Perrin was not expecting Sarek so early that morning; he waited against the door of her apartment as she was going out to a small French themed café near the United Earth Embassy run by two Vulcans with a strange obsession for France. They spoke to her in French and listened intently, ignoring their other customers and work, when she was convinced by them to talk about her home. Everyone else learned to go back into the kitchen and get out the refrigerated pastries themselves when she was convinced. Or when she was there at all. Perrin enjoyed going there often, they had installed gravity dampeners; she also could watch the medical staff come and go from the nearby Starfleet Medical clinic. At the same time the gravity dampeners attracted a large human clientele so she tended to take a table behind the door. No one really noticed her then.

But she enjoyed talking with Sarek; she wasn't expected to carry the whole conversation. She was relieved to finally see him after a few days of his being impossible to reach. His chief of staff refused to say why or what had happened at his meeting with the Algeans.

"Sarek?" She looked him over quickly; he appeared fine.

"Perrin; come." He replied. Seeing him in formal robes, she compared her own simple outfit with awkwardness. Is he meeting with the Algeans today, she wondered. Perrin had made sure he knew she wanted to attend as well.

"One moment." She whisked into her bedroom to change. Throwing on a loose cobalt blue dress, she smiled as she lingered over which scarf to tie up her hair with. She chose white scarf that hung to her waist, braiding her hair through it. Once it was laced around her head to hold away her hair and create a professional air, Perrin followed Sarek to his hovercar that rose over the city and towards a wide, empty section of Vulcan. It beat with extreme heat, a flowing landscape of lava folding over itself and shaping into something that would soon disband when another pocket of repressed heat burst up. The hovercar edged close to a cliff overviewing all of it. Perrin stepped out onto the cliff, confused, and wished she had remained in her lighter clothes since they weren't going to the embassy after all. She started coughing when she first took in some of the boiling air.

She held the ends of her scarf to her face to hold it off.

"Let us move to higher ground." Perrin nodded but stood in place, choking on the wind sweeping up the magma's heat to her so that she couldn't breathe at all. Sarek reached out and guided her along to a narrow platform that went up from the plains. She inhaled violently halfway. When she reached the peak, breathing evenly and drenched in clarity, she finally saw the alien beauty of the place.

"Sarek, it's wonderful."

"Many off-worlders have referred to this place as Vulcan's hottest tourist spot." She laughed, not bothering to explain the joke. She suspected he understood it more than he would ever admit to as he did not look questioning of her reaction.

Watching this place evolve into something new each second and without the aid of life humbled her somewhat. I do not matter here she sensed was the unspoken lesson of the place. She followed with her gaze to mouth of a lava stream cutting through the length of her field of vision. Above its source was her father. Perrin was slapped with a feeling of betrayal seeing him. She hadn't expected this and didn't suspect it was a coincidence.

"Sarek!" She turned to him in fury. He was unmoved.

He spoke bluntly, "Perrin; there are things I will never know about Amanda." She wasn't sure how to respond. He went on. "I did not ask them of her. I did not speak of them." He looked deep into Perrin's eyes. "I regret this error. I believe it has been long enough of not knowing for you and your father. But you may leave and I will not speak of it to him though that course would be unwise, illogical."

Perrin felt years of sadness fall onto her shoulders then and push her a few steps towards her father. He had not seen her but craned his shaking head to watch around him. Is he looking for me, Perrin wondered. She knew it would have been so; there was a look to her father's eyes she remembered from when he would return to France and would try to find Perrin and her mother in the crowds at the port.

She reached out for Sarek and felt his hand brush hers. Remembering Spock, she swiftly clutched it back to her chest. She admitted her pain at not being able to ask more of Sarek. Especially now.

