Fandom Star Trek AOS
Character(s)/Pairing(s) Amanda Grayson, Mr. and Mrs Grayson, Sarek; Amanda/Sarek
Genre Family/Humor (kind of) /Pre-series/Romance
Rating PG
Word Count 1505
Disclaimer Star Trek c. Paramount, CBS, NBC, Roddenberry
Summary A look into the first night Amanda brought Sarek to meet her parents for the first time.
Warning(s) none
Notes This was written for my good friendiddlyo wafflez. I strive to write my pairings in alphabetical order so I don't have to figure out dom/sub.
Must Let Her Go
It had only been one short month, yet here she stood in nothing but a modest nightdress in front of her fiancé in what was once her childhood bedroom. She took a deep breath, holding his gaze and stated quite simply, "Well it's logical," that word he kept using, "for the guest to take the bed." The edges of her lips quirked upwards despite trying her best to look as grave as he always seemed to strive to look.
The Vulcan standing across the room from her eyed the bed and then the made up mattress on the floor. His ears twitched slightly, and Amanda had to try her best not to really smile. Finally, Sarek looked at her and stated, "If this was once your room, then that was once yours. Since I am a stranger to these objects and you are familiar, you should take that which is most familiar to you."
"A challenge I see," Amanda said and folded her arms before crossing the room, moving closer to the mattress. Considering the age of both mattresses, she doubted either would be more comfortable than the other would, but she had been brought up to be a good host.
"Challenge? It is but the truth," Sarek responded.
Amanda stood upon the mattress on the floor. Her feet sunk into it, signifying its complete lack of support. It was not as though her parents planned on her ever staying over the night with someone and not share the bed. She had been out of the house for a good four or five years now, but she had returned home to announce her engagement and wedding to the young ambassador watching her. They arrived at her parents' house towards early evening. She had prepared her parents over the phone three days before as best she could. Her parents had heard of Vulcans of course, but never had met any.
Once they sat down to supper after the engaged couple arrived about ten minutes prior, every was going better than Amanda could have hoped. Her mother had made a completely vegan option with her typical chicken dinner reserved for the most important guests. Her parents were even good about not staring too much at Sarek's slightly greenish tint of skin or his pointed ears. Yet, it all began to go downhill rather quickly when her father said after helping himself to seconds on potatoes, "So, Sarek, how old are you anyway?"
"Sixty-five," Sarek answered without missing a beat.
However, the potatoes in Mr. Grayson's mouth missed a beat and proceeded down his throat incorrectly sending him into coughing fits. Mrs. Grayson hurried to her husband's side, offering him water and smacking his back quite hard until the graying man waved her off, recovering. "E – Excuse me?" His eyes searched the Vulcan sitting beside his daughter as though trying to figure out how this alien was ten years older than he was.
"I am sixty-five years old," Sarek repeated evenly. "I was born on what is now known as stardate 2165."
"Some Vulcans can live close three hundred years," Amanda added quickly. She could see her father fumbling for words and quickly handed him a bowl of corn. "In fact, the youngest elder currently is two-hundred and fifty-three, right, Sarek?" She actually was not sure, but anything to avoid any knee jerk irrationality. If she distracted her father so he could absorb the information, everything would right itself. At least, in theory.
"Yes, if one calculates it in human terms," Sarek answered. Amanda did her best not to look at him curious, trying to pinpoint if that was an exaggeration or her stab in the dark was successful.
Mrs. Grayson cleared her throat and tried to smooth things over. "Vulcan must be a lovely planet, Sarek. The art that travels here from there are breathtaking."
"It is a desert planet," Sarek answered. "The landscape is something that cannot be duplicated anywhere in my travels." The comment opened the door for a rather polite conversation between the pair. Eventually the questions led Sarek to the answer, "The children who are too young for school help tend to the gardens. "
"How do you feel…I mean," Mrs. Grayson remembered her daughter's brief explanation of phraseology, "what do you think about children?"
There was a pause as Sarek considered the question. Before he could answer, Mr. Grayson added, "Is children even possible? You know how it works with humans, right?"
Amanda breathed through her nose. Her father meant well, she knew. He was a curious man as well, but of all the times! "Dad, I'm sure he is aware." And if not, it might be interesting to find out, but that was not a sentiment to share at the dinner table.
Sarek set his utensils down a top his empty plate in the way that Amanda had set hers when she had finished her meal earlier. He was always careful with customs wherever he dined. "It is not intrusive," Sarek assured his fiancée in his own way. Then he answered the real question behind the spoken questions. "It is possible to have children yes," he did understand xenobiology after all, "and I will welcome any such child when the time is right." It would involve quite a bit of experimentation and money, but it was not something he did not wish to attempt.
With the lull in conversation, Mrs. Grayson took their empty plates and returned with a small dessert of mixed fruit. As the four dug into the fresh and fragrant berries, melon, and grapes, the question of how exactly Amanda and Sarek met finally appeared.
"Principal Zohdi communicated to Vulcan," Amanda answered, having anticipated the question since she began thinking about the first meeting between Sarek and her parents, "asking if they would please send someone to speak to our school about Vulcan and its people. They worked out some details and during Sarek's diplomatic visit to Earth, he stopped by our school to do just that." She was not quite sure how to phrase the rest. It was rather complicated even though it was so very simple.
"Amanda was asked to organize the event," Sarek spoke once Amanda fell silent.
"Yes." Amanda poked at a bit of honeydew melon. "Afterwards, we kept running into each other, and just," she searched for the best way to put it, "went with it."
"How did you know?" her mother asked. "It's such a large commitment marrying after knowing each other for such a short time." She wanted to support her daughter, but Amanda was her only child about to leave for a distant planet. Mrs. Grayson knew she could not stop her daughter, but she did not want to give her daughter over to danger unknowingly.
"I knew upon our first meeting," Sarek answered at the same moment, Amanda answered, "When we were at the park after the school day."
The dissonance fell into silence and Amanda did her best to recover. "I just knew," she answered. "The more I am around him, the more I know."
Her father was the last to set his spoon down in his empty ramekin with fruit juice staining the sides. "Sarek, you and I have things to talk about I believe."
Sarek inclined his head a little more than he might in Vulcan society. He could not quite get the hang of nodding, but this always seemed to convey agreement to most humans. Mr. Grayson was no exception and the two males left the women to discuss what they would in their time together.
Now all of that had passed and breakfast would be their next adventure after sleeping arrangements were secure. Wedding plans would have to be made quickly so Amanda could join Sarek on his shuttle back to Vulcan in a week's time. The two agreed to perform an Earth ceremony and then once the proper proceedings occurred, the Vulcan equivalent later.
"What a stubborn pair we make," Amanda laughed and stepped off the mattress on the floor. "If you help me, I can move that mattress with all its coverings from the bed to the floor and then we can both have our ways." She moved the mattress already on the floor to the far end of the room and with some doing, the pair brought the other mattress from the bed to the last free space left on the floor without spilling the covered off completely. Amanda busied herself with making sure the blankets were on the mattress properly and then stood up and dusted off her hands.
She grinned at him and then let it slip into a small half smile of amusement before stepping up on the mattress to kiss half his cheek and half his lips briefly without having to rise up on her toes to do so. "Good night, Sarek. "
His face remained virtually the same, though Amanda thought she caught a twitch of the eyebrow at her gesture and considered it a good sign.
The End