Her son was at the garden gate. He did not move, and from the position she was in, it looked as if the tall grasses that grew on the side of the path had formed a barricade to his entrance. She was watching from the window, feeling very much outside of herself, noting the color of her eyes as she distantly watched Spock set his expression, beginning at the forehead, and then moving down. It was like watching a rubix cube, except no colored blocks, only a young boy who had been taunted all day and then chased home. Amanda started, the snap of the shutters against the wall had brought her back to herself, she was suddenly aware of her breathing, of the slight tremors in her hands, of the panic in her gut. What could she do? Mothers always want to help their children, mothers always want what they cannot have. She shut her eyes, allowing the lids to exhaustedly rest on the cusp of skin, feeling very alone, very tired, feeling very much like her son.

"two plus two is four, six times six is thirty six, ring around the rosy, pockets full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall down…and I hope to never get up again. Four times four is sixteen, two hundred forty six plus nine hundred eighty one is equal to one thousand, two hundred twenty seven…"

He could not breathe, he had to focus, time was slipping away and if he waited any longer, his father would appear and Spock would turn into the ugly black monster his father saw him as, not the Vulcan he was trying so desperately to become. Spock was very tired, his mind became a recorded tape, a system of equations playing robotically through the synapses, often over run by his mother's voice singing senseless rhymes, senseless but comforting. And where was his mother? Did she not see him in the garden, next to the lilies and hydrangeas? He desperately wanted her to stay away, he did not want her to see him, but, maybe her voice from the window would not be such a torment.

"the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round…"

His son was in the garden, barely through the gate, and he could hear as he approached the fierce whisper of the child, the recitations of equations, growing infinitely more complicated as the hands that belonged to the voice shook more.

"Meditation would be more efficient"

He knew, having allowed the words to slip through his mouth that, perhaps, this was not the wisest time to have said that, that, perhaps, knowledge of the cause of his son's emotionalism would have been more effective in isolating and obliterating the problem. Sarek sighed inwardly, a sinking feeling within led him to gentle his voice,

" Were they tormenting you again?"

The smallest voice answered, one full of shame, self reprimand, and, surprisingly to Sarek, fear,

"Yes"

"How did you respond, my son?"

" I did not, but they chased me home, I ran, it would have been illogical to do otherwise."

Spock had not turned, but Sarek could discern from the angle of his son's shoulders that he ran not only for logic, but also, that Spock had been afraid. And where was Amanda, she would normally have been worried; he looked to the window.

"Have you seen your mother"

"No"

"You will accompany me inside, you must meditate"

Sarek realized too late the harshness of his voice, the drop of his son's head, the return of tension to the young boy's features. He once again softened his tone, allowed a gentleness to slip through,

"I will summon you when the evening meal is ready, you may do the same if you require any assistance, and we will discuss the matter of your peers at a later time tonight."

"I am honored by your attentions"

"And I by your diligence"

Amanda was half-asleep. Spock was at the top of a cherry blossom tree, and the white flowers kept sticking to his hair. Amanda was very small, she kept hopping from blossom to blossom, laughing, and wondering if her son could see her. Sarek wanted to rouse her, she could sense him from the corner, his reality impeding upon spring brightness, his ever darkening noir returning her to the black dahlias of her actual life. She had no wish to return, begging her husband from her spot on a petal to allow her to stay, she was drifting so beautifully amongst all of this flora, Spock was laughing, couldn't he hear it? It sounded like birds and the lapping of the ocean. Spock was laughing.