Perrin had spent the night after holding Sarek as he seceded control to his emotions falling into a circle of worried thoughts; about Sarek, about her father, about how little she knew of the progress of the investigation. She had ignored the pain in her aching muscles that would dissipate in the morning.

Throwing her suitcase on her bed, Perrin had tossed out the clothes to fold them as those thoughts weeded through her mind. At dawn she fell asleep on the folded and refolded piles categorized by style. Not knowing if Sarek was still in that room holding himself as his eyes swam around the room looking at nothing, she fluttered frustratingly between being awake and asleep until noon.

She decided to get up then but not to do anything of the things she wanted to do. She didn't call Sarek nor request her guards to take her to the Federation Embassy to get her father's comm channel; she went to The Vulcan Science Academy's Exobanty Museum and Arboretum and sat in the Jardin à la Française section of their Earth's Landscaping Techniques Exhibit. One of her guards mentioned it after visiting a, as he'd put it, strange café nearby. The owners went there often to meditate, he'd said.

When they'd arrived, it reminded her of the street by her loft in Paris lined by a grove of juniper trees that were always green but especially so under a pile of snow. That section of the exhibit felt like a tepid summer day.

Her walking through the garden focused her mind as she looked over the clean lines and symmetrical layout of the plants. There were also more Vulcans here than in some of the other sections she'd passed. I can see why they would like it, Perrin thought. It was orderly and controlled; she felt calmer herself being there and eventually was able to force some happiness onto her mind so she could really consider what to do next. I need to know how Sarek is doing, she decided looking into one of the two wide pools at either end of the garden.

His face appeared in the water like a vision.

"I had wished to thank you and to see if you were well." She did not face him right away.

Perrin watched his reflection; it was as composed, his stance as firmly graceful, and his eyes as devoid of irrationality as she'd ever seen them, as the picture from her holo-textbook of him. But there was a checked degree of emotion in his eyes she'd not seen before; it was an acknowledgement of something she could now recognize but didn't know how to respond to as she could with a human. But I must, she thought. She turned to him.

"I'm fine. Sarek?" Her voice was filled with concern and doubt she did not try keeping out. It was unsettling to admit but she felt she could trust him not to use her emotions as Valor once had. He waved to a few of his aides that walked around the room, subtly directing everyone else away from them. And though everyone was at a good distance, he still stepped in close to answer just above a whisper.

"A Vulcan does not normally speak of such private matters to those outside their family, or for some matters, outside their self. But once known, it would be illogical to not acknowledge that." He hesitated for a moment and studied her face as he considered his words. "You have seen the two years of emotion I have worked unsuccessfully to suppress. I denied to myself that my efforts were unsuccessful and was forced to observe my failures yesterday." He looked beyond Perrin, "I give you my word that you shall not see me in that state again."

She unconsciously reached out as if to hold his shoulder but remembered Spock's words.

"If it would help to ease your mind, you may." Sarek gestured at her hand.

"Is that all?" Asked Perrin gently, surprised that he would allow her to for just her sake. She reached out her hand without an answer and laid it briefly over his arm, withdrawing it as his aides and her guards passed by the pool they both stood over. It was a comfort; she felt her hunger for someone to trust in that brief touch increase.

The guards and aides had moved back when Sarek had finished speaking to let people wander through the garden again. For a while, Sarek and she strolled through the Arboretum. To the end of the landscaping exhibit and onto the Tree Savanna Biome Exhibit she did not see any other exhibit as crowded as the Jardin à la Française, not that any really were. She looked over a few of the blooming acacia trees in the Tree Savanna Biome Exhibit and was drawn closer by the look of the buds and the few flowers that had already appeared here and there on the branches, while Sarek went over to a small bench and reached down.

Once she'd finished taking in the exhibit, she followed around to where Sarek was flipping through a book that she couldn't quite make out until she leaned it to read the page he was on. Chapter 13, Common Medicial Herbs and their Effects on Different Species was written at the top of it. She froze. It was a book she remembered from the man who'd wrote it: Dr. McCoy. She hadn't thought of him for years; he was in another block of memories she'd stacked away in her mind, related to Valor and her father, resulting from that pain. She'd decided to play violin after then. Those memories were pushed further forward in her mind as Sarek went through a few more pages. She closed her eyes when he drew a finger across one of the sentences: Though the Vulcan body is quite adaptable it does have its weak points.

