Holography 1: The Catalyst

By

Pat Foley

Chapter 11

Amanda could have gone back to the academy after her meeting with T'Pau; it was still early afternoon. But since she had already cancelled all her afternoon classes to attend the matriarch, and she was too unsettled to consider teaching, she went home.

Home.

The house was empty. With Spock permanently gone, it seemed to echo with silence. She changed from teaching clothes. For the past few days she had, as if the weight of Vulcan had become too much, been wearing such casual Terran clothes as she owned around the house. Sarek was not so provincial that he seriously objected to what she wore, but she suspected there had been some underlying statement to him in her wearing Terran garb. Now she dressed in a light Vulcan house shift, suitable for a wife to wear in the sole company of her family, and left her hair braided but down, also suitable.

She was not sure herself, but it was a sign, a symbol. That at least she was willing to try to meet him halfway, make her share of amends.

Neither she nor Sarek had been interested in eating lately, but today she forced herself into the kitchen, and began resolutely to prepare a meal, ignoring the tightness in her throat. Something light. It was past time she and Sarek sat down together. If he chose not to, at least she would know where they stood on that. She set the table, and then went to the house computer, to retrieve the day's messages.

And one, addressed to her, was emblazoned with a Starfleet chevron.

With shaking fingers she hit the play button.

"Mother. As per your request, or more precisely your order," a ghost of expression in his voice told her that her son was lightly teasing her – that he at least was in good spirits, "I am hereby notifying you that I have arrived safely at my destination, and that I am well. I will confess I find Terra stranger than I anticipated, but interesting." His tone sobered perceptibly. "I have formally committed to Starfleet. However you may tell my-" he stopped abruptly, flushing slightly and then continued resolutely- "You may tell Sarek, if you wish, that I have prevailed upon my admittance conditionally so that there will be no press announcement of the same." He swallowed, and then nodded once, as if he had paid some debt. "I trust your receipt of this finds you well, Mother, and I bid you goodbye."

Amanda felt her eyes fill with tears again, and she took a shuddering breath. It took her several moments for her swimming eyes to focus, while the console played an irritating trill of notes seeking her decision to save or delete the message. "Oh shut up," she told it, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, and reached out blindly, only to encounter another's reaching past her. Sarek flicked the console on hold.

"Sarek." She scrubbed at her eyes again. She'd meant to meet him cool and collected, not red-eyed and in tears, with her nose running. Of course Sarek might have told her, once, when they both had a sense of humor about such things, that humans had no sense of timing. But now they were far from such lighthearted teasings. She wondered now how much he'd heard, and then realized with his hearing he'd undoubtedly heard all of it.

He stared down at her, his face grave and severe, unforgiving. But somehow, even that didn't compare to the enormity of Spock's first message. It was as if it hadn't been quite real to her. "He really is gone," she said, and humiliatingly, her tears came again, blinding her.

"Amanda." She felt Sarek's arms come around her, but somehow none of that mattered. She'd been numb for three days, but now her position came back to her. Her son's estrangement from his father, T'Pau's ultimatum, and Sarek…what would Sarek do? What would she?"

She got control of herself and pulled herself back from where she'd been making a ruin of her husband's council tunic yet again. "I'm sorry."

Instead of replying, Sarek's fingers traced the line of tears down her cheek, his expression still unforgiving. Unforgiving of her? "I can yet bring him back, Amanda, " he offered. It was threat and promise combined. And more, a tacit request, almost a plea, for her approval. For her support.

Her tears congealed, and she looked up at him. "No."

Sarek dropped his hand. He seemed about to speak, then he turned on his heel, his back still with disapproval, and left her.

After that, neither one of them were interested in an evening meal. Sarek simply didn't show. She couldn't have eaten either. Her head was aching from the tears she'd shed and from the tears she refused to shed. How was she supposed to make peace with Sarek, when they were so diametrically opposed?

It is your duty, T'Pau had said. And from a Vulcan perspective, the old woman was right. If she was going to stay with Sarek, she had a decision to make.

She had made a tacit promise to T'Pau. In some respects, she even agreed with her. Neither she nor Sarek could go on like this. And if she didn't stay, how could Sarek and Spock become reconciled?