Starting to walk forward again, she came across the embankment that parceled out the distance between them; her father wheeled around quickly. His shaking became worse but he waved off his caretaker who went over to stand behind Sarek with a hypospray in hand. Both he and she stayed behind as Perrin continued to her father who had started crying. Searching him for something, she couldn't find any of the hate in his eyes during his arrest last time they had faced each other. She sat down on the ground to lay her head on his knee and allowed herself to cry with him.

"I'm sorry. What I did then and that I didn't try to stay with you. To explain anything so you wouldn't have live in that house without me and mom." Perrin sobbed. Her father reached down to her and stroked her hair, ranking out the scarf that floated back to Sarek. He caught it and wrapped it along his arm.

"I love you. I love you." It was all her father replied and repeated for several minutes.

Though the embankment had separated them, it also kept the heat from blowing onto Perrin and her father as she finally looked up at him. His eyes watched her face happily.

"I wasn't sure Sarek would be able to convince you. I was certain you hated me though he said otherwise."

Perrin smiled. "He told me the same thing Father."

"I have been blessed with, with a good friend. And a better daughter; I didn't realize what you were trying to do then. I want to thank you."

"I ruined your career."

"No; it was not the right time, I—I was not doing what I did for the right reasons. Even more people than those colonists could have been killed. The Federation could have been forced into direct war with the Romulans. You were taking care of me as always." He sobbed. "I'm sorry for that."

"Please don't." She held his hands. "Please don't feel that way when I was just trying to make sure I didn't lose you too. I did everything because I was selfish."

They sat together for a little while longer, until the plains below began to spit up the ridge to where they were and Sarek and the caretaker had to come to move them away. As they moved Perrin fanned away her father's bangs and smiled.

"Your hair is like mine; I forgot."


There is still this lingering grief holding onto me but I will move it back, push it away from how it consumed me for two years. Two years lost to irrationality. I cannot go back, I will not. Perrin, you will soon leave; the investigation is almost over. I am not sure I wish it so. Pain. Two years with no one living in my home. Stay here and play for me. My Amanda; gone. Spock. But my work takes priority; it serves a greater need. There is no logic to grieving further.

Sarek listened to the caretaker as Perrin put Reynard to bed.

"Are you sure you know how to administer one of those?" the caretaker asked, though the words came to Sarek muffled by the thick floors.

"A hypospray was made to be as easy to use as possible, and I have used them before." She paused. "I've actually missed this sort of thing." The caretaker gave an incredulous snort.

"Trust me, you don't want to do this sort of work."

"I wanted to do it once." Came Perrin's response. After that was silence.

Perrin came down afterwards and stood looking across to Sarek with a quiet smile from the bottom of the stairs.

"Thank you Sarek."

"Family is important to Vulcans." He replied. Perhaps the belief was not entirely logical, he mused, but there were aspects of Vulcan culture that dated the Awakening and so escaped logic. He unwrapped her scarf from his arm and held it out to her. He noted her surprise as she patted her hair, running her fingers through it.

"I didn't realize. Thank you for that too." She reached for the scarf and Sarek noted he had not fully unwound it. Slowly weaning it off, Perrin tugged the end still caught at his elbow. He waited for her to smile at him as his wife had found such things humorous but she kept her eyes on the scarf.

"Do you require assistance to put it back in?" Perrin looked up in reply and gave him a thin smile. It was as unreadable as when they'd met at Tau Ceti. He did not understand. Did she not wish to reunite with her only living parent, Sarek thought . He had sensed that his understanding of her had been growing but this reaction eluded him. Perrin went over to the mantle and while studying the photos she spoke.

"You wished you'd known something about your wife; you said you'd had questions for her?" He nodded as Perrin twisted the scarf around her own arm absently.

"I think I'll be left with the same thing. He's suffering Sarek; I'm not sure how much time is left. As he slips away I feel this need to help, to change things that weighs on me. How has he been since I left—I think of that too. And I'm not sure I want to know how he has been all these years. I can't ask him."

