His mother had cried silent tears, the day he had left for Earth to join the Starfleet academy.
As he turned towards her to tell her goodbye, he saw the tears, sparkling in the early sunlight of the day, running down her face, and read the unhappiness in her sad eyes. Moments like this made him remember her human nature, her vulnerability in the solid world of science and logic that was Vulcan.
These human outbursts of emotion had become seldom over the years, taking him by surprise, every time they did occur. For, as the years had passed, her face had become as blank and emotionless as the surrounding waste and dessert land. Only her brown eyes she could not control.
They were like doors to her soul and always so full of human life. Her eyes told, what she would not herself dare to express. They told of love, fear and joy; these eyes that he himself had inherited. They made him stand apart from the rest and reminded him of the human side in him, he struggled to forget.
This morning as they stood in the long corridor, he looked into them for an answer, but found none, and he was forced to break the silence between them
"I do not understand. You have on numerous occasions expressed your support for my decision. You even encouraged me to proceed against father's will."
"Oh, my dear child." she replied with a loving smile. "You have still much to learn about human emotions."
"Then you are not...unhappy?" the word felt alien in his mouth. Even though he was part human, he had been raised a Vulcan and had learned to relay on logic, not emotions.
"I weep not out of sorrow, but out of happiness." she reached out for him and took his hands between hers. "Earth will teach you many things, hold knowledge that I have not been able to give you myself." They stood like this for a moment, his hands in her fragile grip, and then she pressed them once tenderly before finally releasing them. "Still it is hard for me to let you go."
Her words puzzled him. "I am not sure I understand what you expect me to gain from my stay on Earth."
"I hope, "she replied slowly, "it will give you a chance to settle the two halves in you, and make you whole."
At this he raised one eyebrow in amazement, and he carefully selected his next words. "If you are expecting me to return more...human..." he looked at her questioningly, but she only shook her head. "It is after all only logical that you, as human, would want me to follow human costumes.", he continued while he gazed into her eyes with new intensity. He felt a strong impulse to reach out for her, but instead he tightened the grip of his left hand around his right hand on his back. He anxiously awaited her answer.
"My dear child, no matter which path you choose, you will always be dear to me." Her eyes were bright and clear, but still red from her previous crying.
The silence between them had returned, as he had pondered the logic in her words. At last he said: "I must leave now."
"I know. Goodbye my son." she looked him in the eyes for an intense moment, and he could read both the joy and the sorrow, she apparently felt at his departure. How peculiar.
"Goodbye mother. May you live long and prosper." he did not return her genuine smile, but merely nodded in her direction, and then he turned away from her and proceeded down the corridor, leaving her red-cried eyes behind him.