A Son of Surak

By

Pat Foley

Chapter 11

Standing before the door in the Fortress' Great Hall, Amanda put out her hand in a rare gesture on Vulcan. "Thank you, Mark."

"My pleasure." He stepped forward to take it, then held her hand a little longer than mere convention. Amanda didn't seem to notice, distracted by other things.

Do you really think the tablets and rest will cure him?"

"Likely so. And we'll monitor him. Make sure he doesn't get worse."

She made a face. "He'll hate that. It will probably make him eat even less."

"Maybe I'll show him how to monitor it himself, with a scanner," Abrams offered, studying her, "so he won't be stressed by frequent exams."

"That would probably help," she mused and then looked up into his face, her eyes meeting his directly, her voice suddenly stern. "But don't ever do that again, Mark."

He dropped her hand, taking a step back. "What?"

"You know. Criticizing my parenting in front of Spock. You've done that before. I don't like it. You have no right to do that."

Abrams straightened, "Do you mean-"

"When you said Sarek and I expect too much of him."

"I believe you do," he said stiffly.

Amanda tossed her head, frowning. "How would you know? You hardly ever see Spock."

"Maybe that gives me the objectivity to see him clearly," Abrams pointed out.

"I know that he dislikes you – well, all physicians," she said, pacing, thinking. "If it's some ploy to get him to accept you, siding with him against his parents, well, it's not going to work. He still won't like you. And it ticks me off. It's unfair."

"Unfair?"

"To me."

"I was thinking of Spock," he said pointedly. "Anyway, I'd never think that it would. And that wasn't my intent. But I'm sorry. I suppose I lost my objectivity for a moment, and I spoke out of turn."

She halted, staring at him. "You can't really believe we expect too much of him. Why he could have gone into the Academy a year ago. We held him back a year, because he was so young. And he could have taken two courses of study, but Sarek and the dean of the VSA decided to limit him to one, because of his youth. Why, we're holding him back, not pushing him."

Abrams gave a little snort of amusement at this, and Amanda's eyes flashed. "What's that for?"

"Even geniuses can be very dumb." He looked her over, head to foot. "Given the right incentive. Or if the stakes are high enough." He sighed. "Or maybe I'm being unkind again, and you're just too close to see it."

"What do you know about raising a Vulcan child?" she accused.

"Nothing. But I don't think your boy is entirely Vulcan anyway, in spite of your husband's pushing him to be that. So what does it matter?"

Amanda glared at him. "So this is about Sarek? I know you don't like him."

"I don't dislike him," Abrams said evenly. "Not entirely."

"That's big of you."

"Mandy, you love him. Maybe that means you aren't seeing too clearly there either."

"That's enough, Mark," she snapped, took a step away and then back, arms wrapped around herself, hands hugging her elbows. "Oh, I don't know what to do. If I'm too human with Spock, it's wrong. If I'm too Vulcan with him that's wrong as well. And if I'm in the middle, I'm inconsistent and that's wrong too. Half the time I'm furious with him for being so Vulcan that he rejects me. And then when he is a brat and acts out, I punish him all the more. Not just for being a brat but for being unVulcan. And he knows it, and I think he hates me for it. I don't know what I'm doing."

"He doesn't hate you," Abrams said, watching her with clinical eyes, under which stood a deep compassion. "When he could take his eyes off me, worried as he was about what I was going to do to him, his eyes were all for you."

"That doesn't mean anything," Amanda said scornfully. "He was disobedient to me earlier this evening. He knows I should punish him for it. He's waiting for that. That's all it was."

Abrams paused, eyes steady on her. "Will you?"

"How can I, when he is sick? But he deliberately defied an order and he and I both know that merits it. Even requires it." She frowned. "But I don't think withdrawing the parental bond even works anymore with him, at least not from me. He's gone too far in the Disciplines. He can shield against it, I think. And I hate doing it. But if I choose something else, that's wrong too."

Mark frowned, his eyes grave. "I don't think you should."

"You know how willful, how disobedient he can be when he chooses. He won't listen to me. Sometimes he even disobeys Sarek."

"The kid's got guts; I'll give him that."

"He can be uncontrollable."

"Amanda," Abrams shook his head.

"Sarek and I have to have some way of checking him. And that's the traditional Vulcan Way of disciplining a child."

"I've seen Sarek teaching him that Vulcan Way," Abrams said coldly. "And I consider it cruel."

Amanda looked up at him, her eyes suddenly full of tears. "So you think I'm cruel?"

