Universe 1
Amanda meets T'Pring when she is seven, a prissy little girl who rarely smiles. Amanda can't quite bring herself to like the child, but Spock seems to like her well enough, and when Amanda sees the girl again at thirteen and seventeen and twenty-five, she grows to approve of her. Bright. Hardworking. Pretty. Calm.
They never really get to know each other. There's no social expectation that they speak beyond formalities; T'Pring is Spock's best match, not Amanda's. No reason that they should have anything in common.
Once she gets past the first rush of horror, Amanda can't really blame T'Pring for the kal-if-fee. She respects wanting to marry the man you love, against all odds – her life choices attest to that well enough. But she does think, looking out onto her gardens, if I could do it all again, I would do it differently.
Universe 2
A constant supply of snacks, and the air conditioning Sarek installed for Amanda's sake years ago, are enough to lure T'Pring to their house most afternoons. Amanda watches T'Pring study side by side with Spock, and whenever the girl announces that "your insistence on physical proximity is most illogical," she smiles and offers more cookies. (Spock looks embarrassed.)
Over the course of years, Amanda watches T'Pring go from stuck-up to self-assured to confident. Amanda herself goes from thinking yes, this girl's children could be my grandchildren in the properly Vulcan manner, to a decidedly human I like her quite a lot.
She sees T'Pring worry when Spock leaves for Starfleet, and at first Amanda thinks the girl is just lonely for her constant companion. But T'Pring frets more with each letter from Spock, filled with tales of his victories great and small, and something more is clearly amiss. Amanda resolves to find the time to take the girl out to the privacy of her rose garden and talk to her, woman to woman. Tomorrow, she thinks, looking at her stack of important long-postponed communiqués. Tomorrow I will talk to T'Pring.
Of course, tomorrow the planet explodes.
Universe 3
"You don't marry the legend. You marry the man and let the legend take care of itself."
T'Pring has a shuttered look about her, which from this particular Vulcan probably means confusion. Amanda wonders if she should have said it differently, said something more Vulcan, said nothing at all, but before she can withdraw her statement, T'Pring answers.
"I think I understand your meaning. I admit that I had not thought about it in those terms."
Amanda shrugs. "I heard it first from my mother-in-law. You're not the first woman to feel this way, you know."
"Another point I had not considered." T'Pring's tone is more apologetic than Amanda had intended. Amanda tries to find a way to recover the situation, a promise that will have meaning to this particular young woman. This particular young scientist . . . Ah. Non-disclosure.
"I'll make you a deal, T'Pring. As far as I'm concerned, you're my daughter, and I want you to be able to talk to me. Whatever you say to me here, well, that's between the two of us and this rose garden."
T'Pring draws in a slow breath. "I find your terms," she says, "acceptable."
Universe 4
"You don't marry the legend. Marriage is for people. Let the legend take care of itself."
"I comprehend."
"You're not the first to feel this way. T'Vei said the same to me, when I was in the same position."
"Hardly the same. I am already handicapped by who I am. How can I ever measure up?"
"Spock. Just because T'Pring saved a planet or two doesn't mean she's not the same girl who played with you and copied off your homework. She says she can't wait to see you again, and congratulations on your degree."
"And soon she will be beginning a five-year mission, while I begin graduate studies at the Science Academy. It hardly seems likely that we will grow closer over the course of a lengthy separation."
"You made your decision, Spock, agonizing over it won't do you any good. Maybe you should try writing a letter."
Universe 5
Amanda Grayson doesn't run off with the Vulcan ambassador when she is twenty-eight. She goes to Vulcan once, on a rather extravagant holiday, and finds it uncomfortably hot. She doesn't marry, and she never has a son.
She does, however, meet a certain charming young cadet when she is asked to give a guest lecture at Starfleet Academy.
The Vulcan girl hangs back as the auditorium clears, then comes up to the podium as Amanda is packing up her notes. "Live long and prosper," she says, primly. "I am T'Pring. I had some questions I would like to ask you, if you have time available."
"Certainly," Amanda says absently. "I have to catch a shuttle, though. Walk with me?"
And so they walk through the Starfleet rose gardens discussing comparative epistemology, and when Amanda reluctantly says that she really must at least catch the next shuttle, she finds a scrap of paper with a number on it slipped into her hand.
It takes her three days to make up her mind, but she remembers the Handy Hints to Vulcan Culture in the back of her tourist's phrasebook, and thinks about T'Pring's fingers brushing hers, and calls the number.
(It turns out, Amanda does have a son, eventually. The genetic engineering isn't even that much more complicated.)