft, like she wanted to test whether anything had changed between them, whether she was still permitted this outside of the enclosed space of the cave, if he was daring enough to love her in the open. 

He replied by sliding their fingers together and projecting all the gentle worry that had plagued him for the last two days, washing her mind with the tender undercurrent of his otherwise so rigid mind. When she gasped against his mouth, the frail and developing bond between their minds lit up gold. 

That was odd.

He withdrew from the kiss before that pulsating link could grow any bigger - for how would he be able to maintain the necessary distance from her if her mind kept singing that siren song to him, if he could dip into the delicious, colourful pool of her human feelings anytime-

“We should really discuss our next moves,” he said when he saw her confused expression. “I hope you do not mind, but I have spoken with the VSA board, and they pushed your presentation back by a few days, so that it is included in the VSA Gala presentations.”

Amanda’s eyes went round. “The VSA Gala?! Is that a good idea?”

She’d only ever attended the stream of the gala online - it was a full day event of presentations, panel discussions, experiments and formal dinners, a wild and very Vulcan mix of a red carpet, a Nobel Prize function and a family night at the museum. 

“It will guarantee that it is a public event,” he explained. “T’Pau will have a harder time appointing a biased jury if an audience is present. And it will only be one presentation of many, the jury simply won’t have the time to scrutinise you. Besides, the entire point of the gala is to highlight the diversity and importance of Vulcan science. Throwing out our only human researcher would be, to use the human term, bad PR.”

“And I assume a bunch of people will come to see the only human researcher at the VSA.”

She sounded nervous. “We cannot rule that out,” Sarek tried to reassure her. “However, I would assume that most members of the audience are not traditionalist hardliners such as T’Pau or my father.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Amanda replied, dismayed. “Don’t get me wrong, but it will be a tad disheartening presenting to a full auditorium of blank faces and not knowing whether they approve or not.” 

“I will be there,” Sarek said gently, and traced a featherlight oz’hesta down the slope of her neck. ”And I will approve.”

Her lips curled up in a slight smile. “That is a comfort.” 

They sat in silence for a while, their hands entwined under Amanda’s hospital blanket, both knowing that it was time for Sarek to leave, but hoping that time would simply not pass if they did not acknowledge it. Sarek’s hands around hers were warm, and soft, but did not hide their strength. He’d given her a gift, Amanda knew - but the idea of her entire career depending on a 30 minute time slot in a crowded auditorium frightened her. If only we were not in a public space, she thought. More than anything, she wished she could just lean her head on Sarek’s strong shoulder and close her eyes for a restful minute. When he tenderly caressed the back of her hand and sent her a mental image of her, nestling her head into the crook of his neck, she knew he felt the same. 

She had had plenty of time to consider what a handsome man Sarek was, but like this, an unexpected softness - a vulnerability - seemed to play on his features. She knew what he was doing simply by holding her hands thus  was brave - even daring by Vulcan standards. The sunlight pouring into the room through the tinted windows played on his features, and only highlighted the round slope of his jaw, his aquiline nose, and the length of his lashes. He was, simply, beautiful. The way the light caught on his temples made the hair there look almost white, and for a second, the idea of a Sarek with greying temples, still looking at her like this, seemed to her unspeakably beautiful.

Breaking glass shattered loudly in the hallway. A young Vulcan voice apologised hastily, and an older one reminded them to always carry trays of food with both hands. At the noise, Sarek jerked upwards as if being lifted from a trance. 

“I- I should be going,” he said, quickly disentangling their fingers. As much as Amanda wanted to protest, she knew he was right. 

“Okay. I- I will see you at the gala, won’t I?” 

He simply nodded. “Yes. However, until then, I do not think we should be communicating. And not at the gala, either. We do not want to give anyone material that could be… misconstrued.” 

Amanda gave him a wicked smile. “A gala at which we both have to act as though we don’t know each other? If I didn’t know better, Sarek, I’d say you’ve been studying human romance.”

He simply smiled and turned towards the door. “You would be surprised.” 

And with that ominous remark, he slipped out of the room. On the chair, he had left behind his sash. Amanda had barely time to run it through her fingers before the door chimed again. She hastily hid it under her blanket. 