Seeing Starfleet Medical from the shuttle; Dr. McCoy's first lecture as he sat through most of it from his weak joints; going to pick up Safik from the Vulcan Embassy, answering his questions, watching him slip away into unconsciousness; the vastness and degree of accommodation of Starfleet Medical's morgue; the heat it took to cremate a body and the feeling water evaporating off her cheeks as it rolled down in the heat close to the door of the furnace—memories she'd kept away by giving up on being a doctor.

"Perrin I really don't think this is Pon Farr! Just take a look at what I found. I know it's rare these days but it could be Trellium-D poisoning."

"Just keep administering the treatment until his wife arrives."

Sarek flipped back and closed the book. Another Vulcan then came into the exhibit and to the bench. He looked down and then to Sarek who held out the book.

"Is this yours?"

"Ambassador, sir. Yes; I thank thee for guarding it."

"I cannot say that was my intention; your thanks are not needed." Sarek replied. The man gingerly took the book and bowed his head and he left, never fully turning away from Sarek as he did so. Perrin laughed hollowly as he knocked into one of the acacia trees, not seeing it the way he was facing. The Vulcan bowed again and continued away.

"You are familiar with that book." Sarek stated. Perrin did not try to evade the question, feeling that he already knew her answer. She could not evade it after coming to understand him as she now did.

"I make it a point not to think of it but yes." Said Perrin firmly, but with hints of her sadness at confronting something she tried as hard to forget as her father.

"Why?"

"I realized that something that kept me from being blindsided also caused someone to die when they should not have. "

"Patients often die." Sarek replied.

"But I didn't trust anyone's judgment but my own. Even McCoy's; especially the other interns. And he died because of that. Because I was stubborn, because I couldn't trust someone else to save him." She rustled some strands of grass, letting her regrets pour out in front of him.

"I still wish to go back and continue, but not the way I am now."

"Stubborn would be an incorrect descriptor based on my observations. Perhaps single minded. I am certain you would have made a satisfactory doctor." Perrin smiled thankfully at him but the pain had burrowed back just a bit. It wasn't gone, she suspected it wouldn't ever be; she felt wistful hoping his prediction could've been right. She allowed herself to hunch over and drop pretense altogether when he quirked an eyebrow. His face was curious, untrusting of her smile. As I would be, she knew. Perrin was grateful to sit there bowed down for a while, allowing some of her feelings to air out, and more so by the effort Sarek would have to expend to stay with her as she did.


After Perrin left, Reynard messaged to ask where Sarek was. Sarek stayed behind at the Arboretum to speak with him, meeting at the Jardin à la Française but leaving quickly as Reynard began to tic in distress. "It isn't home." he'd muttered as his caretaker wheeled him out. Sarek and she decided to take him to the Andorian Underground Lakes Exhibit; too alien from Terran environments to elicit an emotional response, Sarek noted. Staring down to the waters that bubbled up from the red rocks of the basin of the lake, he found The Vulcan Science Academy's efforts to recreate the phenomenon were satisfactory. Except for the veins of blue minerals pulsing brighter with the bubbling heat Sarek detected no missing details in their recreation when comparing it to his own memories of diplomatic missions there.

"Could you record her playing? All I have is, uh," Reynard shifted through a few data chips and showed them to Sarek, "These that Matty got for me at some of her Starfleet performances. Admiral Dackett's retirement, the Archer Memorial opening, and this—" Sarek cut him off seeing the man starting to shiver violently.

"I will call for your caretaker."

"NO! Sit!" Reynard commanded. Sarek noted that his shivering was gone again as he shouted. He did not sit, but he did not call for Reynard's caretaker. She was looking at one of the small lakes full of Andorian water lilies with a few of his aides to allow him privacy with Reynard.

Before Perrin had left he recalled her inviting him to his niece's apartment to play for him tonight; I will use that as a cover, Sarek decided.

"I believe I can manage to do so." He stated; Reynard smiled in response. It appeared very like Perrin's as he answered yes to her invitation. It showed the trust Reynard still doled out and Perrin was slowly granting Sarek.

"You could accompany me tonight." Reynard waved away Sarek's suggestion.

"No, no, no. I cannot do that to her. Just let her decide whether she wants to see me."

"Your symptoms are getting much worse Reynard. I estimate that you will die sometime in the next 3 months." Responded Sarek.

"And that is my concern; not yours." Though his tics had returned, Reynard's voice was clear.

Sarek did not intend to give up.