A/N - More 'slow stuff that needed to happen' before what comes next.

Family Drama

Amanda sat up in bed that morning and heaved a deep sigh. Today was the day her mother usually visited every month to see Spock. She was glad that she had succeeded for the past three months in not getting into an argument with her toward the end of her visits. It was simply through the efforts of Amanda ignoring a lot of comments and pretending she didn't care she was being insulted. She was starting to want to learn how not to get offended at all at anything her mother had to say, but she knew that was nothing more than a pipe dream.

She finally stood up and went to meet the day. "Let's get this over with."

####

The Lady breezed in and doted on her grandson. The beginnings of their visits usually did go quite well.

"Grandmother, I wish to show you the new device that father has bought me to enhance my spatial acuity. May I go and get it?" asked Spock.

"Of course, little lamb, you can!" said his grandmother with a sweet smile.

He ran from the room a little too eagerly and Amanda couldn't help but think Hope his father doesn't run into him in that state.

"So, Amanda, how's your husband these days?"

She braced herself for whatever was about to exit her mother's mouth. "He's fine, mom."

"He's much more charming than I would have ever suspected just from looking at him in a photograph. Well he doesn't say much, either, but when he does speak, his words are very purposeful."

Amanda looked at her mother as if she'd grown another head. "Do you currently have a fever of some kind?"

Her mother laughed. "Oh, heaven's no! I just wish you'd found the same man in a Terran package, but I can't blame you for falling for him. Your father on the other hand," she said with a wave of her hand. "Don't get me started on him."

"Please, don't," said Amanda halfheartedly. She looked down at her nails casually as if surveying whether or not it was time for them to be filed. Then, she mentally counted to five, the time she knew it would take for her mother to start talking about how disappointed her father was in her choices—four, three, two, one…

"You know, Amanda, your father had such high hopes for you. And he's just so disappointed. He feels he's failed you, you know."

She wanted to roll her eyes but didn't. She tried to keep her language neutral. "I accept that."

"Do you really, Amanda? Do you know how much you've hurt him, how much you've hurt your entire family?"

"I'm sorry everyone's hurt," was all Amanda said as she was determined not to get into another fight.

"Well I don't care what your father says, I'm going to keep coming to see that boy every month! Everyone needs a nana!" she declared.

Amanda sighed tiredly. "You're right about that, mom."

Dana came in just then along with Maya. Both had a baby in their arms. They both knew Amanda's mother had come for a visit and wanted to take some of the heat off of her. "Hello, Mrs. Grayson, how are you today?" asked Dana.

She did a double-take. "Oh my goodness!" she said as she stood and hugged each young lady. "Such good Terran girls," she said as she looked between them. "What is it about these Vulcans that they keep trapping our good Terran girls?" she wondered, truly confounded.

Dana saw Amanda was about to say something and quickly handed over Temis to Mrs. Grayson. "Here. Take a baby!"

"And who is this little one?" she squealed as she looked down at the baby staring up at her. "Look at those Terran blue eyes!" she remarked.

"And his Vulcan ears!" Amanda laughed.

"You behave, you," her mother said with one pointed stare.

As she looked back at the baby in her arms, all three girls started laughing very hard. Maya adjusted Savon on her hip and be began to whine. "I think he's ready for a feeding, Dana."

"I'll send for Zurel."

"Zurel?" asked Amanda.

"He wants to be the one to supervise everything that goes into the twins mouths."

Amanda sometimes wondered if their security chief was overly paranoid, because he also checked Spock's food before he ate. But she was thankful for how thorough he was.

Just then, Turan entered the room. "Our child is hungry?" he asked as he looked at Savon. He then looked over at the other twin. "Temis is not yet ready for his meal?"

Dana giggled as she answered both his questions back to back, "Yes and no." Then she introduced him. "Mrs. Grayson, this is my husband Turan."

"Well, nice to meet you," she said charmingly as she looked him up and down.

Turan bowed from the head once, "Ma'am," he said. "A pleasure."

As soon as he walked from the room, Mrs. Grayson looked over at Dana with a knowing grin. "That, my dear, is one good-looking specimen."

"Mom!" said Amanda, shocked.

"I'm sorry, but I could break my principles for a face like that!" giggled Mrs. Grayson like a schoolgirl.