“Enter!”

It was T’Pali. The young woman looked much better than after Amanda had been beamed out of the cave - then, she had looked almost franti (for a Vulcan, at least), but now her hair was braided up in a glossy updo again, and her robe was crisply ironed and spotless. In her hands, she was holding a potted cactus. 

“Doctor Grayson.” She balanced the pot in one hand to greet her with a ta’al. “I have read that it is custom among humans of Northern America to present the convalescing with plants. While I am not sure what the benefit of this ritual is, I would like to present you-” She set the cactus down on the night table - “a plant.” 

When Amanda - against her declared will! - laughed, T’Pali only furrowed her brows. The cactus wore an equally blank expression - it was large, and green, and prickly, and completely devoid of any flowers.

“I do not understand. Is this not satisfactory?”

With considerable effort, Amanda pulled herself together and wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, it’s perfect, don’t worry! Thank you. That is very sweet of you.”

“Ah.” With a confused scruff of her nose, the girl sat down and pulled out her padd. “I do not mean to pry, Doctor, but was that Ambassador Sarek I just saw in the hallway?”

Sarek, as much of a romantic as he apparently was, had kept to his word and not communicated with her. Even their private channel was silent. Amanda knew that it was a bad idea if they kept in touch before her review was through, for all the right reasons Sarek had listed - still. She could not deny that she missed him. As she was packing her bag to be beamed out to Shi’Kahr, she kept running her hands over the sash Sarek had used to cover her head and clean the sand out of her eyes - it could not have been an accident that Sarek left it behind. Like a silly girl, she had buried her nose in it before she had stuffed it in her bag to see whether it still smelt of his cologne. 

The beam-out was entirely uneventful. T’Pali had beamed back to Shi’Kahr yesterday to prepare some material, and they had agreed to only meet the next morning. So Amanda simply took the train from the beam-up station and was prepared to slump down onto her couch the second she opened the door to her apartment. 

Only that a note had been slipped under her door. 

It was Vulcan script on heavy, eggshell-white paper - real paper, the kind now only used for Vulcan calligraphy exercises. When Amanda picked it up, she recognised verses in Golic: 

I curse that wall that separates my love from me, as a cloud that veils the sun/But the birds shall sing my songs to you, and my love has wings to soar. - Shanor, Songs of Separations III

It wasn’t signed, but Amanda still felt her chest fill with warmth. 

Two hours later, she was in the hospital again. Not for herself this time - one of Orla’s husband’s had bumped into her in the hallway and enthusiastically invited her to visit Orla at the hospital. At Amanda’s question whether her friend was okay, the Orion man had just flashed her a beaming smile and replied “Oh yes, they are both okay!”

Safe to say, Amanda hadn’t wasted time after that, and minutes later, she was back on the train with a very excited, freshly-baked Orion father.

Amanda wasn’t sure what she imagined a Vulcan maternity ward to look like, but the Orions definitely looked out of place. The nurses were all dressed head to toe in crisp white robes without a single stain, and the ward was so quiet that every Orion word she exchanged with Orla’s husband echoed loudly in the hallways. 

“They want us all to be quiet,” the Orion stage-whispered to her. “Apparently, Vulcan parents need to meditate for hours to establish a bond with their baby!”

The thought of a Vulcan baby - an adorable, Vulcan baby with tiny pointy ears and dark hair - made Amanda’s heart beat faster. What would a human-Vulcan baby look like? A tiny child with those pointy ears but human, red hair? Did Vulcan fathers gently rock their babies to sleep?

Hypothetically, of course. 

As they rounded the next corner, they heard the Orion family before they saw them. Three people, probably all members of Orla’s family, had just arrived with new clothes and food. Amanda was immediately crushed in a hug by two - also unfairly gorgeous! - green women before they ushered her into the hospital room. 

