Twice the Pain, Twice the Sorrow
"I'm sorry. I just don't feel like eating."
Amanda nodded in recognition. This was supposed to have been a celebratory dinner. Instead, it felt more like a last supper, with Sarek already absent on the notice of needing to meditate and now Michael looking to jump ship. She couldn't deny Michael wanting to be alone where she wouldn't have to feel the need to control. Amanda just wished the girl would have a good cry, then she would look in on her later after Michael had a chance to compose herself. Nobody seemed to be taking the news well except…
"That is an emotional response."
"Spock!" Amanda snapped at his comment. Sometimes, she wondered how she could see so little of herself in her son. Often, he seemed to have the need to be even more "Vulcan" than his father, as if to prove his worth at the planet's harsh table of acceptance. They were all the walking wounded in the end, if you wanted her opinion. In fear of one extreme, they had brought another down among them. And her children seemed to want to buy right into it.
"I was merely stating the obvious," Spock looked over at her, leaving her to challenge the dare in his steady gaze. A dare to challenge him on the logic of his statement.
"We don't need to have anything pointed out to us. That's fine, Michael, I understand," She nodded her permission and watched Michael depart, head slightly bowed in what surely was disappointment to Amanda's human eyes. This was going to be hard on all of them. So many dreams that were never given a voice had died that day. Amanda then turned to her son. That was cruel, but why would she expect that a Vulcan teenager would be any different than a human one? As different as some things were, there were some things that seemed universal. She gave him a good long stare in reproach.
"I am only stating the obvious, Mother."
Amanda stood, clearing her own place and moving toward the kitchen area, not bothering to look back at her errant teenager. " I'm going to check up on your father."
"My father did not wish to be disturbed."
"Allow me the conceit of thinking I know what my husband needs better than you do," she glanced back toward her son, letting out a sigh. Nothing was ever simple for any of them it seemed. Why did she feel a headache coming on?
She continued her course back to the kitchen, "What is obvious to me is that you, my darling son, can clean up the dinner table after you're done eating. I'm going to bring something up to your father."
As she left, Amanda turned one last time to her disapproving child and gave him a harrowing look. It was all that was needed between them. He seemed to have finally gotten the message and had turned his attention back to his meal, pretending a sudden absorbance in objects on his plate. At least that was settled, if only until the next logic battle.
The room was dark and far too quiet when she arrived at her destination; even the glow pot seemed subdued. Placing the meal tray on the small side table, Amanda stood at the entrance to the meditation chamber off the bedroom. She leaned against the door frame waiting for the acknowledgment that she could enter, watching the lines of her husband's shoulders and back. In meditation, they should been relaxed, now she could almost see the tension in them from across the room. There was more to all this than he was letting on. The entire day was a puzzle box waiting for her to solve.
Finally a slight turn of Sarek's head acknowledged her presence and she walked to where he sat on the mat, letting her instincts take the next step, "What happened there that you aren't telling me?"
"I do not understand," He didn't look at her. Another warning sign as she came closer.
Quietly, she knelt behind him on the floor, letting her hand trace the ramrod straight spine. If something was being held so tight here, she knew that surely something else was being held in as well, "You understand perfectly. You've been…remote ever since we came home. Something happened. Tell me. "
"Some…thing," Was it an answer or a question? Her husband was playing word games now, something he was an expert at. But she knew the expert's tricks all too well.
"Stop it. It's me who you are speaking to not one of the children," Amanda moved to his side and grasped his hand, squeezing it tightly, "I know you better than anyone and I know when something is wrong. Tell me."
Whatever it was, it hung silent in the air between them; an oppressive weight that he insisted on carrying. She pulled back from him, twisting around so that she could face him directly and waited.
Finally, a deep sigh of resignation as he turned to look at her, "Michael was not…rejected."
"I don't understand, You said- " She let her hand drop his. Before she could complete the thought, he continued.
