Part Two: The Other Side of the Glass
When they first started to layout the settlement, he had made his decision to build this new home, if ever he could call a place home again, at the very farthest reach that he could. It seemed fitting- he was an oddity now, someone who had gambled away his life choices and was left with nothing in the end. His personal life had revolved around one lone bright star, lost to him forever now, and his public life? No more was Vulcan a major force to be reckoned with, and he would no longer be a voice to be heeded among other worlds. What need of an ambassador for a population that was no more than one of a small Terran city?
If Sarek had his way, he would spend his days here in solitude, alive and alone. But he knew it would not be long before he would need to submit to duty, always duty. There were so few of them now, he had no real choice but to marry again. Already he had been approached by a few survivors, who were more than ready to forget his past indiscretion in order to carry on an ancient and honorable bloodline. He was Vulcan, he could do this, despite the inner pain that tore his soul apart.
All that was left for any of them was to pull together the tattered remains of their once proud civilization and start anew, here in this strange world. No one could escape the burdens that were placed upon them, no one of them could turn away from the needs of their people. But in those times when the day was done and duty no longer called, he would have a solitude where he could, if he tried hard enough, imagine her in the shadows waiting for him, a treasured smile upon her lips, bright dark eyes sparkling in laughter, the remembrance of a soft caress against his cheek, feather-light lips brushing against his.
His only escape was in the dreams that started not long after their arrival here on the new colony. More and more Sarek found himself eagerly waiting for the night, where in those dreams an Amanda still lived and laughed. An Amanda who was not his Amanda, with eyes the color of jai blossoms or that of the midday sky. And he would find his mind reaching out to the Sarek that was him but not him, telling that Sarek to hold onto her tight and not let her go, for she was all they both had left.
It became his habit to sit upon the terrace at twilight and watch the fading of the evening sky, holding on to memories of the time of day he and Amanda had both cherished the most. In time, he found the Old Man would join him with more and more regularity until it became a custom with them both to sit out the Eventide together in silence broken only by memory.
At first, they had restricted any conversation to the activities of the day- how the building of the settlement was going, what new survivors had made their way from distant reaches, driven to create a new home for their kind from the few remnants that remained, before settling into a comfortable silence. The two men sat together, as had become their habit of remembering, for they needed to remember all that had been in order to pass it on to all those that might someday be.
Eventually, he found himself speaking to the Old Man of Amanda. Somehow, there was an air of family about him, someone Sarek could trust and he now more than ever needed to speak his thoughts. And whether it came with the old one's advanced age, there was a lack of censure about him, as if he understood what was lost in that fraction of time when Sarek's world fell apart beneath his feet and within his heart. Sarek would speak of his wife framed in golden memories, and the Old Man would speak of his mother and comment on how much the two women were similar.
So it was when he told the Old Man of his dreams one day, as twilight started to fall and with it melancholy for what once had been his and Amanda's .
And then one night, when the air was fragrant with the smell of night flowers, it slipped…
"They remind one of jai blossoms," Sarek let his thoughts travel off to a memory of the Amanda that was not his Amanda, but who still graced his dreams.
"My father was always fond of saying my mother had eyes –"
It might have been a trick of the fading light, or perhaps his loneliness was playing tricks on him, but there was something…
"Like jai blossoms?" the words came to Sarek without thought or question.
" In this universe I regret that they are both no longer," the Old Man's voice seemed to fill with sorrow draped in the forgiving veil of night, as he looked off into the darkness, "I do not think I ever realized how much my father cared for her until now."
He wanted to ask how and why, but somehow none of that mattered and Sarek found himself saying the only words that did-
"However you came to be here, at this time and place, know this: your mother was and would always be deeply loved, no matter in what time or place she existed or continues to exist, and this she always knew."
