How to Date a Vulcan, Chapter Eight
How to Navigate a Mating Bond

It was still dark when she woke. She was on her left side and Sarek's right arm was tightly wrapped around her midsection. He was snoring softly and she could feel his breath tickling her neck. She blushed deeply when the memories of a few hours earlier drifted into her mind. What had she been thinking?

One moment she'd asked him to bond with her and the next moment, they were bonding in a completely different sense of the word. For as much as she couldn't believe she'd let herself get so carried away, it was almost impossible to think of Sarek ditching his inhibitions the way he had.

Yet here they were, bodies entwined and naked under a quilt. She'd slept in this bed as a child, but now she knew she'd never look at this room the same way again.

She carefully tried to turn over without waking him and winced from the aches tearing through her body. Between splitting wood and more amorous activities, she was going to be sore for a while. She eventually managed to extricate herself from his grip and sat up, rolling her head around on her aching neck.

Her body and mind felt almost alien: she was the same old Amanda, but somehow she also wasn't. She recalled the sensation of Sarek's mind touching hers and felt a strange surge of some positive emotion that was a unique mix of love and anticipation.

They were mates now, according to Vulcan custom. That was terrifying. What had she been thinking?

He'd said that telepathic mating bonds were generally performed as part of a Vulcan marriage ceremony. Did that mean they were as good as married now?

She stared sharply at the wall and stifled a laugh. Had she just gotten married, or some Vulcan equivalent of married?

As she mulled over the distressing prospect of unanticipated matrimony, she suddenly realized that she didn't really mind in the way that she thought she should. When Sarek had asked her to marry him several months ago, she'd thought he was insane. However, now that she was on the other side of a Vulcan mating bond, she better understood where he had been coming from.

She loved him and now they were connected in a way that human language didn't really have an adequate word for. She never believed in the concept of predestined soul mates, but that seemed to be the closest analog she could contrive. They might not have been born to be together, but it very nearly seemed that way.

She stood, stretched her aching muscles, and tiptoed to the bathroom. She examined her reflection in the small square mirror and smiled broadly, then promptly tried to hide her smile with her hand.

She wondered why she so often did this and dropped her arm to lean over the small pedestal sink. She was happy and she was in love. So why shouldn't she smile?

She noticed she had strange, dark material beneath her fingernails and set to work trying to wash it away. She glanced down at her body and her eyes widened. She had bruises on her hips in the shape of a large handprint. Had he really been so rough? It hadn't seemed like it at the time.

She turned on the water for the shower and let it run for a moment while she brushed her teeth. She went through her usual routine of making funny faces at herself while she worked. There was a soft knock at the door and she nearly jammed her toothbrush into the back of her throat when she jumped in surprise.

She spit into the sink and said, "Yes?"

"Are you well?" Sarek asked.

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine. You can come in if you want," she stammered.

She blushed furiously when he entered the bathroom. She wasn't accustomed to seeing him naked and she felt ridiculously silly for being shy after what they'd just done.

"Human emotions are mysterious things," he said, looking at her patiently.

"What do you mean?"

"You seem to be… embarrassed," he explained. "Yet I sense you do not want me to leave."

She laughed. "I think I might regret this mating bond thing after all."

He cocked an eyebrow and she explained, "I was kidding. I just don't know what it's going to be like if you can read me like an open book."

"You imply that you wish to keep secrets from me."

"Well, no, but surely you have thoughts and feelings you'd prefer to keep more private," she explained.

"Certainly," he agreed. "You are not accustomed to a connection of this kind, but solitude within your own mind is something you will learn with practice. I shall never deliberately intrude upon your thoughts."

"Well that's a relief," she murmured. "But you can still pick up on my emotions, can't you?"

"Yes," he admitted. "It is… unfamiliar. On previous occasions when I mind-melded with you, a fleeting connection would often remain and I could sense particularly strong emotions in you, but now my awareness has been greatly expanded."

"But if I were Vulcan, you wouldn't feel my emotions because I'd constantly be repressing them."

It pained her to think that by simply being herself, human feelings and all, she was putting an undue strain on Sarek to have to repress additional emotions. Her emotional human side was going to make his stoic Vulcan side work serious overtime.

"I was prepared for this," he said telepathically. "You are not Vulcan. You are human. I do not require you to be anything other than you are."

She jerked at the unexpected telepathic communication and smiled faintly. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to talking that way."

"You will," he insisted. "With practice."

She looked him in the eye and her stomach fluttered. "I was about to shower, if you'd like to join me," she said, trying to change the subject.

He nodded without speaking and moved toward the shower, and when her eyes caught a glimpse of his back in the reflection of the small mirror, she gasped. "Oh my God."

He had angry green streaks running the length of his shoulder blades. That was what had been under her nails: his dried blood. He casually glanced at his injuries in the mirror.