Nor had she herself given up on Sarek or her marriage. Not yet. This was the worst blow it had taken so far. But they had survived rough times before, not entirely all through her own compromises. She felt she had to try.

She went looking for her husband, still not sure what she was going to say. She found him in his usual meditation spot. The lights of Shikahr still spilled jackstraws across the desert, the stars above bright and clear. But this time, Spock was far away in Starfleet. Was her son looking at the stars too? She wondered how difficult he found it, to meditate with all the familiar stars, all his reference points, all the guideposts of his past, swung around to a new configuration. Or perhaps it was easier. Underscoring his new life. Certainly it must be easier for Spock than for Sarek, who found all his familiar reference points unchanged, and yet whose life plans had been upset by a boy whom Sarek had completely underestimated.

She knew that Sarek knew she was there. So she asked, without preliminaries. "What did he mean, Sarek? No public announcement?"

Sarek didn't turn and she wondered if he was going to continue to resolutely ignore her, but then his voice came.

"As Vulcan has been diametrically opposed to many of their policies, Starfleet has long been seeking Vulcan involvement. It would be logical for them to make every effort for them to capitalize on what they can only regard as a political victory."

"He spared you that, at least," she offered.

Sarek said nothing.

"Can't you give him even credit for trying?"

He spared her a glance. "I will give him credit, Amanda, when the child returns, admitting to error, seeking forgiveness and guidance in recovering from this folly, and submitting henceforth to the strictest parental discipline until he has been judged trustworthy. I will accept nothing less."

Amanda shook her head at this classic stubborness. She also noted he'd used her name, not "my wife". As if he were as ambivalent as she was about their future. But he clearly was standing rock firm on his shattered relationship with his son. Three days of meditation obviously hadn't reconciled Sarek to Spock's behavior. He seemed unable to accept that he'd lost the iron hold he'd kept for 18 years over his child's life. He would only accept Spock back if the boy submitted to an even more encompassing control than that he'd just eschewed. Not likely. Spock was clearly enjoying the freedom and novelty of his current endeavor. But Sarek…

Vulcans are a warrior race, T'Pau's words came back to her, and echoed in her mind. Give him a battle, and he will fight you.

As Spock had done. Sarek would not accept anything now but his son's complete surrender.

Still she couldn't seem to stop herself from commenting. "That's harsh treatment."

"No more than his behavior has earned. The child will reap what he deserves in the fullness of time," Sarek said. "I can afford to wait for him to fail. As he obviously must. And will."

Amanda sighed at this. "I hope you're prepared to wait a long time, then, Sarek, because Spock has never failed at anything."

"That is a matter of debate."

She could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was not half as sanguine as he pretended. He wasn't just angry over Spock's perceived disobedience, he was terribly worried. As well as grieving. With a sudden flash of perception, she asked, "Was it so difficult for you, the first time you were assigned to Earth?"

His head snapped up to meet her eyes. "How do you—how dare you -"

Another thought occurred to her. "Or are you just afraid he's going to meet someone and fall in love, like-"

"Enough. You will not assign your ill conceived illogical, emotional motivations to-"

"Emotional is right. You are torn up with grief and worry and guilt. Why can't you admit it, recognize it? For once in your life, you lost control of something – someone – in a way that you can hardly conceive. Maybe you can't accept that yet. But there's one thing you can do. Stop treating me like the enemy. I'm your wife - the mother of our son for whom we are both concerned."

Sarek flinched as if the very mention of Spock was too painful to bear. "I… have …no… son." Sarek weighted every word. "None, Amanda. I have warned you before of this and you persist in defying me. You will not speak of him again to me. Ever. I will not have it."

"Your son - who you can't keep wrapped in cotton wool forever - because of your fears of your own perceived mistakes! Why don't you admit it!"

She knew better than to goad a Vulcan barely hanging on to his control, but she still couldn't seem to stop herself

Nor could Sarek. He pushed himself away from the parapet so violently he sent a column of ancient rock falling hundreds of feet to the desert below, green flame in his eyes. "Be careful, wife. I will tolerate this behavior from you no better than from your son. I have renounced your son, and I will hear no more of him. Continue this, and you will reap what you deserve," he took a step toward her, sheer power in every movement.

