Sarek left Master Sakal'la and returned to his ship. Ascending slowly, he watched the older Vulcan as long as he could before increasing speed to escape the planet's atmosphere. He looked out at the stars, and from visiting the monastery often in his youth, he knew the speck that was Vulcan from the hundreds of points dotting the void. Also imputing the data for his return as he searched, he paused. There was a drawl over the bridge; the screens that showed engine performance were beyond Sarek's noticing, and what was not directly in front of him slowed.

He collapsed into the command chair.

"Computer, avoid collisions and proceed to any region of space that meets these specifications: it will be 3 light years from any astronomical objects and it will be outside of the normal traffic areas for star ships."

It was sometime before the ship stopped, during which Sarek quickly checked the plasma injector again to insure it sat securely in its housing and disengaged the communications receiver; he then returned to the bridge. The viewscreen showed that the ship was stationary.

Stopped in a region of space with so little, Sarek still felt there were stars that encroached by the virtue of being seen at all. He faced towards a cluster of dark spots, and recalled the darkest region of space he'd ever experienced: when a Federation galaxy class ship had not been updated on the existence of a rogue black hole approaching their path. For a brief moment then in his assigned quarters as an aide to the previous Vulcan ambassador to Earth, he could look out and see nothing. The other crew, human, had reported the phenomenon earlier but Sarek and the ambassador had still seen a few distant stars, there vision naturally much sharper. In his quarters, in the pull of the black hole, Sarek had stared into forever without understanding what his eyes perceived, the power on his deck had gone out, there were no more light sources, and he felt a truer darkness than he would ever experience following it. And then he had dangled there within the thin protection of the federation's largest class of ships over the edge of forever, and in looking around himself he found no shelter. It was brief, but he had formed a deep insight into his katra then. He had married Amanda a half decade thereafter.

Sarek commanded for all the artificial lighting on the ship to shut off; it did and the stars brightened while behind him the ship became featureless. He spoke his thoughts aloud.

"Perrin, I believe Master Sakal'la was correct. Your presence would calm that unsettled portion of my mind. But I am uncertain that course would be wise for you; I have spent almost the whole of my life in service for others. I cannot turn away from considering you in this. I will not and this past month has shown such a course, was I to pursue it, would cause you great distress. Yet the choice is not mine to make. I should not deny you that though I sense you might choose without logic."

He turned deeper into himself as his eyes became unsettled by the dark. His thoughts faded as well; he was left with vague sensations, an overview of his emotions. They were contained but he grazed them and felt their fierceness and the conditions that created those emotions: Amanda's death, leaving Perrin, his estrangement from Spock, the death of Kirk's son, his father's cold disappointment at times, when he became ambassador to Earth, when his children were born, when Michael rescued him.

He focused on his life with Amanda. He turned over Perrin's expressions when he came to his niece's apartment to listen to her play. He recalled meeting her. He deliberated.


"I've seen Ambassador Spock do something similar but he was injured but what we're dealing with here I couldn't say." Sarek heard the voice of Dr. McCoy as his mind resurfaced.

"He's not asleep?"

"Listen here; you think I've been practicing medicine for going on a century just to not notice when a man's sleeping?"

"Sorry doctor." Came the reply.

Sarek pulled himself out of his meditations and addressed the room. Dr. McCoy held onto the edge of the biobed Sarek lay on and was startled as he rose and stood next to the old human with ease.

"Doctor; I seem to have caused you and your team some concern. Forgive me." McCoy responded with laughter. Hobbling out to the hall, the he waved Sarek to follow him.

"I'm assuming you were just pulling the wool over our eyes. You don't really need any help?"

"I do not."

"Well next time don't turn off your communications and make it look like nobody's home; the captain picked up on you while he was shuttling me to my next speech. Had a heart attack when scans showed it was you."

"Have you not retired?" Sarek inquired, moving to the other's left as the traffic in the halls picked up passing the mess hall and moving the conversation away from him.

"A doctor might retire for a few days but we're a restless bunch. I still have a lot to teach these youngsters."

"Indeed."

As they passed by an opened Jefferies tube, Dr. McCoy held his hands behind his back, eyeing Sarek as he crossed his own hands in front of him. In thought, he rolled on his feet; Sarek did not understand the gesture entirely but he had become familiar enough with the human to know he had something to say when he did so. The motion was unsteady compared to when he first knew him.

"I meet someone rather interesting at a dinner I just came from. You're actually keeping me up, I'm running on one hour of sleep."

"Then we will speak at a later time." Replied Sarek.

"With all due respect sir I believe I want to tell you now, while it's fresh. I saw Perrin. We had a long chat, she and I." McCoy said scandalously.

Sarek did not indulge him with a response though McCoy did not need one. He opened his mouth to speak when an ensign holding up a tray of test tubes, skirting around them towards the mess hall, tripped over Sarek's robes. She slammed the glass against the floor, everything shattering, the tray splitting in two. Under her flames erupted and spread over to where Sarek and McCoy stood.