It was anything but quiet. The room was full to bursting with chatty, excited, loudly talking Orions. Amanda’s companion was greeted with a long kiss on the mouth from another Orion man. Someone was sorting through baby clothing while two people were brushing Orla’s hair and another was preparing plates of delicious smelling food. Everyone was talking at the same time - Amanda counted around ten people, but it sounded more like twenty. When Orla spotted her pink face in a crowd of green, she still stretched out the one arm that wasn’t holding a tiny bundle and waved her over to her. One of the husbands took it on himself to manoeuvre her through the crowd to sit down next to Orla. 

“Mandy!” Orla looked gorgeous for a woman who had just given birth two days ago. Her hair was being laid into neat waves by one of her wives, and she wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, but a loose blue dress that was tied behind her neck. Throning on her hospital bed, she was the undoubted centre of attention, and her joy remained just as contagious. Amanda couldn’t help but smile. 

“Are you well?” she asked and gently took Orla’s free hand. “Everything okay?” 

“Oh, yes, everything went fine,” Orla patted her hand reassuringly. “Long, and I felt sick the entire time, but we’re fine. Luckily, Pina and Delon were with me. But I’m good, and so is Gemy. Here, do you want to see him?” 

She shifted her position and gently turned the bundle in her arms towards Amanda. A tiny baby with big, blue eyes and vibrant green skin was swaddled into a soft blanket. When his eyes focused on Amanda, he instinctively wrinkled his tiny nose. Orla laughed. 

“He’s confused,” she explained. “The first few days are important for babies to learn the scent profiles of all their parents. He’ll probably think you’re an auntie.” 

“Oh!”

The tiny face scrunched up and an even tinier hand pawed through the baby blanket. After Orla had nodded, Amanda reached out one finger and watched as Gemy’s small hand curled around it curiously. She could feel her heart swell with something she didn’t understand - warmth, and happiness, and longing. 

“Hello, little man.” 

Then Gemy let go of her finger and started crying. Orla quickly lifted him towards her and inhaled through her nose. Amanda watched with rapt attention as Orla cocked her head and smelt her baby’s pheromones. 

“He’s hungry,” she said gently and nuzzled her nose against the tiny forehead. “Ari, can you nurse him?” 

A tall woman with two long, dark-blue braids left off brushing Orla’s hair and nodded. With a warm smile and routined hands, she lifted the small boy from Orla’s arms and turned to feed her baby.

At Amanda’s entirely confused face, Orla laughed again. 

“You haven’t been at an Orion baby shower before, have you?”

Amanda just shook her head. Someone put a paper plate with cookies into her hand. Orla leant back and stole one. 

“As soon as I started smelling of pregnancy, every person in my family who could nurse a baby started lactating. It’s just evolutionary. I mean, what do you humans do when a baby loses its parents? It can’t just starve , right?”

Amanda preferred not to answer that question. Compared to how relaxed Orla looked, surrounded by an adoring gang of spouses who all took turns handling the baby and pampering her, she suddenly felt like humans still had a lot to learn.

“If I died,” Orla continued, completely unbothered, “which, you know, given that our home planet wasn’t the safest one for a damn long time, isn’t that super unlikely, Gemy’s other parents could step in. He’ll always be cared for.”

With another adoring glance at her wife and baby, Orla turned around to lie down on her side. “But what have you been doing?! I’m so sorry, I know you tried to comm me, but I was in here and they wouldn’t let me see anybody except my immediate family!” She laughed and gestured at the room full of people. “Well, I told them, this is my immediate family, so be prepared for ten people to show up and claim to be my spouse!”

“Can’t imagine that went down well with the Vulcans,” Amanda chuckled. “Trust me, I have seen enough of stuck up Vulcans for a whole damn month.” 

“Uh oh.” Orla propped up her head on her arm and stole another cookie from Amanda’s plate. “Tell me all about it!” 

By the time Amanda was finished with her story (leaving out some of the details that were probably not in the official record), several of Orla’s spouses had assembled around the bed to listen. They were an amazing crowd - after all the Vulcans at Tashee, the Orions’ excited squeals and gasps at every twist and turn of the story felt electrifying. 

“He jumped out of a flying shuttle to save you?!” Ari, the woman with the blue braids, exclaimed when Amanda reached that point in the story. “Holy Mother, Amanda, you are one lucky girl!” 

