The first sensation that nudged into Sarek's consciousness was the smell of burnt hair and antiseptic. Quickly following that was a relentless throbbing in his left parietal region. He cracked open heavy eyelids and squinted reluctantly into harsh fluorescent light.
Hovering above his face was a dirty, bloody woman with blue eyes. He had only ever seen this eye color in Humans and Andorians, but the green blood smeared across her face and neck was unmistakably Vulcan. Fascinating. She smiled radiantly at him and Sarek blinked at the brightness.
"Good morning, sunshine," she whispered. "Welcome back."
Sarek sat up with a jolt. Where was he? He whipped his head around and immediately regretted the movement. Pain erupted in his skull, and he squeezed his eyes shut with a groan.
Gentle pressure against his chest pushed him back onto soft pillows. "Easy," the woman said. "You have to chill out or they'll sedate you again." He squinted one eye open. The woman's face was very close to his own. Her eyes were vibrantly blue with flecks of brown. "Are you going to be still?"
Sarek reached up to palpate his aching skull and felt gauze bandages encircling his head. The disorientation was beginning to dissipate. He saw that he was lying in a hospital bed that was inexplicably parked to one side of a bustling hallway filled with medical personnel. Perched beside him on the bed with her legs dangling over the side was an unknown human woman. Her face was streaked with dust and Vulcan blood, and her sleeveless garment appeared to be in fact soaked through with dried blood. Presumably, his. "What happened?" he rasped. His throat felt coated in sand.
"Here, I bet you'll like this." She reached down to the floor and produced a paper cup and a plastic pitcher of water. All at once, Sarek realized he was thirstier than he had ever felt in his life. Ignoring the cup, he grabbed the pitcher and gulped it down greedily until he ran out of breath. The woman was smiling at him when he gasped for air. "I know, right? That dust is killer. I almost kissed the fireman who gave me some water." She winced and eyed him askance. "I mean, I'm exaggerating, obviously. I know you guys think humans are wildly promiscuous, but we really aren't." She giggled and added, "Most of us, anyway."
Suddenly feeling disoriented again, Sarek busied himself with sipping more water.
A shadow seemed to pass over the woman's face as her smile fell away. She sighed heavily and her chin drooped to her chest. "Sorry, I'm rambling. I think I'm avoiding telling you what happened." She paused, and then placed her hand on his forearm. He was dimly aware of how oddly cool her hand felt as a wave of alien sorrow and sympathy surged through his mind. "There was an explosion at the Vulcan embassy this morning. Some people died. And a lot of people got hurt." As she spoke, he felt his body become very still. "They're saying it might have been a bomb."
Sarek could only stare blankly at the woman as he tried to process this information. There was a bomb. And people died. Which people? The ambassador? Sarek's mind began to cycle rapidly through possible consequences of a successful assassination. Seren would likely assume the ambassadorial position. Policy reversals would quickly follow…
His thoughts stalled when a fresh wave of sorrow flooded through the telepathic link. Sarek quickly pulled up his mental shields; the human woman was still touching him. "I'm so sorry," she said softly. He watched with mild horror and fascination as one of her eyes secreted a drop of liquid which rolled down her cheek. Intellectually, he understood the human phenomenon of crying, but it was disturbing to witness in person. She squeezed his arm. "It's just awful."
Before Sarek could figure out how to remove himself from this uncomfortable emotional display, a pinging noise prompted the woman to jump up and pull her PADD from her pocket.
"Sorry," she said distractedly as she swiped through her device. "I couldn't find yours. Fuck." She exhaled deeply and flopped backwards onto the bed by his feet. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Sarek had become somewhat used to unexpected human behavior during his short time on Terra, but this was unprecedented. "Miss?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you … well?"
"No," she moaned. Then, she drew herself back up into sitting position. "Sorry, yes. Compared to you, yes, I'm fine." He stared at her, nonplussed, and she explained further. "It's just that I found out my job tonight got canceled, and I really needed those credits to pay my water bill." She sighed. "I'll be okay though. Compared to what you're going through, this is small potatoes."
"Small potatoes?" Sarek repeated, certain that he had misheard her.