Maya found herself laughing out loud at the older lady of a High House swooning over the Vulcan. Savon was at least distracted temporarily by looking at her laughing face.

Spock returned with his spatial acuity toy, just then. Lady Grayson placed Temis on the floor and the infant crawled straight for Spock. The little baby reached up at Spock with his hand and Spock briefly touched fingers with the toddling infant and continued onto his grandmother.

Just then, Savon began looking at Spock insistently and going, "Hu huh huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"

Spock quickly stepped over to the other child and touched fingers with him. "He must have the same attention as his brother," said Spock as he looked at Amanda to clarify his actions.

"Spock, honey, you don't have to explain yourself to me," she said.

He nodded once and turned back to his grandmother. That little quality he had of explaining everything, she knew, stemmed from the fact that Sarek wanted to know his motivation for every single thing he did. It was just another one of those 'things' that pissed her off with her husband on a regular basis.

Mrs. Grayson remarked, "Well you might as well show me your husband, too, Maya. I want to know what you gave up your Terran ideals for."

Maya held in further laughter as she retrieved her PADD from a bag on her shoulder. Savon tried to grab it, so she gently placed him on the ground. The twins immediately found one another and began communicating in their own special language verbally and mentally.

Maya called up his photograph then handed her PADD over to the older woman. "Here. This is my husband."

Mrs. Grayson smiled up at Maya. "Well well. This one also has a nice face. And he has a tiny bit of facial hair. Makes him look devilish!" The three ladies only looked at one another. "He looks a little like Sarek. He's related to him?"

"Yes."

"Tall?"

"Almost as tall as my husband," Dana threw in.

Mrs. Grayson smiled at Maya again as she said almost conspiratorially to the girls, "I always did have a weak spot in my heart for the tall ones. That's what attracted me to General Grayson."

Zurel arrived then with two bottles. "The children are hungry?"

"Yes," said Dana. "Thank you for both bottles. The minute Savon sees Temis eating, he's going to try and take his."

Zurel nodded once at Dana and then exited the room.

Their attention was turned, quite quickly, to Savon attempting to take Temis' bottle. Temis began to wail as Savon smacked him in the head three times in rapid succession and snatched his bottle.

Spock went and immediately removed the bottle from Savon's hands and returned it to Temis. "This is not good behavior, Savon," said Spock as he held the infant's fingers.

"Yes," Mrs. Grayon threw in. "You're supposed to take it when no one is looking!"

The awful thing was, they knew she wasn't joking. Now Savon was wailing and Dana quickly stuck the other bottle into his mouth. Pretty quickly, the twins settled next to one another with their respective bottles. That quickly their feud was done as they nestled against one another and slurped contentedly.

"You know," Mrs. Grayson said with a sigh. "I don't care what their parentage is. They're just angels."

The three ladies looked at one another, halfway shocked.

####

"I can't believe this!" exclaimed Dana as she ran into the embassy's day room. They had been on Terra Prime for a little over a month with Amanda by then and they took their Saturday mornings together in the private day room Sarek had set aside for Amanda's usage. They usually just relaxed and drank coffee, swapped stories of what had happened the week before.

She turned on the mounted wall unit that they could access via their PADDS and keyed in the correct code from her PADD to call up the channel she wanted. "Look at this!"

Only Amanda had arrived, by that point. She knew Maya was most likely doing T'ai Chi with Shin and usually arrived about a half an hour after the two of them. "What's going on?" asked Amanda.

"This!"

"-and I know my Cassie died under suspicious circumstances," her uncle Ernest was saying in a special news report. He was surrounded by reporters from various news agencies from across the Empire.

"Mr. Demetus, are you implying the ambassador to Vulcan had something to do with your daughter's death?"

"All I'm saying is they conducted their investigation and it was ruled an accident, of course. Of course they're going to say that!" He charged on angrily, "I want the information from the investigation sent here and I want an independent investigation- a real investigation done by Terran officials. They'll get to the truth of this nasty situation!"

"Do you believe the ambassador will sanction such an action?" asked another reporter.

"Of course he won't," sniped Ernest Demetus. "Why would he? He has diplomatic immunity. He can just hide behind that!"

"What would be the motive for a Syrranite Vulcan killing…anyone?" asked an openly skeptical reporter.

