Hi again! Read on and enjoy.

ChocolateWolfey- Thanks so much for your comments!

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About a month later, Laken felt like she was always walking on eggshells. She barely listened to her music anymore, and when she did, she'd make sure to keep the volume at an almost nonexistent level. Since the two women returned to Vulcan, it was fairly noticeable that Sarek had longed for his wife's company. Every now and then, the girl would see his eyes soften while looking at Amanda. It might've made the return somewhat bearable, had it not been for his increased harshness with the teenager.

Not even a week after the service, she'd made the apparently horrible mistake of playing classical rock music while cleaning her room. It was a dull space to deal with, so the songs helped the time go by. Unfortunately, the Vulcan man interpreted the gesture as being "an inappropriate emotional outburst amidst a period of remembrance." Though Laken wanted so badly to point out that the overall mood in the house hadn't been any different than it was before Skon's death, she thought better of it.

He's just looking for reasons to bug me now.

"Don't look so far into it," Amanda told her as they tended to the garden. "He wouldn't say it, but he's probably thinking about Spock being gone."

"Why would he be upset? He's the one who disowned Spock."

The older woman looked like she was on the fence, but nonetheless, she didn't voice it. This put a knot in Laken's gut, as always. No matter what, her adoptive mother constantly made excuses for her husband. Despite not ever saying this to her, the girl's annoyance was beginning to grow. But for now, she concentrated on patting the soil around one of the plants. Things were tense for several minutes before Amanda broke through it.

"You know, maybe you'd be happier if you put your hobbies into something."

"Hmm?"

"Your music, or dancing. There might be a lot of ways to express that on Vulcan."

"That's funny."

"I'm serious! If you want, I can ask Sarek if he knows of anyone nearby in need of musical assistance."

"He wouldn't care about that."

"Hey, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. It would get the songs out of his house."

Laken impulsively chuckled at this. Perhaps the Vulcan would find a place for her, as far away from him as possible.

That would suit me fine. And probably him as well.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

The teenager was taken aback by the sight in front of her, and not in a good way. While the Vulcan children looked pretty cute, the stiff imitation of dancing was a whole different manner. Apparently, the planet's toddlers were allowed to dance in the years before the intense training began. But what Laken saw barely came close to dancing, to say nothing about the drawling music. The young faces looked like they were carved in stone, and their movements were just as rigid. However, the instructor standing nearby didn't seem surprised by this.

"Young one," she said, "Ambassador Sarek has said that thee seeks a way to…creatively function."

"Well, I…yes."

"These children are undergoing their usual training in logical thought, but are permitted to dance during breaks. Thy task is to oversee them at these times. The walls of the academy are rather thick, so if thou requires guidance or assistance in this, I shall be within the conference room at the far side of the building."

With that, the elder Vulcan woman turned to leave the room. Once the door had shut, Laken glanced at the little five-year olds. By this point, all of them had stopped moving and were staring at her. All was quiet for several seconds as the older girl gathered the courage to speak.

"Hi." No response. "My name's Laken, it's nice to meet you all."

After a moment, the toddlers spoke as a group.

"We come to serve."

"Oh…well, you don't need to serve me with anything. I'm just here to teach you about dancing. What do you have so far?"

As a collective unit, each child resumed the stick-straight actions. Laken could only watch for a few seconds before stopping them.

"Okay, okay, good." She thought quickly, trying to use words that the kids would respond do. "All of you work well as a group, so that's encouraging. But maybe you should try…loosening your bodies a bit."

"Bodies are what they are," one young boy said. "To assume they can be loosened like a mechanical screw is illogical."

"That's not quite what I meant. I'm saying that your dance movements are…too close together. Try something along the lines of…"

She allowed her arms to flow through the air a bit, stopping only when the children's expressions became flabbergasted.

Okay, this isn't working. I'll have to reach them in another way…

"All right, well…you know, what you've been taught to do isn't the only option. There are other ways to dance in coordinated fashions. What songs have you gone along by?"

"The tape," a girl replied, pointing to the wall speaker.

"You mean, just that same tune over and over?"

"Affirmative."

"Wow…hang on, let me check something."

Laken walked over to the screen in the corner of the room. While the computer had Vulcan features, she wondered if its content was limited to the planet. However, when she flipped through a few things in her attempt to find another search engine, she struck gold. Upon narrowing the search to Earth, the girl found the perfect tune. Despite the children's confused faces, the optimism was growing strong within her.

"Listen," she muttered, slowly walking back to the group. "You've already mastered moving as a group, so following the beat should be simple for you."

"I do not understand," a different boy muttered, leading the older girl to momentarily turn off the song. "This seems illogical."

Laken considered his words for a while. How could she convince them to try this? If six years of living on this planet was any indication, these kids probably had no idea how it felt to have fun. They spent almost all their time learning to be logical, so a little bit of dancing surely wouldn't do any harm.

"Well, dancing is a good way to improve the skill of working as a group. Isn't that a logical skill?" The children didn't object, so she went on. "And following directions will help your limbs stretch more. Keeping your bodies healthy and stopping your muscles from seizing up is a logical endeavor, isn't it?"

The same boy raised one eyebrow, unable to contain an eagerness that was appropriate for his age.

"Yes. That sounds very logical."

Laken smiled. Then, she thought of something else.

Uh-oh…what if they tell their parents?

She didn't think the kids would get in trouble; if anything, the parents would blame the big bad emotional girl for poisoning their young minds. But what about Sarek? She'd definitely get another scolding, of course. Still, it didn't take her long to decide that she didn't care what he did, or what he thought. This was one of her only sources of productivity on Vulcan, and she intended to savor it. All the same, she added one more thing.

"Also, since you'll be working to keep your bodies in good shape, you'll need complete concentration. It wouldn't be logical to spend time speaking about this to others when you could be perfecting your focus."

Upon hearing this, another girl nodded.

"Logical."

"All right, then. Let's get started."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

In about a week or so, the children had mastered every choreographed move of "Thriller," a centuries-old video of the song created by the late and great Michael Jackson. Laken couldn't believe how talented these kids were.

Of course they are, who am I kidding? Anyone can thrive when they're enjoying themselves.

While some of the toddlers had originally been unnerved by the included voiceover of Vincent Price (another departed legend of Laken's residential planet), they didn't react at all anymore. They knew every turn, arm movement, and step. Once Price's cackling faded away, Laken couldn't keep from clapping. This was completely incredible. She almost forgot about her own sadness at the sight of these kids. A few of them were even smiling a bit. Perhaps Laken was unhappy, but the thought of making the children happy was so rewarding.

Her pride in the young ones was so extreme, to the point where she didn't notice the former instructor peering into the room, nor the surveillance camera in the ceiling corner.

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