Mark took her hand again, moving close. "Mandy."

She stepped away from him. "Don't."

He curled his hands into fists in frustration. "I wasn't trying to—"

"Maybe not. But I love my husband."

"And you so belong to him that you can't so much as touch another's hand in friendship?" Abrams flung back, frustrated in turn.

"That wasn't friendship," she said to him, raising knowing eyes to his.

Abrams flushed. "Compassion then."

"You don't love me," she said, shaking her head. "Oh I get that you'd like to think so, maybe, at times. But what really attracts you is this," she jerked her head back, at the huge Great Hall, hung with tapestries, banners and weapons, the Fortress around them. "It adds a little reflective glow to its occupants. You think Sarek is the Beast and I'm the girl you're going to save."

"That isn't true."

She regarded him sadly, knowingly. "No? Maybe it's just a little true, Mark."

He didn't answer, his eyes wounded.

She sighed. "I've seen it before. Not just from you. Because Sarek lives in a castle, and is who he is, somehow that makes me a princess. With all the collateral nonsense to human perceptions. And men who wouldn't look at me or think of me twice, suddenly romanticize the situation. And themselves. Or they do it for spite, against Vulcan and particularly Sarek. I'm the flag they want to snatch, under the nose of the most Vulcan of Vulcans." She shook her head. "Well, I'm a very ordinary woman, not especially beautiful, not princess material. I didn't sign up to act out anyone's fantasy, and I won't stand for it." She gave him a look. "Especially not from you, Mark. You know better. I put up with it enough from petty diplomats. And this is not a fairy tale."

"I never thought it was, Mandy," he said heavily, his meaning plain. "At times, I just feel sorry for you."

She shook her head, doubly wounded at that. "Don't. Even if it's what some of those romance writers claim, I'm still not a damsel in distress."

"So that's why your eyes were filled with tears a minute ago? Because you're not in distress?"

"Don't you dare use my emotions against me!" she flared.

"Is that's Sarek's exclusive privilege as well?" Abrams snapped back.

She straightened. "Mark, I think you had better leave."

"I'm sorry for Spock, too," he said.

She held out her hand, pointedly, formally, her blue eyes cold. "Thank you for seeing him."

Mark took it, but with no formality, and held it at his side. "Amanda, can I just suggest you give Spock a break? Transitioning to university is hard sometimes even for much older teens than Spock. And he's still such a kid."

In spite of herself, Amanda used her free hand to wipe her eyes. "This was supposed to be a happy time," she complained. "A celebration of all his successes. Not stressful. Oh, why can't things ever be normal?"

"Because you're not normal, Mandy." Abrams said in frustration. "Not you, not Sarek, and certainly not Spock."

"Oh, that can't be true! We can be. We have been. And that's all I want. A normal, happy life."

Mark sighed as tears spilled down her cheeks. "You didn't sign up for normal, Mandy. I don't think you could. And maybe Spock can't either. But like I said, maybe sometimes you and Sarek expect too much of him. And maybe even of yourselves."

Amanda stepped back, shaking her hand free, rubbing her sleeve across her face. And then the door to the Great Hall began to open.

xxx

On the mountain, Sarek had followed Spock's accurate coordinates. He entered an extremely well hidden cave, traversed into only by slipping through several vertical shards of rock, sufficient to deter any large predator. And well concealed enough to be overlooked by the average Vulcan. Sarek himself would not have bothered if he hadn't possessed the requisite coordinates to believe that there was any sanctuary behind those closely spaced columns. But now he stood in the center of what appeared to be an oasis of civilization. A light left burning in Spock's hasty leave-taking revealed the computer pad set up on a horizontal slab serving as a desk, still glowing with an abandoned calculation. Beside Spock's computer pad was a half eaten cereal bar, neatly spread on its packaging, and a cup of tea. A rock with a seat sized depression in it stood before the makeshift desk. In a niche in one of the rock walls, he noted supplies: a small cache of food and water, well wrapped, with a faint film of rock dust on them that labeled them as unused for some time, perhaps emergency supplies saved in case a sandstorm trapped the occupant within for some time. A tiny camp stove for making tea. A small first aid kit and a toiletries kit. There was also a bedroll tied up in a web of netting to protect it from dust, waiting in readiness on a horizontal ledge of rock. Beside it was the knapsack Sarek had seen Spock wearing on his mountain hikes. There was little else, but in a way, that satisfied Sarek. It was a very Vulcan space, minimalistic, and yet comfortable as well as defensible. As safe as such a place could be in this dangerous area. He almost envied his son this pied-à-terre.

