She was perplexed to meet him here. So perplexed she forgot to slip in character.

"I thought, I thought you were dead mother?" Spock

She smiled a small smile.

"And I thought you were 27." She stated and then cocked her head studying him. Then her eyes widened.

"Oh, I see, you traveled through the black hole crossing into the past into an alternate universe. I take it I never informed you of my … uh special circumstances?"

He looked at her blankly and disbelieving.

"I mean uh I take it I died of old age around a 100 or so?"

"Yes." He answered.

"Uh ok. Spock lets go somewhere where we can talk."

They went to her quarters at the station. And she engaged privacy mode and also took a pen and screwed it.

He looked at her questioningly.

"Anti listening device. It stops any bugs from transmitting and scrambles our sound waves if we are more than a couple meters away."

He raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating."

"Lets get to the matter at hand shall we?"she asked.

He nodded.

"Ok. I will tell you. But first I will show you something."

She did something that shocked him. She took a small knife from her belt. With a quick movement stabbed the back of her hand, and left the knife in.

She then extended her injured hand to Spock. He looked at her aghast.

"Spock check if the wound is real. Check to see if the knife really pierced through my hand. And then when you have ascertained that it is so. Pull the knife out and watch my hand carefully."

He made a slightly choked sound. "Go on." She urged gently.

He checked and then he carefully pulled out the knife and watched her hand. The muscles knit themselves together before his very eyes. And then the skin followed. The slightly red skin lightened. And then … why then you could see no sign of wound or trauma. This happened in a matter of seconds.

Spock looked at her shocked and amazed.

"Would you like the short version, the cliff notes version, or the long version?" she smiled.

He pulled up one eyebrow. "I believe the short and cliff notes version would be a good place to start."

"Well short version." She breathed in deeply. "this can go no further than this room." She paused. "I am immortal."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean that one day I stopped ageing. And I continued. I was shot, stabbed, beheaded, quartered, drowned, blown up, crushed, burnt alive and nuked. I once even flew a spaceship into a sun. Nada. I just woke up reformed on some planet."

"How is that possible? How old are you?"

"Ah well now, that is a very good question. A question that not even the time-lords were able to answer. That is how I got away from Vulcan by the way. A Time-Lord friend of mine picked me up. The last in existence in fact. That is why I wasn't sucked up by the singularity. Not that I would have died. Permanently at least but I much prefer this universe. "

"Time-Lord? I thought they were a myth."

"Well you were myth-taken." She smiled.

"You misspoke you meant to say ..."

She cut him off. "I said precisely what I wanted to say. And don't pretend you didn't understand my play on words young man. That may work on others son, but not on your mother."

He smirked. And then looked at her sadly, longingly, lovingly and disbelievingly all at the same time.

She gave him a small soft smile. The sort of smile he remembered. And he got up from the chair kneeled down in front of her and hugged her tightly. Weeping silently.

She gently hugged back and led him to her couch. There they sat down. Her touch was familiar to him. It held the same warmth he remembered. The same love.

And she softly sang to calm him

Good night my angel time to close your eyes, and save questions for another day, I think I know what you've been asking me, I think you know what I have been trying to say….

He calmed down when she sang the so familiar lullaby. He collected himself and straightened. He looked at her calmly.

"Tell me Mother. Tell me at least the cliff notes. " He frowned. "How… uh."

"How old am I?" she smiled.

He nodded.

"I don't know. I honestly don't. I was found as a baby on earth. By a tribe calling themselves Mikran ish vahnka. The closest translation would be Mammutoi Lion Camp. I was taken in and brought up by them. I cannot tell you when this was. But I remember going on mammoth hunts in my youth and for many generations afterwards. So I really do not know how old I am. I could be anywhere from 15 to 30 thousand years old. I stopped ageing sometime between 20 and 30. I stopped counting a long time ago." She explained.

"How...I mean…is it.., "he ordered his thoughts. " You remember everything of your life?" Spock.

"Yes I am cursed with a very good memory. I cannot help but believe my brain was designed to hold all those memories." She answered sadly.

"But you married my father. There was a bond. You and he melded." Spock.