"Alien sympathizing scum," Ernest said angrily and then spat at the reporter's feet. "My Cassie is dead, probably murdered in some bizarre sex scandal and you have the nerve to stand before me with that attitude? I'm done answering questions!"

And he was away in a flurry of anger and reporters shouting questions at him.

"What the hell?" Dana said, very angry. She cut off the mounted screen, shutting out the rest of the news report. "We made a deal! And he got the official transcript of everything, so why is he doing this now?"

"Dana, it's okay," said Amanda. "They're just words."

"Words can kill a house!" said Dana. "My family didn't wind up in financial ruin and lose its upper middle class status because of poor management. They lost it because a competitor lied about their product and the stock dropped out from underneath them and almost bankrupted them!"

Amanda sighed tiredly. "Don't you worry about this, Dana. Sarek will take care of it." She wiped her hands across her face and commented, "Makes me afraid to wonder what will happen next."

####

Sarek did not wait. He immediately called the Office of Terran Affairs to launch his own inquiry and facilitated the handing over of all documents from Vulcan to them. The official Terran investigation was on.

~#~

Months Before… Back on Vulcan

Amanda and Sarek's Time was finally through. Amanda had been put under observation in her desert home for a time and had been attended by both T'Niye and Mariana. It had provoked many questions in the young woman.

"Why does she have those injuries?" asked Mariana. It was not the first time she had seen such injuries. As a healthcare worker she was getting tired of receiving the answer of, "It is not spoken of," from whatever attending Healer happened to be on call. But this time it had happened to a friend of hers. And that answer was obviously about to exit T'Niye's mouth…

But the older woman paused. "You have yet to speak with Zurel," she realized.

Mariana was confused. "What does that have to do with my friend sitting in that room healing from-" she looked down at the MediPADD, "a broken clavicle, various cuts and scrapes, rockburn…really? Rockburn? How in the hell does one come across rockburn? A host of other injuries and an inflamed vulva? She has physical injuries consistent with being brutally raped, but she's got a stupid grin on her face… what the hell does that have to do with Zurel?"

T'Niye would not budge. "You would do well to speak with he who is your husband, and you would also do well to be careful of how you speak to me, young one."

Mariana felt something along the lines of shame. Not only was T'Niye old enough to be her great grandmother, but she was also Zurel's clan mother. And she was now married to Zurel. And that meant… "I'm sorry, Healer," she whispered. "I'm just afraid for my friend."

T'Niye paused a second. There was no use browbeating the young Terran. The woman was indeed very emotional and had been presented with something that didn't make sense to her. "Did Amanda seem distressed to you?"

"Except for a bit of pain, and thank goodness for pain meds, no! She looks higher than a kite. Keeps asking for Sarek, where he's at, what he's doing."

"Sarek is currently meditating. He will be in to see his wife within the next couple of hours. It is imperative that she rest."

"I agree," said Mariana.

"And it is also imperative that you go and speak to he who is now your husband."

"Oh, T'Niye!"

"If you insist on remaining bonded to him, it is only logical that you clarify the nature of your relationship. Many of the troubles I have observed in most marriages stem from communication issues. And do you truly wish to begin your marriage with a staunch lack of communication?"

She sighed and forced herself to calm down. She had to admit, "You're absolutely right."

"Then you will see him now," she said decisively.

"I'm on duty with you and-"

T'Niye took Mariana's MediPADD and scanned it. "As Amanda's chief Healer, I have given you clearance to depart now. As your clan mother, I am telling you to go at this moment."

"Yes, ma'am."

~#~

Zurel's heart beat faster. He was at the cottage he shared with Shin whenever they were back on Vulcan. His old partner was out with Maya at the time, so he had the place to himself. And Mariana was coming up the walkway. She looked nervous.

Before she could knock he opened the door and said, "I saw you approaching from afar."

She had to admit it was good seeing him…it was more than good, her heart was hammering a mile a minute and the mental connection between them was humming.

The door closed and there was an awkward silence between them as they just stared at one anthoer. "You have finally come to me," he said.

"You could have come to me," she said, full of attitude.

"Could I have?" he asked. "Perhaps you would have thrown more items at my cranium."

Mariana felt a zing of regret and shame. "I'm sorry I threw things at you. I was just shocked, that's all."