Sarek went to pick up the computer pad and then to the bed alcove to take the knapsack sitting there. And there he saw what destroyed the complacent Vulcan satisfaction he had been experiencing. For there, by the bedroll, underneath it in fact, ready for when the bedding was spread out was a Terran paper book, an ancient nemesis of Sarek's: a well worn copy of The Annotated Alice in Wonderland.

Sarek felt the knapsack slip through his fingers, even as the breath slipped from his lungs in a huff. Even in this very Vulcan space, even with all this satisfying and yet somehow disquieting evidence both of his son's seeming determination and skill to make himself a home in the Llangons, here was this seed of illogical Terran contamination. After studying astrophysics with the most eminent researchers on Vulcan at the Science Academy, why would his son, his Vulcan son, having allegedly (based on eminent tutors Sarek had chosen and yet in the face of this could hardly credit) mastered the Disciplines and passed to advanced education, choose to read himself to sleep with Terran nonsense fiction he had surely committed to his eidetic memory before the age of five?

Sarek simply could not understand it.

And even if he could understand it, he could never accept it.

His wife read Terran fiction before she slept. His human wife.

Vulcans, having mastered the Disciplines, invariably meditated before retiring.

He had told himself, when his infant son had picked up this habit, that training, discipline, the Vulcan Way, would soon eliminate this human aberration, this contamination. He had never understood his son's interest in fiction, nor could he approve of him wasting valuable time in pursuit of it. A Vulcan as young as Spock had a lifetime's of imperative knowledge to acquire. Recreational reading had no place in that.

But apparently Spock had not learned that lesson, nor practiced those disciplines. Not even here, in this bastion of the Forge.

Sarek closed his eyes against the damning evidence.

Sarek picked up the knapsack. There was nothing in it but another cereal bar, and an orange. Breakfast? Even that offended Sarek. He ate Terran food, of course. He had procured the gardens for his wife's maintenance, and she ate the food, and often prepared it for the family, along with Vulcan foods from their part of the garden. Sarek saw nothing wrong with her preparing and serving both, for himself and their son. Vulcans could eat human foods and many of them were quite palatable to the Vulcan taste.

But he had always assumed, away from home, Spock would choose and eat a purely Vulcan diet. Why ever would he not? When his son's whole existence and future in Vulcan society was predicated on him being Vulcan, and living the Vulcan Way he had sworn to follow, why would he embrace human factors in any form? Yet here was this orange. And the cereal bars – they were a mix of many grains, Vulcan and Terran both, and raisins from the grapes in the garden. There was nothing actually wrong with them, so far as they went. But Sarek considered them poor and inadequate nutrition to serve as the sole evening meal, or even breakfast for that matter, for a growing child. His child.

And with that, Sarek rejected the cave and what it represented, however Vulcan in itself it seemed. Spock was heir to the ruling clan of Vulcan. Carefully trained to the Vulcan Way. Lavishly educated. Yet here he was, for all intents and purposes, living in a cave. Eating what Sarek could only consider inadequate scraps. As if he were a homeless orphan of the Skegallan clan, the wanderers of Vulcan, the outcasts and rejects from respectable clans. And reading Terran fiction. Sarek did not understand it, refused to accept the corollary to that logic that hinted itself to his mind.

No. It seemed no matter how painstakingly he had tried to ensure Spock was guided through the treacherous dangers of outworlder influence to the safe haven of the Vulcan Way, no matter how many milestones Spock passed of discipline and education, his mother's influences were ineradicable.

Ineradicable. The thought chilled him.

He picked up the knapsack and went home, determined somehow to deal with it.

And then found the Terran physician in the Great Hall. Another undesired aberration.

"Hello, Sarek," Abrams said, with a purely perfunctory smile that wasn't the lease sincere. And that Sarek found even more unnecessary given the emotion it purported was false. They had never been friendly.

"Doctor," Sarek said, with frozen control. With his discoveries in the cave, he had momentarily forgotten about his wife bringing in her human physician. Then he took in the expression on his wife's face. She was upset, traces of tears on her cheeks, and he wondered why.

He examined the human physician's face and saw stress and discomfort there as well. That was doubly concerning. And the atmosphere of the hall was charged with the lingering of some strong emotions.

