Even this simple task required effort on his part. A different emotion had come over him, one he did not know the name of. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him, but instead of bringing relief, the memory of it felt like a heavy weight holding him down.
If only he had looked for another bondmate as soon as T'Rea had been out of his life, Sarek caught himself thinking of another futile scenario. He cut himself off, disgusted. This weakened, emotional state was intolerable.
It had not been much different after his bond had been dissolved. He had been in no state to consider another bonding. No healer would have allowed it, even if he had wanted to.
Not that he had. He had been quite unable to even contemplate another bondmate. Restless to remain on Vulcan, he had instead started chasing his ambitions in the diplomatic field, taking increasingly remote and difficult assignments. He had been in no hurry to look for another bondmate.
But would it have made a difference if he had been? Such things tended to take a long time, unless there was reason to hurry. It was unlikely he would have been bonded before his first chance meeting with Amanda.
No, Sarek decided, there was nothing he could have done to avoid that. It had not been out of his own initiative that he had gone to Babel. Quite by chance, he had found himself in the vicinity and had agreed to pick up his father's science prize.
And Amanda, troubled by her own problems, her behaviour bordering on inappropriate, had been quite unaware of his precarious state, of the damage her thoughtless behaviour was causing.
Never had he thought he would ever meet anyone like Amanda.
Before her, humans had simply been another species – powerful allies, but nevertheless alien. Their emotionalism, their strangeness that seemed to propel them forwards at a seemingly faster rate than Vulcans had been curious and a little concerning, but not something he had ever been driven to get closer acquainted with, much less consider a human for-
No! He had not done that. No? His thoughts argued back. Were you surprised when she propositioned you that night?
He had not been surprised, even if he had acted like it, and rejected her in a way she must surely have found humiliating. She had been the one who could not hide her surprise at his response. For her, it had been the natural next step, as outlined by human courtship rituals, such as they were. She had only been wondering why he had not taken the initiative. The thought that he would reject her had not even occurred to her.
Such arrogance that only humans seemed capable of. They did not simply believe in the superiority of their ways. Often, if not informed differently, they could not conceive of another.
Amanda was no different. All she had needed to hear was that he was unbonded and she had automatically assumed now that he was 'free' he would therefore be looking for a bondmate himself – and in quite a similar fashion to humans, at that. It never occurred to her that he might prefer the Vulcan way of looking for the most compatible matches among the available candidates. It was the most beneficial system by all accounts, and guaranteed that no Vulcan who wished to be bonded would be left without a mate.
How anyone could prefer the complete chaos the humans lived with he had never understood. It was time-consuming beyond all limits, led to countless incompatible matches, and even more lonely humans who ended up living alone against their wishes.
But, as so often, Amanda had refused to look past her humanness.
She called Vulcans stubborn, arrogant even, so set in their ways that they were unable to see their shortcomings. But it was not Vulcans who presumed to know what was best for everyone else, only for their own society.
How many arguments that particular character trait of hers had led them to.
She had started working on the universal translator to prevent any translations that could lead to misunderstandings. There had been many a word in the commonly spoken Terran languages with layers of emotional content that the Vulcans had been unable to fully comprehend. She had been an invaluable help with those.
It had been much more troublesome when she had started doing the reverse – trying to translate Vulcan words correctly into English.
Non-emotionalism had been one of them. Why not call it stoicism? she had insisted. It had taken him quite a while to convince her that Vulcan emotion suppression was indeed a physical thing, and lack thereof constituted a mental illness. She had finally understood when he had explained Bendii syndrome to her.
But some parts of Vulcan reality could not be explained so easily. She always took it as an offence, a personal insult, when Sarek insisted a certain word be translated in a particular fashion against her better judgement.
Kroykah had been one of those words. It was translated as meaning 'cease emotional behaviour', and was classified as archaic and vulgar, to discourage its use. Amanda, who could be faultlessly logical when she so chose, had objected to both classifiers. How could it be archaic when emotional behaviour only became deplorable after the Awakening? And why was the term an insult when Vulcans had two other words with the exact same translation and only slightly shaded meanings, neither of which was an insult?
She had been insistent he was failing translating the word correctly. He could hardly have contradicted her without outright lying. Nor could he have given her the more extensive translation without explaining other things first.