"Yes but whenever I create a persona I fabricate a lot of memories. And compartmentalize the rest of my mind. When I do this in very deep meditation. I am in my normal day life barely aware that there is more to me than the persona I built up. It is something the time lords taught me. They are very telepathically inclined and helped me order my mind. They also injected me with nanites. They basically mimic my body ageing. This allows me to live normally. Or as normal as is possible. You see the time lords do not know where I am from and what makes me the way I am. My natural healing ability starts to overwrite the Nanites when they get life threatening so when I start to die of old age." She paused and collected her thoughts. "What I am is not genetic. There is nothing extraordinary about my DNA. Also I don't think any Vulcan could survive a full meld with me. Vulcans aren't made to carry thousands of lifetimes' memories. It would fry their brains. The one Time-Lord I shared my mind with died actually. He had to regenerate in order to assimilate everything. This caused him forever having quite a few of my character traits. "

"To live forever. The things you could see and do. The things you could teach."

"The people you lose. Civilizations falling again and again. War again and again. Watching your own flesh and blood children die of old age. Watching your great grand children's great grand children die of old age. Knowing it never ends. Never having peace. No other choice but to go on. Knowing no matter what, you will survive. No matter how much you want to die." She replied.

"Oh god. Mother. The pain. The endless pain."

"I am quite aware." She said sadly. " There are happy times, there are bad times. That is why I very often create these personas. To have a brief period of normalcy. It is not like I have any choice."

"What is different now? You seem fully cognizant of everything?"

"I was going to go to your father and tell him of myself and share some things with him. But then I learned he had re-married and his wife is already pregnant."

"I thought, I always believed he,…" he was slightly angry on her account.

"Spock, in the face of the near extinction of the Vulcan race. It was the logical thing to do. And he always tried to be as logical as possible. It is who he is. And I cannot fault him for that. But also the persona Amanda died that day. Yes she is still here within me. But I am also a lot more."

"So what are you doing here in the space port? In a security officer uniform no less?"

She smiled an impish gleam in her eyes. " I am joining the crew of the Enterprise. "

"You cannot be serious? Are you aware..!

"Of course I am. I am joining to protect you. The other you. The younger you is actually aware of me. He met me at the academy. He thinks I just happen to look a lot like his now dead mother. And before you ask, I could not prevent the destruction of Vulcan due to Paradox. If I did I would cease to exist in that form, but if I would cease to exist in that form I wouldn't be able to prevent the destruction and it would occur again causing me existing again. So you see as much as I hated it, I had to let it happen.

I learned a lot of stuff like that from the time-lords. Knowing when I can change something and when I can't.

Another thing I learned from the Time-lords is seeing time-lines and calculating probabilities. And I can see a lot of Time-line disturbances. I think part of it is the universe trying to right itself. A part is the bond between the younger you and the captain. I see a certain possibility that I wish to ensure happens."

"You wish for us to be T'hy'la. True T'hy'la. In all senses of the word?"

"Yes I do. Hm let me guess in your time line it either happened very late or it happened not completely?"

"Yes to both. Only after I tried to become a Kolinhar adept I confessed to myself. And while my Jim and I shared a deep friendship and shared a brotherly love I always felt the last was missing. So did a part of Jim but he…he was lost before we could explore more."

She smiled softly. "Really Kolinhar adept? Really not good. You know I knew Surak. Purging all emotion and controlling it to overcome the passionate nature of a Vulcan are not the same. It is meant to help you not base your decisions of emotions. Perhaps I can help this time around."

"You knew Surak? But he lived centuries ago" she just smiled. He continued. "You helped last time too. You looked at me and him. With that annoying knowing glint in your eyes and that secretive smile like you know something I don't."

"Yeah that sounds like me. " She smiled.

"It is most astounding. You are so old. You can't even remember the time of your birth."

"Well technically no one can actually "remember " the time of their birth." I smirked.

"And one would never guess your age due to such cheeky remarks."

"I know." She smiled.

He cocked his head. "Do you know everything?"

"No, but I know enough." She smiled kindly. "Mind you life would be frightfully boring if I did know everything."

He thought and then asked. "Would you like to see my life? To see what is to come, to be better prepared?"

She thought for a bit. And then decided she would have to just use her probability sense to decide when to act on said knowledge and when not.

"Yes Spock. I would like that very much. Perhaps with your help. Both you's, I can make the universe hold on longer to its civilized shape. If we meld know this, I will shield my mind, not because I don't trust you but to protect you. I will see far more than you. In fact, perhaps it would be better you would let me lead the meld. "At his surprised look she answered. " Yes another thing I learned from the time-lords."

And with that now security officer Samantha Gray held to knowledge of another Lifetime in her mind.