Sarek had discounted the need for the human physician and assumed it was merely his wife's illogical concern again manifesting itself. If the healers had found nothing but a need for rest, then what need for a psi-blind human to look at Spock? But he could see now there was a telling tension apparent in both their expressions and body language and in the psionic ambient. The human must have found something. Otherwise they would be smiling. "Spock is not—"

Abrams quickly explained, making light as possible of the condition, even while stressing the need for Spock to have the chance to recover from it.

"I have never heard of this malady. This is caused by poor food?" Sarek asked, going to the most logical cause in his mind, given his distaste for Spock's recent dietary habits.

"I wouldn't say entirely that," Abrams said, "though it can exacerbate a problem. More likely a combination of that, stress, and not eating much."

Sarek eyed his wife pointedly, reminded over their concern regarding Spock's diet.

"But its main cause is considered to be stress." Abrams shrugged. "Truthfully, considering all the pressure Spock's under, I'm surprised he hasn't come up with one of these before."

Sarek's eyes narrowed. "But the healers found nothing."

"Not quite. They passed it off as emotional. As it is in some part. For them, to be cured with meditation and discipline. I suppose that might suffice, for Vulcans. But in a child, well –"

"Spock has been trained in the Disciplines," Sarek said.

"He's just a boy, Sarek," Abrams said. "I really don't understand the point of trying to make him into an adult at thirteen. Of course, I didn't understand it when he had to pass that Kahs Wan survival test at five."

"That is our way," Sarek said.

Abrams mouth hardened. "So your wife tells me," Abrams said, sparing a glance for Amanda. "And so I've observed."

Amanda flushed, discomfited.

Sarek didn't like this physician upsetting his wife. "I will contact the healers to confirm your diagnosis," Sarek said.

"By all means, get a second opinion," Abrams said, recognizing the dismissal. He leaned down to pick up his bag. "But scanners don't lie. And I'd wait till tomorrow if you plan to bring anyone out here. Spock has had enough of a hard day, from what I gather." He turned toward the door, knowing it was useless to try to talk to Sarek about his son. He had prior experience with that.

"Good night, Mandy," He met her eyes. Predictably, she just nodded, and turned away, moving to her husband's side. Abrams set his jaw at that and walked out the door.

xxx

"Your healers," Amanda accused, when the door had safely closed behind the physician, "were willing to let him go undiagnosed and untreated-"

Sarek closed his eyes, dropping Spock's knapsack on a nearby table. "Enough, Amanda. There has been more than sufficient senseless damaging conflict this evening."

Amanda frowned, looking at her husband, wondering at his weary manner. "Those other boys…the ones attacked by the lematya. They will recover?"

"Apparently so." Sarek said. "But it seems there is no limit to the fallout from Suchon's public statements."

"I'm glad, even if they were intending to hurt my son. But I can't answer for my own behavior if I ever come across them. But speaking of Suchon, maybe it's time for me to have a conversation with that individual," Amanda said ominously, "If his ridiculous statements are causing this kind of resentment against Spock."

"Negative. If we try to stop him talking, then there are those that will wonder why."

"I don't care."

"I must. And now Council-" Sarek stopped abruptly.

"What about Council?" she asked.

Sarek decided she would find out soon enough anyway. However, he deliberately chose to put the most innocuous light on the circumstances. "They wish to speak to Spock about Suchon's assertions."

"Oh, will it never end?" Amanda said. She picked up the knapsack and feeling the orange inside, emptied it, setting the computer pad netbooks aside. "He can have his school materials tomorrow." She tossed the orange meditatively and held it up for Sarek. "So much for surviving off the land," she said, with a certain arch criticism.

Sarek frowned at this slur against Spock and his following of Vulcan tradition. "He cannot have time to forage for food, do his schoolwork and also travel up and down the mountain to and from the Science Academy every day," he said, exasperated. "It is not that I disapprove that he is bringing food from home rather than scavenging for it in the mountains. That is a logical choice. It is the type of food he is bringing."

"I know," Amanda agreed, startling Sarek. But then she continued, proving her reasons differed slightly from his own. "It's hardly adequate or proper nutrition for a growing teenager."

"Quite," Sarek said, relieved at least that she was on his side in this regardless of specifics. "And also the circumstances he has created that have led to these inadequate measures. These excursions have become overly frequent."

Amanda's eyes widened. "But I thought it was his inviolate right? Tradition and all."