"Then perhaps you should ask; to cultivate ignorance is not a logical action." Sarek replied. He found himself assuming she would smile then but still she didn't turn. Perhaps there is more troubling her, he mused. Her reflection in the glass of the picture frames on the mantle showed a distant expression. She picked up the photo of her, her father, and her mother outside, an older woman to the side of Reynard.

He went over to her and unwrapped the scarf from her arm. Running his hands through her hair, Sarek pulled it over her shoulders so that every strand lay against her back. He was uncertain as to how to recreate the effect that Perrin had had earlier, so he wrapped the scarf around the crown of her head and tied her hair between the two ends instead.

"Sarek?" She asked, confused. He walked to the other side of the mantle to face her.

"One should keep an orderly appearance to assist in the ordering of one's mind." He answered. Sarek noted a flush of red in her lips seeming to spread over her cheeks after he spoke. How strange, he thought. Studying her face, he wished for her understanding of Surak's wisdom; she'll smile once more then he mused. He had found a human, and especially Perrin, could do that and not loose something in the indulgence. The flush receded after a while and she straightened her back, drawing herself up a hint higher.

"I had also wanted to speak with you regar—" Sarek began.

"Oh before you go, Reynard was wondering why you were down in the clinic a few days ago." the caretaker interrupted him. She had come down and was moving over to the front door.

Perrin looked surprised and concerned, her mouth dropping slightly.

"It was nothing of concern."

"Oh; well we were there about half an hour and you were unconscious when I rolled him in."

"Just minor complications from an old wound." Sarek replied.

"I am not sure I know of any minor complications that would have someone unconscious for that long." Perrin interjected, her voice stern. Deciding it would be best to speak to her privately with the investigation still classified, Sarek saluted to the caretaker and motioned for Perrin to follow him outside.

"There was some scar tissue from an earlier surgery that was torn during a disagreement between myself and an Algean delegate." Sarek said as he walked towards his hovercar shaded under an artificial oak tree. Some leaves were scattered off, replaced quickly by a small replicator in the trunk, and brushed against his skin, their texture grainy rather than smooth. One lay on his shoulder that he brushed off as Perrin planted herself closer to him than she ever had. He stepped slightly back. She raised her head and stepped with him.

"Sarek do you not think it would be logical for me to know if the reason I am not being told about the investigation is because the Vulcan running it is injured?" She stated with a suggestion in her tone that she felt it was not open for debate.

"You exaggerate the direness of it; any injuries I had were healed that day. The rest was merely too much caution on Kavik's part."

"I do not apologize for my concerns; I need to know what is happening with you. "

"Only where relevant, yes, you are correct." He replied.

"That was relevant; you were assaulted by an Algean delegate—what if they had come after me?" He detected a slight pause at the end of her question as though she'd left off something. He ignored it.

"You already know to be cautious."

"And yet I would not have known how much so I needed to be; I wasn't even aware that they were coming that day." Like his wife would, Perin searched his eyes but pulled away from him as if conceding. He had seen Reynard do it before when he felt sure he had won an argument with the Tele XI inhabitants.

"You know I am right." She went after a moment to sit in his hovercar. He joined her. Sarek decided to consider her words but did not voice his conclusions. She would have learned from her father that a diplomat does not make overtures to being swayed, he noted.

He admitted in his thoughts that she was right, however; the threat had changed after their attack on him in a Federation building. Proceeding from that, Sarek had been harboring concerns that they might have had more information on the state of the investigation than he knew. They had seemed to be aware that he was involved though the Federation had posed him as simply the most appropriate person to handle their demand for an audience; from that alone, Sarek concluded they should not have tried to find data in his office about the attacks.

And as they left the oak tree and its thatched roof cottage behind, Sarek directed the driver to go to his niece's apartment.

"You are not incorrect in assuming danger from their visit, Perrin; I will have you stay with your father if that would be acceptable?" She was still watching the house as they fell away when he spoke; her eyes gleamed but Sarek could not tell what from.