“I mean-” Amanda stalled. 

“You mean you’re not dating him?!” Orla looked shocked. “Mandy, sorry to say this, but you’ve been infatuated with that man since I met you!”

Her cheeks flushed at that. Had she truly been so obvious?

“Well,” she tried to hedge again, “I am not…. not dating him. Right now is simply not a good time to announce it, he said. Better to keep it under wraps until my review is through. Then we’ll see where it goes.” Realising that she was speaking to a room full of people, she quickly added: “There is nothing going on between us right now! We’re just colleagues!”

“But there’s also not nothing going on, right?” Orla added hopefully. 

Ari, who had given Gemy to one of his dads, who was gently cooing to him, tapped on her padd and added: “I mean. The man is really fine.” 

This wasn’t good. Amanda cursed herself - she was supposed not to tell anyone, for fuck’s sake, and now a whole gaggle of people was up in her business.

“I don’t know,” another man with striking purple eyes threw in. “Are Vulcans that tight-lipped? It feels off that he wants to hide your relationship so badly. Sounds like he has more to lose than you.”

Before Amanda could get a word in, discussion had already broken out. Gemy started fussing and complaining in his baby blanket when his dad leant over to Ari, who was obviously pulling up records about Sarek. Orla reached for her hand. A queasy feeling started to pool in her stomach.

“Please,” Orla said sternly as she picked up the scent, “this is Mandy’s own decision, I’m sure she and Sarek-” 

“Found the guy!” The man with the purple eyes exclaimed, then paused as he studied his padd. “Okay, Ari is right, he is fine.”

“Let me see-”

“Here, Delon, let me-” A pause followed. It stretched and stretched while the pit in Amanda’s stomach widened. Phrased like this, of course, it sounded stupid. She’d agreed to not tell anyone about their relationship, which was never a good idea. But Sarek’s reasons had sounded so good, and-

“Ahm.” Orla’s husband leant over to the other, Delon. “Uhm,” he whispered, “Vulcans are monogamous, right?”

“They are,” Amanda replied automatically. “At least, most of them. Poly-bonds are possible, but under 5% of bonded Vulcans are engaged in such-” 

“Give me that,” Orla cut in before Amanda could finish. Delon sheepishly handed the padd over. 

“It’s an old backup from the Orion Embassy servers,” he added hastily when he saw Amanda’s expression. The other Orions had started whispering among themselves. “The data is four years old, it could have changed-” 

Orla gasped. Without another word, Amanda grabbed the padd out of her hands. 

The familiar layout of the personnel database appeared, with a picture of Sarek at the top. Only now, the “Personal life” section was unlocked. 

S’chen T’kara Sarek, ambassador 

Parents: S’chen T’gemai Skon (father), House of Surak and S’paro T’kara T’Amasi (mother), House of Salka

Amanda could feel her head spinning as she tapped onto the next page.

Bonded to: S’koi T’hona T’Rea (betrothed at seven years)

Children: S’chen T’hona Sybok (1 year old)

Amanda had been driven home by Orla’s wife Ari completely shell-shocked. After the entire Orion family had indulged themselves in hurling every possible insult at Sarek, had loudly speculated on possible reasons for his behaviour, and at least three people had hugged Amanda and tried to supply her with more food, Orla had put her foot down and demanded that someone drove her friend home. She herself had sounded near tears. 

In front of the Orions, Amanda hadn’t cried. Truth be told, she hadn’t really felt anything. Her chest felt like a hole had opened in it, and the loud voices of Orla’s family had blurred into white noise in her ears. Only when her hands had started shaking so hard that she couldn’t read the words on the screen anymore had the truth dripped through her defences. 

Sarek was married. Sarek was married with a kid . 

She was so fucking stupid. The whole time, he hadn’t ever been willing to admit what was between them. She had never been at his apartment. His own father had told him to end things. 

Amanda’s eyes burned. How did that go down? Did Skon try to talk some sense into his son? Did he remind him that he had a five year old son at home? And a - probably also stunning - wife? 

Of course T’Pau had hated her. Not because she was a challenging researcher. Not even because she was a bad one. Just because she was wrecking her grand-nephew’s marriage. 

