Epilogue: Mid-Summer
"I'm thinking of selling, Manda. The place is too big for me to keep up with anymore."
Amanda looked out over the lawn and at the two figures softly lit in impending twilight. Sooner or later she knew this day would come and she was prepared.
"Promise me you won't, Gran. Promise me if it comes to that you'll let me know and we'll buy it from you."
She turned to the older woman, grasping the hand that held tightly onto the porch rail, seeing the tracing of tears on the older woman's face outlined in the dying rays of day, "Will you promise me?"
Louisa turned to her granddaughter, tenderly brushing the younger woman's cheek, "Look at you, Amanda. You are the proper wife of a Vulcan Xcha'ale'at She gazed out across the stretch of the darkening lawn. The tall broad figure stood sentinel over a tiny one chasing the trail of lights through the air.
"These are my roots, Gran," Amanda assured her," No matter where I call home now, this is where I began. I want that for my children and their children. I want a place for them to know this is where Amanda Grayson was born and raised, and if they ever choose to return to Earth one day they'll have a place to call their own."
Amanda watched as her husband scooped up their young son, the better to reach the fireflies that grew bolder and more populous by the moment in the darkening sky. A long, graceful left arm extended for a landing, mimicked by a tiny right one. The figures turned and started to walk back to the porch.
"One day, Gran, one day I may have a daughter or even a granddaughter, and she may need to find someone who on some distant mid-summer night can catch a firefly for her," she laughed, moving toward the steps and her husband and son.
"Would you show your mother and great grandmother what you have caught?" Sarek's voice was gentle and coaxing, and the 2 year old held out his hand, a small light flickering like a green-amber jewel within his palm.
"Do you know what this is?" Amanda's voice filled with delight tempered by the needed control.
The small head shook, cradled in the crook of his father's neck, "Ous n'ai"
"In English, Spock."
The was a brief look of confusion in the small child's eyes, then the a light of understanding, "Fie fie. See."
"That's close enough," his mother laughed, and received a wide yawn in return, "I think that the day has caught up with someone, and it's time for bed."
"Let me take him," Louisa coaxed, "It not like I will ever get to see my only great grandson with any frequency.
Amanda smiled in response as his father gently lowered Spock to the porch. Sarek quietly whispered to the sleepy child, and in turn the small head nodded and opened his hand to let the captured insect free. Moving to his great grandmother's side, Spock allowed himself to be led into the house, glancing back at his parents for one last look.
"We'll be in a little bit to say goodnight," Amanda reassured their child, "You get into bed and get ready. Maybe you can ask Great Gran to read you a story from one of my old books."
"You're going to sleep in your mother's old room you are. And in the morning…"
The figures of her grandmother and son retreated into the house, her grandmother's comforting voice fading in the distance. Soon there was no sound but the crickets and with the last of the sunlight now gone the oak tree stood lit up in the finery of summer "fire light". Was it really only 5 years ago that she sat on these same steps waiting for her life to begin?
"Do you ever regret your decision?" Sarek's voice was a soft whisper, washing over her in a warm wave as they sat together on the steps.
She wrapped both her arms around his one, and rested her head on his broad shoulders, "Never."
She turned her face up to meet his and he bent down and kissed her briefly but tenderly. And as the gazed into one another's eyes, the fireflies danced above.