"You were not in control of yourself," he said dismissively, looking down at the bruises on her hips. "It was unintentional and as you have not questioned me about the minor damage I have inflicted upon you, it would seem as though you are again holding yourself to a different standard than you hold me."

"Still, I'm sorry," she said, gently stroking one of the scratches on his back with her index finger. "And before you say it, it's not illogical to apologize for doing this to you. And I packed a dermal regenerator, so there's that."

The shower stall was small and Sarek was large. He nearly had to stoop to fit in it, but they worked well together in tandem to shower.

"I am not accustomed to water-based cleansing systems," he said, examining the bar of soap with intense curiosity.

She recalled the sonic pulse shower he had at home and grinned. "I tried to tell you that you were going to have to 'rough it' out here at the cabin. If you can call clean, running water 'roughing it.'"

"I do not mind this activity with you," he explained.

"You don't mind?" she asked jokingly. "Vulcans really don't like being wet, do they?"

"No."

She grabbed the bottle of shampoo and turned to wet her hair under the stream of water. She found that even lifting her arms above her head to wash her hair hurt. Sarek seemed to intuitively sense this, and began to gently apply neuropressure to her back.

Vulcan neuropressure could be painful, but also soothing. She braced herself against the tile and sighed deeply as the water ran down her chin. She felt herself growing aroused again and shook slightly and turned around.

"We should stop," she mumbled. "You know, before this turns into a vicious cycle of sex, which leads to sore muscles, which leads to your hands on my body, which leads to more sex."

He gave a subtle, patient nod and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him chastely on the lips. When they were done showering, she loosely braided her wet hair and dressed in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved flannel shirt. It was cool in the cabin and though she didn't mind, she wanted Sarek to feel comfortable.

She was loading firewood into the stove when he emerged from the bathroom, dressed in his typical, thick black attire. She gently blew on the wood shavings to stoke the small blaze and then closed the stove door and stood to greet him.

"Take your shirt off," she said, her tone more challenging than she'd intended.

His left eyebrow noticeably arched at her demand, but he complied without complaint. She quickly found the dermal regenerator in the med kit she'd brought and they sat on the couch so she could set to work repairing the scratches in his back.

His skin was strangely cool to the touch. She marveled at how quickly the regenerator mended his wounds, but she couldn't help but feel fascinated by his dark, green blood. She knew Vulcans had markedly different physiology than humans, but she didn't really know to what extent.

Then a startling thought occurred to her. They had just had sex. Unprotected sex. Could she have gotten pregnant, or was that even possible?

That led to a series of mixed thoughts and feelings that she'd explored several times before. She felt too young and unprepared to have children right now, but she was beginning to feel confident that she would want them someday. If she couldn't have children with Sarek, then what? The answer finally came to her as clearly as if she'd always known. Then… nothing.

She loved Sarek and wanted to be with him, and not having a house full of kids wasn't a deal breaker. Besides, there would always be children out there in need of a home and it seemed like their relationship was proof that there were many ways to form a family.

"A family... I do want a family," she thought.

Sarek stiffened and turned to look at her.

"A family is a natural extension of oneself," Sarek replied mentally.

"You heard that?" she thought.

Sarek winced before saying aloud, "You are not yet particularly skilled in projecting or internalizing your thoughts. You also have a tendency to be quite forceful in your telepathic communication."

"What, you mean like I'm shouting into your mind?" she asked, trying to steer the subject away from babies.

"Precisely."

"Don't say 'sorry.' He'll say it's 'illogical'," she thought, trying to come up with a response.

"It is indeed illogical to apologize for something you are ill-trained to control," he replied telepathically.

"Dammit!" she yelped. "Am I ever going to have privacy in my own mind again?"

"I do not intend to encroach upon your thoughts," he explained. "But they are difficult to ignore when you project them the way you do. I shall work more diligently to respect your privacy."

"I don't understand this very well," she admitted. "Imagine being deaf and mute your whole life and then one day you weren't. You might know that yelling is rude and inappropriate, but it's another thing entirely to even understand what yelling is, if you've never done it or heard it. Everything would sound like yelling."

"An apt analogy," he agreed.

"Well, how do I get better?"

They spent thirty minutes practicing back and forth. Sarek patiently instructed her on narrowing and subduing her mental focus, but she couldn't tell how well she was learning, and that was frustrating. She gazed out of the bay window and wondered when the sun would come up.

"It is only 0314 hours," Sarek told her through their bond.

She gave him a cynical, sidelong glance for reading her thoughts.

"It seems like it would be later than that," she thought back cautiously.

"The clouds have largely dissipated, if you would like to observe the meteoroid display."

"Yeah," she said quietly with a subtle grin. "I'd like that a lot."