The tears only started falling once Ari had accompanied her to her apartment. She, mercifully, said very little, and only replicated some warm Orion broth with noodles for her. 

“Is there -” she said helplessly, “Can I call anyone for you?” 

Amanda only shook her head. Tears dropped into the bowl of soup. Her hands were still shaking, so she put the spoon full of broth down. Her stomach tightened at the mere mention of food anyway. 

“No. Thank you.”

Elise had been worried enough about her ordeal in the sandfire storm, and she simply didn’t have the energy right now to explain how she had become a Vulcan homewrecker. All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and cry herself to sleep. Maybe she’d wake up in her childhood bedroom on Earth if she slept long enough. 

Ari inhaled sharply and folded her arms under her chest. “If you want company,” she said gently, “I could stay the night?” 

It was a very sweet offer, Amanda thought bitterly. And Ari was a beautiful and kind woman - Orla was madly lucky to call her her wife. But first, she didn’t swing that way, and secondly, she had inserted herself in plenty enough marriages for one day. 

“That’s very kind,” she replied weakly, “but really, I would just like to be alone.” 

Ari took the hint. With a compassionate squeeze of Amanda’s shoulder, she turned to grab her bag. 

“Orla will be back home in two days,” she said. “If you need anything in the meantime, just give us a call.” 

“Will do.” 

As Ari slinked out of the door, Amanda tried another sip of the lukewarm broth. It was delicious, but her mouth tasted stale. So she just put it back into the replicator and stalked to her bed. Her head still felt like it was filled with fog. It was barely 6pm, but the day pressed down on her like tons of suffocating sand. She didn’t even have the will to change into her pyjamas, but only stripped out of her pants and bra before bundling up in her blanket.

Her padd chirped. By sheer force of will, Amanda opened it - several messages had piled in, but the top one was from T’Pali: 

Attached, please find the link to the dropbox with all linguistic stats + interview data. Is 8 in the morning still convenient? 

Right. A single sob escaped her throat. She was supposed to be up and running tomorrow at 8. She had to prepare a presentation and write a research grant proposal and go through heaps of data and keep T’Pau off her back. It was simply all too much. For a single moment, she wondered what time it was on Earth, and whether it would be okay to call her mom. 

As she sent off a rather curt, but probably Vulcan-appropriate reply to T’Pali, the next message popped up. This time, it was from Darion. 

Hey, glad to know you’re safely back in Shi’Kahr! I’ll be there in a week at the VSA gala. Wanna grab a raktajino before that? :)

In his profile picture, he was laughing while the wind swept his hair back - his stubble was a little longer and his dark, twinkling eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. Amanda started typing a non-committal reply, then deleted it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she could think about that. 

As she placed the padd back on her night table, a heavy sheet of Vulcan calligraphy paper slipped to the floor. Meticulous lines of Vulcan poetry blurred as Amanda finally started crying. Hands covering her face, she curled up in fetal position until she had cried herself to sleep.

T'Rea's face flickered on the screen. When his picture materialised on her view padd, annoyance seemed to slide down one of her brows.

She had not changed much since they'd seen each other last. Her hair was braided up in an old-fashioned style reserved for married women, and her icy blue eyes still regarded him with a disdain that, like diamonds, had only cleared and hardened over time. Little was left of the dutiful, compassionate young woman he had known five years ago. Still, Sarek had to acknowledge, she was beautiful. Somel was a fortunate man. 

“What has compelled you to break our agreed-upon mutual silence?” she asked without greeting. In the background, Sarek could make out bookshelves and a robe thrown over a chair. She was in her office, most likely. A toy le-matya with big friendly eyes sat on one of the shelves. He had to steeple his fingers. 

“Is Sybok with you?” he asked, hopefully in a neutral tone. The disdain in T'Rea's eyes hardened even more. “No. Sybok is at the science museum with his father. There is an exhibition about prehistoric animals which he expressed a desire to see.” 

“Ah.”

“I assume the matter which you wish to discuss concerns him, then?” she asked, apparently eager to speed this conversation up. “As he is the only thing we still have remotely in common.” 

