Once, when Spock was a child, his tormentors noted that his eyes were human.
"They look sad, don't they," commented one of the boys, spoken in that familiar, patronizing way, nonchalant and pitying — a tone he had grown accustomed to, had came to expect and deal with in time. Spock was no stranger to being seen and treated as less.
It had been their thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from him. It was a game they played, his peers. They were as curious as they were disgusted by him, the impossible being, the child of two worlds, and so they hypothesized, conducted their own experiments. Spock himself was an experiment. Neither Human nor Vulcan, they believed he had no place in the universe, and were unrelentless at proving that fact.
It had been their thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from him, but it was also the first successful. A traitor to his race, they called his father, and a human whore, his mother. For all of his eidetic memory, Spock cannot recall what happened in that moment other than white-hot fury and the metallic taste of green blood.
A thump from the captain's quarters shakes him from his thoughts and he comes back to himself. He's paused, mid-routine, toothbrush in hand, staring at but unseeing his reflection, and the reaction is immediate: frustration for losing control, followed by forgiveness and understanding.
His mother would have celebrated her 50th birthday today had it not been for her death three years ago. Celebrating one's birth was not Vulcan custom, and upholding Vulcan convention was agreed upon in the household; however, his father regularly indulged his mother in Terran traditions, and "birthdays" were one such indulgence.
Spock recalled many birthday celebrations in his youth, for himself and for Michael. These celebrations stopped once Spock made the decision to devote himself entirely to the "Vulcan way", much to his regret now.
Regret. How illogical it was to feel regret over what one cannot change, yet here he was.
Kaiidth.
His mother was a generous soul with a fondness for gift giving — handmade, personal items, often as practical as they were thoughtful. She found joy in bringing others joy, and in everything she did, she gave a piece of herself. Throughout her lifetime, his mother had given Spock part of herself in many ways, but perhaps the most important was the easily observed.
He has his father's face, but his mother's eyes.
Upon looking at his reflection, he searches for the sadness that shamed him all those years ago. He does not find it.
Instead, he finds his mother.