"I understood that. And as a result, I thought it best to wait until you came to me, until you were ready to discuss what it is that has happened between us."

She sat down on his very Terran couch and realized Shin must have been the one to buy it. "Look, I already decided some things, okay?"

He sat down and waited attentively. "Proceed."

She wanted to laugh, once again, at his very precise speech. "I decided that since you really couldn't help what happened, I mean who could have seen that coming, I've decided that I am definitely not angry with you about it. It wasn't your fault and I'm willing to move past that."

He admitted, "That is a relief to know."

She shrugged. "Um, the thing is I'm not quite ready to be married yet, but I always decided when I did get married I'm not getting divorced so- so I'm staying with you, but as far as I know until we consummate we're not like really really married. So what are we, like, engaged or something?"

He said, "It is often phrased that being betrothed in a marital bond without consummation is less than a marriage, but more than an engagement."

She sat back and placed her head on the back of the couch, exhausted. "So some strange kind of limbo. Okay. Fine. I'm okay with that. So now um, could you please explain to me what you and I have anything to do with what's happened with Amanda and she's sitting over there in her house looking like the poster-child for domestic violence?"

Zurel closed his eyes as if he had only just remembered something critical. "In all this time, you still do not know?"

"Know what?" she asked.

He actually put his head into his hands then and said, more to himself than her, "She will surely leave me now."

She didn't know why, but she was suddenly afraid. "Zurel, you would never hurt me like that, right? Right?"

He had to admit, he was shocked that not one of the other females, not Patricia, Amanda, Maya or even Dana had told Mariana about Pon Farr. "They are much more discreet than I gave any of them credit for."

"You're scaring me!"

He only looked at her and said, "As you should be."

She swallowed. "So just get to it. Just tell me. Do it now!"

He looked at her, face obviously full of dread. "May I say, before I proceed to tell you of our shame, that this is not to be repeated to anyone else?"

"All right, fine. What is it?"

Mariana was stunned into silence. Precious little stunned her into silence. Zurel was nervous. He had told her everything about the mating drive, about the injuries inflicted on all of her friends, about the intervention tech T'Niye had come up with. But she was still just sitting there and not saying a word. He checked their bond and saw that she was honestly in a state akin to shock.

"So your people have been able to keep this thing a secret?" Her mind couldn't get over that little fact. "So no one tells."

"Will you?"

She was repulsed by just the thought of betraying him. "Absolutely not."

"Does this change your mind about the status of our relationship?"

She admitted, "No. You can't help becoming a maniac, right? And if I don't help you, you'll die, right?" She wrapped her mind around that fact. "Well thank goodness for tech, that's all I have to say."

"I shall not have this happen to me for a few more years, yet…"

"Wow, really?" she asked, relieved. "So I have some time to get used to the thought." She breathed in and out, feeling more and more relief as each second passed. "Okay. I'll be okay."

"As to the consummation of our relationship-"

"I'm not ready for that yet, either!"

"I am aware of that fact. However, I will warn you, Mariana. If I am so inclined, I shall come and claim what I wish when I wish it. I will give you time, but there is but so long I can wait."

She gave him a cryptic grin. "Oh, I see how it is. You're going to be one of those husbands!"

"Clarify."

"The kind that gets his sex no matter what."

He could tell she meant to just tease, but he remembered his appetite with his former wife was borderline unnatural. "Yes."

"Oooh," she said as she folded her arms, her grin widening. "I knew you were hot for a reason."

His body language stiffened. "Continue speaking in such a way, and today shall be that day."

Mariana grinned, but she kept her mouth shut. "Let's go to dinner tonight. You leave soon, right?"

"Yes, I do."

"I'll miss you," she said, her grin turning sad.

"And your presence shall be acutely missed, my wife." He admitted, "It is not uncommon for a Vulcan couple to be parted, sometimes for years at a time, and then to reunite at some point in the future…"

"I guess it's easier to do that when you're bonded, right?" she remarked, not really looking for an answer.

"You may speak to me at anytime through it."

"I can?" she asked, delighted.

"Yes, you can."

"Then I will," she promised.

"And your dreams will become a thing to look forward to, I promise you that," he said, his eyes hot and devouring hers.

I married a freak! She thought happily.

Indeed, you did came the answering thought from Zurel as Mariana audibly gasped in surprise.