He backed away, putting his arms behind the elderly human and holding him up from the flames. Years of discipline numbed the burns he noted forming on his feet from the heat. He hooked his right leg around the ensign's waist and hopped away from the fire, trying to keep McCoy steady as he did so. The flames followed, clinging to her vest. To escape them, Sarek went up to a vacant room and placed McCoy in it, shutting the doors. He now held the ensign as he had McCoy, sprinting with her back to sickbay, pointing several panicking crewmembers to McCoy's location and ignoring the burns now forming in his hands and on his chest as he held her close.

"Son, I can run faster than you're going!" He heard McCoy berating someone as he reentered sickbay, placing the ensign on the biobed he had vacated earlier. Now alerted by her screaming, the medical staff rushed to her. Without thought, Sarek reached for the melding points on her head.

Unchecked pain erupted over the whole of his back. But he did not scream as she had; he contained it and sent out his own calm into her mind. The biobed showed her heart rate slowing to normal, her breathing slowing similarly. Her screaming stopped and she held his eyes with Vulcan evenness. She looked at him with his own expression. The nurses administered a sedative that took immediate effect.

Lowering his hands and letting go of her now pain-free mind, Sarek moved back to where McCoy had lowered himself from one of the crewmember's backs. They looked between McCoy and Sarek timidly before heading back out into the hall. Soon McCoy had Sarek on another biobed. He grabbed a cellular regenerator and directed one of the nurses to take off Sarek's robes. Noting their hesitant approach, he waved off the nurses and proceeded to remove them himself.

The synthetic fabric had fused slightly to his skin, and he saw the ensign's vest had too to her back as he glanced over the room while sliding off the pendant around his neck last.

He has remained quite lithe, Sarek mused as McCoy waved the cellular regenerator around him after his robes had been removed, the burn fabric and skin flaking off as McCoy went. Faster than the ensign, Sarek was healed. But Sarek stayed, lying on the biobed until the medical staff drifted away from the ensign and he could clearly see her back regained the smooth, pink appearance of healthy human skin. He turned to McCoy, who chuckled a bit.

"Doctor?" he asked, curious.

"Aww, she'll be fine; softy just like your son. They keep you on your toes, keep you young."

"Who?"

"Just other people Ambassador." McCoy picked back up their earlier conversation. "Perrin said she has a show going every Friday out in Paris at that opera house. It should be Thursday night there right now." He added suggestively. Aware of the doctor's intentions, Sarek nodded and got up to leave. McCoy held out a hand over his chest and though there was no force behind it Sarek stopped. He pointed to a row of tricorders. Sarek rested back on his elbows, knowing it would be best to concede. He had been under the old doctor's care before, he and his son; Sarek would be strapped to the bed with no ceremony or consideration if he moved as he was not an ambassador but a patient here.

Spock.

Sarek spoke without thought. "Doctor, did my son find his time on the Enterprise satisfactory?"

McCoy hesitated with an answer. He started to roll on his feet again as he had in the hall before the accident.

"Well its not as if I'd have any way to tell with that poker face of his." McCoy mulled over this. "No, I think he did. Yeah, I'm certain of it."

"Then his remaining on Vulcan as most do would have been a detriment." Stated Sarek.

"Well I don't know about that. I think he just went where he wanted to be. He's stubborn, but I've never known him to be deliberately stupid so I'm sure he thought it all through." McCoy, laid down the tricorder, throwing a last comment over his shoulder as he went to look at the results on a larger screen. "And if this is some roundabout way to talk about Perrin, she's not stupid either, just stubborn. Hell, she's giving you two a money for your money."

Sarek put his focus on his earlier meditations, ignoring McCoy's comment.

I am not certain I wish to retire, Sarek mused. He studied his green veins, highly visible along the insides of his arms as with most Vulcans of his age. He did not wish enter a monastery as many as old as he would. The Legarians, the Klingons, whomever else in the galaxy the Federation had yet to encounter and would by necessity require some degree of diplomatic relations with; he wished to continue the federation's efforts in that regard. But at what cost, Sarek thought.

McCoy returned with the results. Scolding him for Sarek's earlier rescue after noticing recent re-tearing of his heart tissue, McCoy allowed him to dress. By then the ensign was somewhat more lucid. She glanced over at Sarek and waved enthusiastically, falling off the biobed as she did. Still dazed from the pain reliever, she threw up on the floor and crawled toward him and McCoy, weaving painfully. The medical staff rushed to pick her up.

"Thanks, thanks, thank you sir!" she yelled to Sarek. Not certain how to address her, he decided to nod.

"One does not thank someone for doing what is logical." He replied. As she threw up again on the Chief of Medicine who helped her back up, Sarek hypothesized it was unlikely she understood him or her own actions.

"Strange she acts in that manner considering her grievous injuries." Mused Sarek. McCoy huffed in amusement.

"You don't join Starfleet hoping to play it safe. They live for this like a fish lives for water."

"She was in quite some pain; I melded with her to reduce it before the hypospray began to affect her." Sarek countered.

"Yeah, and she also got to experience the mind of one of the Federation's most beloved members." McCoy spoke with a sarcastic tone that hinted sincerity.

He continued. "Ambassador, she's a grown lady, young yes, but not so young she doesn't know what she's signing up for, doesn't know what she wants out of life."

Sarek considered McCoy's words. He concluded he was not speaking entirely of the ensign alone.