She laughed. "That must sound so funny to you. It's just a phrase that means 'not really important.'" She patted her dusty brown hair and inspected a stray lock that dangled near her face. "It doesn't matter anyway," she said with a sigh. "I don't have a way to wash up, and they would have sent me right home if I showed up looking like this."
"Miss," Sarek said, sitting up straighter and relieved to be back on even conversational footing, "I believe you saved my life today. The very least I can do is pay your water bill."
She paused in twirling the lock of hair to look up at him. "No way am I taking your credits. I did what anyone would do in that situation."
"I assure you, not everyone would," he replied, thinking of a few of the more unsavory individuals he had encountered during his brief stint in diplomacy thus far. "Please, permit me to return a favor."
She hesitated. "Well … okay, I guess. I could really use it. You don't have your PADD, though," she pointed out.
"It is no trouble to input my information manually into your banking application."
The woman blinked at him. "You seriously have your account and routing numbers memorized?"
Sarek knew better than to say anything about humans' inferior memory; it was one of the first lessons he had learned after transferring from Vulcan. He merely held out his hand until she placed her PADD in it. He quickly entered his information. "How much is the bill?"
She hesitated. "Um …" He watched with interest as her cheeks turned pink. "Six hundred credits."
Sarek quirked an eyebrow but made no comment as he entered the amount into application. Perhaps humans simply required an exorbitant amount of water for daily life. They were, after all, practically an amphibious species when compared to Vulcans. "Thank you for allowing me to repay you," he said as he handed the PADD back to her.
Before she could respond, they were distracted by a medical scanner being waved between their faces. The harried human doctor holding the scanner nodded at the readout. She addressed the woman. "Still agitated?"
She cleared her throat. "Uh, no. Sarek is quite calm now."
Sarek wondered at what point she had learned his name, and realized that he did not know hers. However, he turned his attention to the doctor, who was glaring at him. "Good," she said curtly. "I'm discharging you. Brain waves are all normal now. Mild concussion. Lacerations should heal without complication. Over-the-counter analgesics will do." She pointed to the exit sign at the end of the hallway. "Now, get out." When they merely stared at her, she raised her voice. "Get off my floor! I need that bed now!"
Wide-eyed, the woman scrambled off of the bed and beckoned Sarek toward the exit. Having no memory of how exactly he had offended the doctor, and not wanting to offend her further, he hastened to follow. Dodging busy nurses, they made their way down the hallway, which was lined with more hospital beds holding injured Vulcans. Outside the hospital, the scene was just as chaotic. The flashing lights and blaring sirens of a dozen emergency vehicles quickly brought Sarek's headache back to full force.
The woman turned to him. "Do you need help getting home?" He looked down into her wide blue eyes and for the first time noticed red blood vessels standing out prominently in the sclera. The skin below her eyes looked purple and her frizzy hair had mostly escaped a drooping topknot. She looked exhausted.
Sarek straightened up and clasped his hands behind his back. "That will not be necessary. While I do not recall this morning's events, it is clear that you have already helped me enormously today. I can only hope that I treated you more kindly than I evidently treated that doctor."
"Don't worry about her," she laughed. "She's just pissed because you tried to punch her. It wasn't your fault though. You had a head injury and she was being a total jackass. And to me, you were a perfect gentleman the whole time." She smiled brilliantly and stuck her hand out in front of him. "I'm Amanda, by the way."
He looked at her hand and realized she wanted him to clasp it in the Terran fashion. Sarek supposed he could make this concession to her culture since she most likely saved his life today. Shoring up his mental shields, he took her small, cool hand in his and gave it a little shake the way he had seen other humans do. "Thank you, Amanda. Live long and prosper."
He was surprised when she knew the traditional response. "Peace and long life, Sarek." She gave a little wave and walked away into the afternoon sunlight.
Sarek watched her for a moment, then looked north toward the embassy. The sky was smoggy and gray in that direction, but he did not see any billowing smoke to suggest an active fire. His superior would probably expect him to report as soon as possible. Between his pounding headache and the two emotional humans, Sarek was in dire need of meditation, but duty called.
He trudged toward the embassy complex.