So, instead, he had taken advantage of her preconceptions to let her believe Vulcans stigmatised anyone who dared to show any emotion. But the real explanation had been on the tip of his tongue. He had caught himself more than once about to give away too much information and let her draw the correct conclusions.
Their discussion of the word 'kroykah' had not been the only such instance either. Another time she had found a mention of Vulcan having been patrilineal in the past, and insisted it should be changed to patriarchal because the word apparently could not be referred to a society as such. It had not been easy to refute her claim. He had not been able to think of a society that was not patriarchal where the inheritance was still patrilineal.
Except for Vulcan, of course, which used to be matriarchal in many ways, but inheritance had always favoured males. Again, a consequence of their biology. Male Vulcans could not have stayed unbonded after their bondmate's death. So when a queen or empress died, her bondmate's next bondmate became her successor. Therefore, the son inherited, because he would not be displaced.
Sarek was convinced his refusal to explain better had led to further misconceptions about Vulcans on Amanda's part. He did not wish her to have a negative image of Vulcans, and that wish of his was far stronger than a mere consequence of his duties as diplomat. He had tried to argue, to explain without revealing too much, and had gone so far as to mention the fact that Vulcan males could not remain unbonded.
Only after the words were out had he realised what he had told her, and he was still not certain if he had distracted her fast enough to take her mind off his revealing comment permanently.
What if that was not the case? What if his increasingly frequent slip-ups over the last months coupled with his sudden disappearance might give her an idea what was happening to him? Better yet: what if he had explained to her exactly why he was insisting on all those translations? During her visit that night, if he had-
Kroykah! It would have been a disaster, as he very well knew. The very idea of – Oh, but at least it might have made it clear to her just how incompatible they truly were, how ill conceived her idea of the two of them, without him having to outright reject her.
Curiously enough, the thought brought little comfort. As little as he liked to remember the way that conversation had gone, the thought that she might have agreed with him only seemed to make it worse. Had he – had she been aware that a part of him had considered the possibility as well, that he had wanted to hear her declarations of affection? Had he? In fact, had he encouraged her?
If he was honest with himself – as he always tried to be – he had to admit that, at the very least, he had not discouraged her. Not on Babel, when she had opted to spend time with him instead of with the man she had accompanied there, Malcolm, who clearly seemed to be her mate.
Even then he had been aware that parts of her behaviour towards him had resembled human mating rituals, but he had been curious about her, so he had ignored that. Instead of discouraging such behaviour, which at the very least seemed to bother her mate, he had encouraged a second meeting. He had told her he would be visiting Terra in the coming months.
Had he been all that surprised that she had in fact managed to track him down? Yes, he had been surprised to see her that day at the embassy, but that had been due to the suddenness of the meeting. That she might reappear in his life had not been an unexpected thought.
And later, despite his astonishment – and disapproval – at the fact that, whatever her relationship with Malcolm, he was not out of the picture, he had not done anything to discourage her interest in him. He had been aware, even if he tried his best to ignore it, that she did not spend so much time with him for their debates, some of which she found quite upsetting.
Yes, he had been aware of that, but the problem was that Sarek, who had never desired anything in his life (not even T'Rea – she had been a part of him, and he had needed her), felt desire for Amanda.
What she had done to him – to have met him when he was at his most vulnerable, to make him wish for impossible things, to make him want her.
Why? Why did it seem such an impossible task to leave her behind?
It was not a simple case of fixating on her because he was unbonded and his Time was upon him. He shuddered, both in anticipation of what was to come, and as a response to the wild desires that thought awakened, the insistent urge to search for her, find her, and-
He was not so far gone that he was unable to control those urges. Those he could deal with – for now – his more morbid side reminded him – for long enough that he would be safely back on Vulcan where his parents had everything prepared for his bonding before he lost control.
But what had come before – his Time could not have been affecting him that long ago, not on Babel, and not for months after that.
Why, then? Why her? That slip of a woman, barely old enough to be referred to as such, looking frail enough that a strong wind might blow her over – and with no mental powers to make up for it – How could someone like that have such a strong hold on him?
Sarek, noticing that he had arrived back at the hotel, slowed down and tried to vanish all traces of emotion from his face before entering. He gave an almost human sigh. Instead of calming him down, the walk had only served to upset him further. He would try again to meditate before attempting to sleep. If he did not manage to regain some composure it would be a very long couple of days before it was time for his departure.