Uncowed, she threw at him. "Be careful of me, husband. 'I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other.'"

He crossed to her swiftly, but then he stopped, as if pole-axed. For a moment a sheeted expression crossed his eyes, as if even in the midst of his anger, her response had puzzled him, causing rationality to kick in. Then he tilted his head, and breathed out carefully. "Jane Austen." He said it in almost a normal voice.

"Emma, to be precise." She said coldly, trembling, inches from his fingers, and not knowing what she would have done. A moment before he'd been angry enough almost to kill her. If she'd run, he would have caught her, and if she hadn't. Oh, if she hadn't… But now he stood looking at her curiously, his formidable Vulcan anger somehow gone, as if it had never been. Even after all these years, she still didn't understand him, couldn't reconcile the odd juxtaposition of Vulcan passion, logic and control and she turned away fractionally, trying to find her own composure.

She felt him come up behind her, not touching. "Emma was nearly always wrong, as I recall." His voice was suddenly so normal, ironic, even amused, she found the entire turn of conversation unreal.

"It wasn't meant as a quote. Don't think you can draw any convenient parallels." She said coldly. She was still shaking in fury and trembling in a fear she refused to acknowledge.

"Never the less," he laid hands, very gently, on her arms, "my very human wife, your perceptions are incorrect," he turned her to face him. "I do not regard our marriage as a mistake."

"I was right, too. You are afraid."

For a moment Sarek tensed, as if resisting answering her. Then he relented again, though not without a visible effort. "Amanda, he is only a child. I had deceived myself as to how young he really is. He is not even ready for the teaching position he has been offered. A Terran school would be impossible in itself, though under certain controlled conditions I might accept something of the sort. But I cannot even consider allowing him to enter a Terran military organization. It is impossible. Unacceptable. It cannot be."

But he already has entered! She wasn't to rail against this blindness, but T'Pau's warning echoed in her head. She could not argue. For some odd reason, perhaps her throwing out a human reference in a very Vulcan argument, she had Sarek back, not the forbidding Vulcan warrior who had almost turned his back on their marriage. She understood now what T'Pau meant. Sarek would not accept her ambivalence toward him, nor her resistance. At least not in his wife. He made some small concessions to her humanity, a humanity she had inadvertently reminded him of in a critical moment. But if she was not going to rouse that implacable Vulcan temper again, her scope of influence was necessarily small. She substituted a plea for an argument instead. Her role, as T'Pau had hinted at. Warned her of. She didn't want to rouse that Vulcan passion again. And in view of Sarek's behavior tonight, she couldn't ignore that warning. She must necessarily eschew contention for persuasion. "Even if you are right, what logic is there now that he has joined, in making it difficult for him to return home if he chooses? Can't you relent now, Sarek? Isn't it logical to accept what has happened?"

But she had miscalculated. Pressed too hard, for he turned to granite again. "Do not ask me to accept such disrespectful, disobedient behavior. I will accept Spock as a son only when he refutes Starfleet and returns to the authority of his parents. Until then I will not discuss him further. Do not speak to me of him again. I warn you for the last time."

She sighed and bent her head, refusing to challenge him further. At least, for now, he would not relent, and she had as much chance of changing him as the wind to change the Llangdon mountains. Only time, and slow studied pressure did that. And to have that time, she had to stay with him. "You are stubborn, my husband."

"I am right, my wife. Furthermore, you agree with me."

She shook her head. There were limits to even her role as a good Vulcan wife. This was the mistake she had made the last time, trusting in her husband's promise to raise Spock as a Vulcan. She had not realized that the emotions Sarek allowed himself, he would not allow his son. She did not care what happened to her, and while she did not want her son in Starfleet either, she would not agree to Sarek's position regarding it. "No."

His hands tightened momentarily on her. She had, in that one refusal , called up the Vulcan again. "You are here, my wife." He looked down at her, her Vulcan clothing, her Vulcan styled hair, the way she stilled, unresisting, under his newly possessive, almost painful, grip. "You are here." He said it again, in a whisper, almost as if disbelieving it himself.

"Yes."

He drew a breath, and his shoulders relaxed, his grip loosened perceptibly. "And why, if you so disagree with me, are you here? My wife."