"Spock has other duties and requirements. He is not a pre-Reform Vulcan whose only concern is survival. Ancient traditions are not the only factor meant to govern one's behavior. Modern requirements and conventions must also be considered as having their due. I believe the incidence of Forge trips has become excessive. Spock is possibly taking advantage of tradition."

"He's not neglecting his schoolwork though. That was your only concern before."

"No, but he is now sacrificing his health in a way that cannot be good for a still growing child."

"Well," Amanda said, brows raised in astonishment. "We seem to be in agreement on a number of things I would never have believed tonight."

"Let us ensure that we both communicate them to Spock," Sarek said grimly, "in a way he comes to fully understand and obey."

"That might be asking too much," Amanda said doubtfully. "Lighting striking twice, such as you and me agreeing on childcare? Well, there's always a chance for a miracle. But three times?"

"Spock will obey," Sarek decreed.

Amanda thought of her son deliberately heading out the gate in defiance of her and Sarek's request for an interview. "Are we speaking of the same boy?" she asked.

Sarek, in no mood to countenance levity, just shook his head and went upstairs. After a moment, she followed, glad that at least for now, Spock had a doctor's prohibition against immediately resuming his Forge trips. If he would obey that, she thought with some doubt, at least it would eliminate putting him and Sarek into direct conflict. Knowing how Spock bridled at her when she sought to curtail some Vulcan behavior his heritage allowed, she wondered how he would take it from his father.

"I'm going to check on him," she said, continuing upward as Sarek turned into their own landing.

Sarek paused, a fleeting irritation crossing his features. "Amanda, he is long past requiring such monitoring."

"Maybe I am not. I'm still going to check on him," she insisted.

"You will only waken him if he is asleep."

She gave him a look. "Then I'll wake him." She went up the stairs. After a moment, Sarek followed her. She went through the outer rooms of Spock's suite into his bedroom. Sarek paused at the workroom, expecting his son to wake, if not at her presence, then at his. Spock had never really learned to sleep through his mother's bed checks. But this time he neither moved nor spoke as Amanda entered, not even when she raised the coverlet over him and drew it higher on his shoulders. At that, Sarek stepped over to look down on his son. He had expected the boy to be feigning sleep, but he could see he was truly out, face drawn with shadows under his eyes. He had not really regained his lost weight.

Amanda tucked the coverlet more soundly around him, her face tender with love. She bent to kiss him, lips barely brushing the raven silk of his hair.

Sarek shifted slightly but let it go. He had no desire to speak and let Spock find both his parents hovering over him in a ridiculous emotional display. Sarek caught his wife's gaze and jerked his chin to the door.

She frowned at him but left. It was only when they were outside the outer door of Spock's suite that she spoke. "I don't want him to go to school tomorrow."

Sarek pondered that. On the one hand, it was unVulcan. On the other, Spock had been through a great deal. And it would give Sarek time to decide how to handle the situation with Council. "Very well."

She paused outside their door. "Are you coming to bed?"

He was weary, he reflected. And rest would be most welcome. But he had a number of things to consider. "I must meditate for a period."

She sighed. "Well, I'll read a little while and wait up for you."

Sarek turned back to her, heartsick in his own way and needing the answer, though he had asked and heard it before. He never had quite understood it. "Amanda. Why do you read books which contain no useful information and which you have previously read?"

"I've told you this before. It's relaxing. I like to read before I go to sleep."

"Would not meditation better serve your purpose?"

"I'm human, Sarek," she said, turning into their doorway, "Sometimes I need to turn off my brain, so to speak, and the outside world, and escape."

Sarek bridled at that. "Escape?"

"The cares of the day. Whatever," she said, and began to take down her hair. "That's why I read Jane Austen. After a day of cut throat faculty jealousies, and you'll never convince me that the Science Academy is entirely immune - And Vulcan snobbery, don't deny it; it does exist - And Federation politics, which have their own social knife work, blowing up into conflicts and even wars, nothing is more prosaic and soothing than the provincial eighteenth century social concerns that Austen obsesses over. And makes ironic sport of. I suppose I like it because it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my life. Or that in making ironic commentary of hers, she helps me deal with my own."

Sarek pondered that. "You wish to escape your life."

She took up her hairbrush. "Don't take that as a threat to our bond. I just need to remove myself from the world, for an interval, so that then I can deal with it with a more objective mind. Just like you do with your meditation."

"Not quite," Sarek said dryly.

"And there's that Vulcan snobbery again," she said, her lips twitching. "'Oh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' But that's not one of them, my husband," she advised him.

