Author's note: Just saw Star Trek: Discovery episode one, "The Vulcan Hello." These are some feelings I had when watching Michael's backstory. It's really, really good you guys.
Amanda is sympathetic.
Well, not exactly. In public, she must toe a balance Michael feels she cannot learn, one between holding onto the humanity Vulcans will not let her lose and showing a picture of perfect logic.
Michael's lapses are condescendingly forgiven by the occasional instructor and other students as natural consequences of her species and trauma but that just makes her feels worse. And in their home, at least, Amanda is sympathetic.
She smiles a small, understanding smile as Sarek lectures Michael again about her feelings.
What she wants to say is that the instructor would not stop asking her the question about the Klingon incursion, but she bites her tongue. Or would, if the resulting injury wouldn't just lead to another comment from Sarek
There are other humans on Vulcan, ambassadors and their staff whom Sarek works with but they are worse than strangers.
For all their condescension and lack of sympathy and unwillingness to let Michael feel the burning anger in her chest, at least Vulcans do not pity her.
"You must learn to control your emotions, Michael," Sarek says. "Only logic will keep them from clouding your faculties and overtaking you."
"It's too late for that," she says. "I missed more questions after that one, even after you left and I had settled."
"Is there no way to leave out some questions?" Amanda asks.
They are in Amanda's room. Michael had come there seeking something. She wasn't sure what.
"No," Sarek says. "That would defeat the purpose of the exercise."
He looks at Micheal, his gaze boring into her face. "You are intelligent," he says, "but you cannot let yourself be overcome."
"He cares," Amanda says, days later. They are sitting alone in a dining room too big for two people, one mostly used when Sarek (rarely) has visitors. "He just doesn't show it."
She is sitting. Michael stands, arms behind her back. She can't help the tightness she always feels in her limbs.
"Sure," Michael says. "I know it was you who made him take me in, so don't make stuff up." She sounds more bitter than she intended, but that's fine. She can be bitter with Amanda, who doesn't lecture her.
"I've spent a lot of time around Vulcans," Amanda says, her gaze less harsh than Sarek's was. The odds of his coming into the room are pretty low. He hates the place, according to Amanda at least, though Michael doubts he can feel even that sometimes. "They do have feelings, as much as they might deny it. But they suppress them, and we must learn to do the same, at least sometimes." She gives Michael a secret smile. "Whenever Sarek talks about feelings like he always does," she says, "remember that he married me, a human."
She's right, Michael thinks. It's a revelation, one that should be obvious but isn't.
But Amanda isn't finished. "Don't mistake him for a hypocrite," she says. "Vulcans have no place for trauma, at least not ones so high in society as my husband. They have no place for grief, or rage. They fear it. All he wants is for you to not be used by your rage. He does not know that you could use it instead."
AN: Please review!