"I was forced to make a choice."
"A choice? By who? Who could force you to make a choice?" She felt a sense of indignation, followed quickly by a rush of not again.
"There would be only one of the children that the Expeditionary Force would accept. I had to choose which one."
She settled back on her heels. Would this never end? Whenever it felt like they had finally overcome one obstacle, Vulcan would find another to block their path. Her husband's idealistic vision of his planet and people had once again failed to see the walls that were built around them. As always, the children seemed to be the ones who would pay for the imagined sins of the parents.
"Between…"
"Michael and Spock."
He reached his hand to her brow and before her unraveled the scene at the Science Academy, and his decision that it would be easier for Michael as a human to find a place outside Vulcan than their son ever could. It was a decision he did not want to have to make; it was a choice that was no choice. Either way, one of their children would be hurt.
"And you choose Spock. Why didn't you tell her? Why make her think that she failed?"
"Would the logic behind my choice have been any better for her had I let her know I had to choose and that I chose Spock? Would this have caused her any less pain? " If his voice did not betray him, she of all people knew what would be going through him. Amanda willed away the tears that fought to fill her eyes. This was no less a pain for any of them to bear, not her, not Michael, and certainly not Sarek.
No, there was no way to avoid this decision, it was one way or another, one child or the other. But to keep the decision and the pain and regret it caused a secret one? She sighed, pulling his hands back to hers, letting them rest in her lap as she gazed down on them in thought, "No, I don't think that it would have made it any easier on her, but in time she might have understood. Underneath all of your training she is as human as I am, she has a heart, she would understand in time."
She rested her head upon his shoulder, "Oh, Sarek, why do you insist on carrying these burdens by yourself?"
"I would not have you hurt, nor would I have you bear the burden of my decision."
"That's part of my job, you know," She reached out with one hand, stroking his brow, smoothing the lines that creased it, "Giving voice to what you can't. Do you promise me that you will tell her the truth?"
"When the time is right," The line of his lips tightened ever so slightly, but enough to let her know that there would be no movement on this.
Sighing, she cocked her head to the side, to question as to just when 'just right' might be. It could be tomorrow, it could be next year. It was an open ended promise that she needed to be sure was carried out in a timely manner, "And that would be?"
"Once Spock takes his place in the Expeditionary Force, and she is firmly ensconced in Star Fleet, I would hope that she sees the value of my decision. It is much easier for her as a human to work among humans, than it could ever be to force that upon Spock."
So he saw her in the fleet? Amanda nodded. She had to agree that his decision was only logical, as painful as it might seem right now. These next few years would be hard on them all until that time came.
Some tension seemed to be eased with with his revelations, as it always was. But he had a plan, and Michael and Starfleet might be a good fit; her adopted daughter needed to come terms with her humanity. No matter how often Amanda would try to remind her of this, Michael seemed to want to retreat further into Vulcan mode. She worried about the girl and the pressures life here had put on her. Amanda had come here as an adult, in a relationship that treasured her humanity. Michael had hammered herself into something she wasn't. And they both acted on the love and approval of the stoic Vulcan that sat across from her. She reached out to stroke his cheek in reassurance.
"I think I could prevail upon Captain Georgiou," with a breath, the confident Sarek she knew seemed to come back into play, a determined set to his jaw. This was far more comfortable territory for him, making a plan, seeing it was enacted.
She pulled back to smile at him, reassuring his decision, "Philippa? I think that would be a good choice. For both of them. Just promise me that you will let her know she didn't fail you when the time is right."
"When the time is right, I will not fail to let her know that the fault was not hers. The fault was mine in my misjudgment of my people. "
"Your people always disappoint you and your ideals, Husband. One day you may learn," And as much as she wished it might never be, that she would never lose her idealistic husband with his uncompromising standards, she feared that one day that that those ideals would come back to haunt him. She would need to be there then as well to help pick up and mend the pieces.