Sarek ignored the teasing. "You don't read Alice in Wonderland," Sarek ventured.

She was nonplussed at that. "Well, I have. I love it. But not usually before bed. Sarek, that book is full of logical trivia and satire."

"Satire…regarding logic," Sarek said slowly.

"Well, yes. Social satire, but also logical satire and puzzles. If you know how to interpret it. Lewis Carroll – well, that was a pen name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was the author - was a logician and mathematician at Oxford." She frowned at him. "I've told you all this before."

"If logic was his career, why then would he be satirical of its nature?" Sarek demanded.

She paused to consider that, hairbrush in mid-air. "Well, I suppose that was recreation for him too. He thought it would be amusing. And he was amused by it."

"You do not satirize your own work," Sarek said.

She stifled a yawn. "I suspect I'm not facile enough to look at it that objectively. And I don't have the time. Dodgson was a bachelor." She made a face. "He didn't have a Vulcan spouse and child to plague him. The life of an English Don, I suspect, was far simpler than that of a modern university professor, or even the wife of a diplomat. And the mother of that diplomat's son." She frowned at her husband. "It's humorous, Sarek. But it's an intellectual book, too. Why the sudden interest in Alice?"

"It is not my interest," Sarek qualified.

"Oh, not that again." She shook her head. "I didn't notice the book in his bed."

"It wasn't in his bed," he said.

"Wherever. Sarek, hasn't Spock proven his intellectual ability to you yet?"

"Nor is it of intellect that I am concerned."

She scowled at that. "Spock deserves some fun. Surely reading is an innocuous enough pastime."

"I wonder, my wife, how you can possibly conclude either."

She put the brush down. "I'd thought that once he made it to the Science Academy, we were going to stop arguing about these things? He's earned the freedom of the Forge, hasn't he? Well, I should imagine that now he's also earned some leisure time for himself when his over-tired brain needs a break."

"That is the purpose of meditation."

She stared at him. "So that's why you wanted to know why I read instead of meditate? It was because of Spock. Why do you reject any and every trait that my son shares with me? He's my son too."

"I do not reject them in you. But we have agreed Spock must be Vulcan."

Amanda shook her head. "No. You gave me all the logical reasons why Spock should be Vulcan, and I agreed that if he chose that, I'd go along. I don't go along with you damning him for a minor aberration like reading fiction before bed."

"He has other duties."

"Well, if he has fulfilled them, and it seems to me he's way ahead of your schedule, what is the harm in his taking a few minutes for himself? When he was younger, you argued that he hadn't mastered your Disciplines. Well he supposedly has, now that he's passed to the Science Academy."

"That is debatable," Sarek said.

She flushed, thinking of Spock walking out the gate, defying Sarek's order to attend him. "Sarek. I really don't want to fight tonight. Please."

He looked at her. "Nor do I, my wife."

"I just want you to hold me."

He looked over at her, a tear dropping from her lashes onto her cheek, and he crossed the room to sit beside her. She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her.

She looked up at him, blue eyes grave. "Tell me everything is going to be all right. I trust you. I'd believe you."

He thought of Council, yet to be broached with Spock. Of dealing with Spock's sudden illness and needs in a way that honored both tradition and his duty as a parent. And he had no words for her.

He kissed her instead, a distraction he suspected she would accept. And she turned into his arms and kissed him back.

And then he picked her up and took her to bed. Lost himself in her, as she did with him, touch turning to passion turning to fulfillment. A purely physical and emotional comfort that he gave to his wife and accepted from her in turn. The irony that he denied even the childish equivalent of emotional comfort to his son in his mother's touch was lost on him. Irony being somewhat, or at least at some times, beyond some Vulcans' ability to calculate and comprehend when it didn't fit their mindset.

Afterwards, when she was sleeping, he rose to meditate. Out on the parapets of the ancient Fortress, he looked up at the star field, up at the high pass on the Llangons, where Spock had his cave, the Alice book waiting there still, among all the signs of Vulcan mountain-craft.

He thought of Council's upcoming demands, and his uncertainty of how Spock could perform in the face of them. He thought of his wife's son, who had to be Vulcan in spite of his mother's heritage. His mind threshed the arguments. His heart pounded with the stress of it, fight or flight responses he suppressed with difficulty.

But the answers still refused to come.

To be continued…

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Note because 20+ page chapters seem to be too much for some online readers, based on the response to the last chapter, I've broken this one up into 2. So that adds an extra chapter.