They stood on the cabin's upper deck and craned their necks upward and when their eyes adjusted to the dark, they were eventually greeted by a rapid streak of white across the night sky. She felt a surge of joyful nostalgia, recalling the late summer nights with her father.

She saw Sarek observing her from the corner of her eye and slowly turned her head to meet his gaze. She sensed he was picking up her strong emotions and began to wonder just how much of a toll their bond would eventually have on him and if it were possible for Vulcans to go crazy.

"Do not apologize for your happiness, or for your happy memories," he said through their bond.

"Do you have any happy memories? Is that a thing, for Vulcans?"

"There have been many occasions in my life that I recollect with a degree of fondness," he admitted.

She couldn't explain why she found the concept of Sarek reminiscing about the "good old days" to be surprising.

"I recall our first meeting," he added.

"What about it?" she grinned apprehensively.

"You were observing Vulcan spiny firefish at the Science Conservatory's aquarium."

"Yeah, I know. I was there, remember?"

"I was impressed by your ability to appreciate the beauty in a thing that I disregarded as common. I admired you for your honest simplicity and then when you acknowledged my customs in proficient Vuhlkansu, I admired you for your mastery of a complex language."

"That's… much sweeter than what I was going to say," she admitted. "I don't remember it like that at all. I was terrified of you."

"Why?"

"I'm not used to mixing in those kind of social circles, so I was down in the basement hiding with the fish when you ambushed me. You were the first Vulcan I'd ever met, and I didn't know who you were. I was afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. I always felt that way, working at the diplomatic school."

"Interspecies interaction is a task that often results in failure and misunderstanding," he admitted. "Yet as with all things, it becomes easier with practice."

"Yeah, no kidding, considering that the aquarium was only a couple of months ago, and now look at us."

A pleasant silence fell between them as they observed the trickle of meteors against the black sky. She felt content, though sad that she knew this moment wouldn't last forever.

"Sarek?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to get married?"

"In time, when you are ready. I explained that I would not hold you to our prior arrangement-"

"I know," she interrupted. "But I think I finally understand where you were coming from, when you asked me to marry you. Yeah, there's a lot to figure out, but I'm happy to figure it out together."

"I better understand your position now as well," he argued. "There are many logistical concerns that I do not believe you wish to ignore."

"You're a diplomat. You go a lot of places and meet a lot of people. I'm a linguist. I can 'linguicize' anywhere."

"I do not believe that is a word," he said.

"It isn't," she admitted. "But the fact is, I'll follow you wherever you have to go. I've been holding on to this idea that I had all of these life plans that I wanted to accomplish before settling down, but I really don't. Earth is where I was born and I love it here, but I can make a home anywhere, and would happily do it so long as it was with you."

"You are certain?" he asked telepathically.

She nodded and kissed him.


Protocols for Human Courtship, Section Eight
How to Plan a Wedding

They had watched the meteoroids for a time before retiring back indoors. He had put several more logs on the fire and rekindled it, and they sat quietly on the small sofa.

She leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the wood burn in the stove. He considered her request to marry and was uncertain how best to proceed. He knew she was in earnest, and so was he. Initiating the mating bond with her had been the most serious step in cementing their union and now a marriage ceremony was largely a formality. A serious formality, to a diplomat.

He did not question that Amanda would adapt to a more public lifestyle, but he found himself once again questioning how content she would be. "What are you thinking about?"

"Marriage," he answered.

"Ok, I guess that was kind of a stupid question."

"I have done research into the matrimonial customs of your species, and I have found wide variations in the practice."

"You did research?" she asked, sitting up to face him.

"It was prudent to acquaint myself with your expectations."

"That's both really sweet and- well, I don't know, smart," she agreed. "I don't know anything about Vulcan weddings. But I don't really have any expectations. A white dress, flowers, a wedding march, music, all of the people I love gaping at me: none of that ever seemed appealing. I've never liked being the center of attention. What are your expectations of me?"

"I had not considered it," he explained. "If you wish to forgo the traditions of your own race, I would be satisfied to formally bond in a small, private Vulcan ceremony."

He explained to her the ancient customs of his people, of the priestess and the marriage drum and the intricate vows. She listened patiently and then smiled.

"If that's what you want to do, let's do that," she finally said when he'd concluded.

Like Amanda, Sarek had no strong preference for the marriage customs of his people. His father had always stood on ceremony and the ancient ways, and he'd often thought that perhaps as he aged, he would grow more conventional as well. Instead he found he was growing more practical.

His first marriage had been a large, formal Vulcan wedding, yet it seemed illogical to place a great deal of emphasis on a ritual when the strength of the underlying bond was far more relevant. His bond with Amanda was far deeper than it had been with T'Rea, and so a highly formal ceremony seemed superfluous to solidify the bond with his newly chosen mate.