Sarek swallowed. “I must remind you that this was your decision.” 

“And I have yet to see any negative effects of it. I had planned to ignore you at the VSA gala. But if you insist on seeing Sybok, I could arrange that. If his father agrees, too.” 

“Am I not Sybok's father?” It was hairsplitting, he knew. Still, he needed to remind T'Rea that this child- this little boy - also belonged in his life.

It was to no avail. “You have fathered him,” T'Rea said dismissively. “He shares your DNA. Skon may have insisted that you are also listed as his biological parent in the records so that the house of Surak has an heir, should you never secure a marriage. But Somel is the man who held my hand when I birthed him, and the man who knows which prehistoric reptile is Sybok's favourite. Logically, he is more qualified to be called his father.” 

“So you agree that he is, factually, my son.”

He knew this would anger her. But T'Rea had always been in control of her emotions to a degree that was remarkable, even on Vulcans. He had resented her blank stare, her impassive face even more when fever had robbed him of his own self control.

Her face, still, betrayed no emotion. Involuntarily, he reached for the space in his head where he had felt the uneasy frays of their bond - only a charred stump remained, like a hollow reminder of what once could have been. He did not even try to reach out to Sybok. 

“Make your point, Sarek.” T'Rea's fingers clicked over her keyboard, and her gaze distractedly fixed on something else on her screen. “My son will return soon, and I do not want to have to explain to him why I am talking to you.”

Sarek breathed in. “Would you,” he started, “would you permit me to reveal that I am his father? To one person only?” 

T'Rea's eyes snapped back into focus. When she spoke, her voice was icy.

“Why?” 

“I-” Sarek forced himself to steeple his fingers and not nervously lick his lips. “I have decided to extend a proposal for a long term relationship to a woman of my choosing. However, I would think it dishonest to her if I presented this proposal to her while she does not have full knowledge of my familial obligations. To keep this fact from her would be illogical.” 

“That is typical of you, Sarek,” T'Rea hissed back. “To satisfy your own emotional indulgences, you choose to bring shame on your son.” 

“Some would call shame an emotional indulgence.”

“Do not try to debate with me.” 

T'Rea took a deep breath and checked the time on her padd. 

“I will be brief, Sarek. I do not trust your intentions. Your son deserves to grow up in peace after his conception was already enough food for scandal. Thus, I will allow that your status as a-” Her mouth quirked as if she had bitten into a sour fruit, “- a father is revealed to this woman. Under one condition.”

Sarek ignored the unsettling feeling pooling in his stomach. “Name it.” 

“I will be the one to tell her.” 

The same uneasy feeling shot through his bloodstream.

“Impossible.” 

“It is the one way that I can ensure that you won't twist the facts. It is logical. Surely this woman of your choosing will appreciate that logic.” 

“She-” Sarek tried to steady his voice. “I am afraid that she will not. She's not Vulcan. She is- human.” 

At that, T'Rea almost looked surprised. “Ah.”

“You see my point?”

“Oh, I do. I just don't think that it invalidates mine. It was your choice to dally with a species that is so prone to emotional outbursts.” 

An expression of coldness - if Sarek had the words for it, he might have been able to call it vengeful or cruel - passed over her face. “Will this woman attend the VSA gala?” 

“She will. However, I urge you-”

T’Rea’s ear flicked. “Somel and my son are on their way back. I believe this conversation is over. My decision is made.” 

He had to accept that.Granted, Sarek had only been married to this woman for half a year, but he knew when it was no use to keep discussing with her. He admired his father’s matchmaking for a second - if T’Rea and he had ever seen eye to eye, yes, they would have been a frighteningly compatible couple. She was a woman who could bring a Klingon to his knees with just a raise of her brow. 

She now gave him the same expression. 

“Is there anything you wish to say?”

Sarek looked behind her, at the filled bookshelf, the small woolen cap hanging by the door, the soft toy le-matya. It had long limbs, perfect to be hugged by the short arms of a tiny boy who was still learning to process emotions.

“What-” he cleared his throat. “Sybok's birthday is coming up. What is his favourite prehistoric animal?”