"Because I love you. Anyway." She admitted it readily, as one would confess a fault. And then she did something she had never done before. She dropped to her knees in ritual fealty, as she had done to T'Pau, and offered him the two fingered touch of bondmates.

It was all she could think to do. She could not fight him, not and have either of them survive. It was a promise, of sorts. She could not give him the unconditional, uncontested support he demanded. But there was a Vulcan marriage between them, and her human love. At least for now, it would have to serve.

For a moment, he stared at her, and she at him. Nothing in his culture allowed for a wife in league with a son against a husband. Nothing in his culture countenanced love as a motivation, or a basis for a marriage. And for the moment, she didn't feel love, but a sense of commitment more encompassing than love, if that could be true. For nothing in hers could really accept his total rejection of her child, or his expectation, near demand, that she follow him in that rejection. And yet she did love him, and she knew, given time, she'd feel it again. For the present, she was denying him his expectations of her as a wife, in order to fulfill a purely Vulcan need even more encompassing – and demanding. And, for a moment, she felt that he nearly rejected that offer as too strange to bear. But then he blinked, once in assent. "So be it, my wife." He offered her two fingers in the traditional Vulcan touch between mates. "So be it."

And then he drew her to her feet. "My wife, attend."

She followed him to their rooms, knowing what was coming next. A Vulcan wife did not deny her husband, anything. Standing before their wide bed, Sarek began to strip, looking at her almost challengingly. If she denied him in one way, he would see she didn't in others. A test, of sorts. It was his right. Her owns hands shaking, she turned away a little, untied the fastener of her long braid and slowly began to unbind her hair.

Damn it, feel something! She told herself. This is Sarek, after all. He's not going to beat you. Or rape you. But inside, she still felt the cold ice that seemed to have settled in since Spock's departure.

Sarek crossed over to her, turning her back to him. Even in Pon Farr he'd never made love to her with out a kiss, an embrace. But instead of taking her in one, his fingers moved to her simple shift, which her own shaking ones had yet to undo. She reached for the clasps as well, and then tensed, unbelieving, as Sarek simply shredded the garment from top to bottom.

As he picked her up and carried her to bed, a myriad of whispers filled her thoughts.

T'Pau: if you give him a battle, he will fight you.

How could I fail, she thought. I've tried so hard!

Voices of friends and family through the years, arch and askance over her marriage to a Vulcan:

Can you really - I mean, well, my dear, he's not human.

Close only counts in horseshoes, Mandy. He's an alien. Do you really want to risk the rest of your life with someone you can never really understand?

And last of all her dear son's voice, hushed and close to her ear, speaking of something too forbidden to discuss except in whispers: I suspect you might have given up something to stop him from his worst…

As Sarek moved to cover her, his face stony in determination, she bit her lips, thinking: He is punishing me for his own defeat at Spock's hands, and for my aiding and abetting that defeat. I could hate him for this. I have as much a right, as a Human, to hate him for this as he has as a Vulcan to do this to me. For what he has done to Spock, and what he is about to do to me. I could hate him for the rest of my life for this monstrous betrayal of all we promised each other. There is no biological imperative in this act, he is doing it out of spite. How dare he!

And yet that niggling of doubt.

What if what T'Pau implies is true – that Sarek would not have another? She loves him too. She wouldn't lie, not about something like this. If he does not resolve this breach, and he risks his bonding, in a way he can never recover from what will you feel through the rest of your life, even as his is cut short? You don't have to refuse him to reject him. He is not a monster, and he will know the difference.

Oh, no. She reached for her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him close through the first, untempered, deliberately cruel thrust, kept them tight and close, in spite of her tears at his continued callous use of her body. I will not let you do this to us, my husband. Not for all your temper and your stubbornness. I love you anyway, in spite of all of it!

Sarek paused, and then her drew back fractionally as if momentarily confused. She felt his warm breath, his lips searching through the tears on her face to find her own lips, and then he kissed her, as gently as he had just roughly taken her. She kissed him back, and pressed against him. This was no time for ambivalence.

And then they lost themselves, in what little comfort they could find in a part of their life that was as yet, still there for them.

To be continued...