Chapter 8: Disowned.
As predicted, the conversation with his mother and father is a disaster.
Spock blinks. Sarek and Amanda. He is now as disinherited as Sybok and has lost the right to refer to them as his parents. From now on, he is just another Vulcan. No longer is he the ambassador's son.
Any relief at the prospect of finally being allowed to fade into the background is drowned out by a tidal wave of pain.
His father, Sarek, he had predicted with almost eery accuracy. First, he had seemed to think that this was a prank - an illogical suspicion, really, since Spock has not performed pranks since he was 10 Standard years old, but Spock supposes that it is entirely understandable given the lack of context he had provided the conversation with. He had, after all, waited until a week before he planned to leave to inform the Vulcan Science Academy and his parents.
Sarek and Amanda.
Spock sighs. This will take some practice.
His mind drifts back to the moment Sarek realised that Spock's decision was no prank. The sudden assault of emotion through the parental bond, quickly snuffed out by the iron will of his father's - Sarek's - logic. The placid facial expression fighting against the occasional twitch that spoke of Sarek's inner struggle. The seconds that ticked by as he attempted to formulate a response, the barely calm questions that followed.
Amanda sitting down in horror, totally shocked by a decision that she had not seen coming. Her fear trickling through the bond, intertwined with the confusion that he had expected. Why is her only son, a pacifist, essentially running off to join the army?
Spock had flinched mentally at that thought. Not the army, no - an institution as respected as the Vulcan Science Academy, where he could explore and grow as a scientist without being confined to stuffy classrooms for the rest of his natural life. A place that promised him the opportunity to discover who he is, away from the oppressive expectations of a Vulcan society that he has so thoroughly disappointed time and again.
Once they had absorbed his intentions, it had only deteriorated from there. His mother - Amanda - had started fighting back tears. Emotional training runs deep, even for humans, especially for one in so prominent a position as a Vulcan ambassador's wife and a well-respected teacher. But she lost the battle eventually and had been lost to emotion as his father - Sarek - had started to lose control.
Spock does not wish to remember what happened next, but the memory is crystal clear. Along with a mastery of the Disciplines had come an eidetic memory, a source of pride for him in better times but now a burden. The blocking of the parental bond is still fresh, an almost gaping wound in his psyche despite his attempts to heal it with meditation.
The silence from his parents is almost deafening - never has he been so at a loss, so cut adrift.
Amanda had regained enough awareness and control to forbid Sarek from throwing Spock out of the estate then and there - the blocked bond seemed to have galvanised her where it had paralysed Spock. He almost wishes he had been thrown out - perhaps it would have been better for all involved.
Nevertheless, he is grateful, as it gives him enough time to wrap up his affairs on Vulcan and prepare for his transport to Earth. He immerses himself in this task, studiously impassive to Sarek's coolness and Amanda's pain. He moves perfunctorily through the motions of his life, a stranger in his own home, a planetary outcast with nowhere to go.
But he knows that this is the right thing to do. He will perform well in Starfleet. He will make more discoveries than he could have hoped to make at the Vulcan Science Academy, he will have a more eclectic experience.
Yet the anticipation is curiously muted and accompanied by a distastefully persistent nausea that he forces himself to ignore. He must function adequately for Starfleet and, above all, not cause Amanda any more worry.
And so he forces himself to eat regardless.