A marriage on either planet would be legally recognized throughout the Federation, and so for simplicity's sake, it would be more practical to be wed on Earth, as they were already here.

"If we get married on Earth, that means I'll have to invite my mom," she said telepathically.

He was surprised by the unexpected intrusion into his thoughts and the skill with which she'd managed it.

"Sorry," she said mentally. "I'm not trying to eavesdrop. This is still pretty new to me."

"You would not want your mother to attend your own wedding?" he asked verbally.

"I would, I guess. Not really, no. Maybe? I don't know. Ok, no. She just gets so domineering, and I know if she caught wind of it, I'd be having the wedding I never wanted and getting paraded down the aisle in a fabulous dog and pony show for everyone's benefit but my own."

"You know your mother better than I do, yet I imagine she would take offense to being excluded from her only child's wedding."

"Yes, yes she would," Amanda smirked. "But that's what you get when you spend your whole life tormenting your only child."

"Human familial relationships seem unnecessarily complex."

"What are Vulcan families like?"

"Much like human families," he admitted.

She grinned and rested her head back on his shoulder. "So you really have skeletons in the closet and gossips and bad apples just like everyone else?"

"Skeletons in the closet?"

"You know, like, dark family secrets?"

"Are you implying serious crimes like murder? It seems illogical to hide one's victims in a closet where they may be easily discovered."

She laughed loudly and hugged his arm. "No. Nevermind. But at least I know who to ask if I ever need to hide a body. Anyway, let's just get married on Vulcan. Aside from my mom's crazy antics, do you remember how my fellow humans thought were two scoops of adorable just for walking around a museum? Imagine how bad it would be if we got married here."

Aside from her unusual turn of phrase, her logic was sound. He was a public figure, but he preferred his private life to remain private.

"When do you wish to have the ceremony?"

"Well, it's almost 0500 hours on Sunday. I should go back to work on Tuesday but could probably push it to Thursday. It takes, what? Twelve hours to get to Vulcan?"

"Fourteen, at standard intra-Federation travel speeds," he corrected. "I had not anticipated that you intended to be married immediately."

"Is there a better way to elope?" she mused. "Best to just get it done before too many people catch on."

He was unaccustomed to spontaneity, but he was willing to indulge her impulsive request, given he knew it was based in well-considered and reasoned thought. He considered his plans for the upcoming week, and reasoned travel to Vulcan would be feasible with minimal rearrangements to his schedule.

"Sarek?"

"Very well," he agreed.

"Really?" she said with a hint of alarm, sitting up straight.

"Were you jesting?"

"No," she explained. "But I didn't think you'd actually go for it. Way to call my bluff."

"Then I believe it is your move, to expound upon your euphemism."

She blinked. "Yeah, ok. Let's go get married. We're getting married. I'm getting married. I'm going to be Mrs.- wait, do you have a last name? And do women take their husbands' last names in your culture?"

"S'chn T'gai. And yes, the adoption of the male's surname is common practice among my people, though if you do not prefer it, I shall not ask you to alter your name."

"S'chn T'gai? Wow, that's some lingual gymnastics," she scoffed. "This is crazy. Let's just go before we realize just how crazy it is."

Amanda began swiftly packing the cabin for their departure, and he noted her lack of order as he observed her unceremoniously stuff unfolded blankets and clothing into various bags. He quickly prepared his own small pieces of luggage and began arranging their belongings in the back of the shuttle.

Thirty minutes later, she raced through the dwelling, looking for any overlooked items, and just as quickly pronounced that she was ready to leave.

"It would be unwise to depart with the coals still smoldering," he said, glancing toward the cast iron stove.

"Huh?" she mumbled, following his gaze to the dying fire. "Oh."

She retreated outside and soon returned with a small bucket from the corner of the porch that had filled with rainwater. She pulled the stove door open and heaved the contents of the bucket over the glowing logs. An immense swell of steam erupted and she examined the result proudly.

"And you call yourself a scientist," she murmured, walking past him to return the bucket to its original location.

He followed her without another word, and once they'd settled into the front seats of the vehicle, she looked at him nervously.

"Where do you intend to go?" he asked.

"Uh, well, the closest interplanetary ports I know of are in Chicago or Montreal. I don't know how often either one sends commercial flights to Vulcan."

He extracted his PADD from the inside of his cloak and swiftly determined Chicago would be the more optimal choice. She quickly programmed the navigation in the shuttle and engaged the engines.

Sarek began composing a message to his secretary explaining that he intended to extend his absence by several days, and then set to reading his official and personal correspondence from the previous day. Most of it was routine, yet there was one message that caught his interest.

It was from T'Rea, his former mate. He skimmed the message's contents and learned she'd recently given birth to a son and had left the monastery. It was the final line of her missive that troubled him.

She wished to meet with him. Immediately.