Three

She sat down on their bed and took a deep breath in and out, willing herself to be calm. There was a lot that needed saying, but she wasn't exactly ready to volunteer it. She was angry, but she knew if she was too emotional when she expressed her anger Sarek was apt to dismiss her words. It was another reason she found herself angry with him a lot of the time. Without knowing how to put her outrage into a non-emotional context she was finding it difficult to speak. She sat there, searching for the correct words but they failed to come. This was going to be harder than she thought.

"Amanda," he said, finally breaching the heavy silence between the two of them, "Please, my wife, speak to me. Tell me of what is in your mind."

"Why do you care?" she found herself asking in a knee-jerk reaction to his request. And there it was again, unmitigated anger!

"Because you are my wife. There should be harmony between us, should there not?" he asked as he delicately sat down on the bed, though not directly next to her.

"Then why have you, all of these years, gone to your best efforts to try to pretend I am what I am not?"

He shook his head. "That is not logical, Amanda. I know of no such actions."

"No, Sarek, you! YOU are not logical!"

He frowned. "I see no reason to insult me."

"You married me," she charged, "and what did you expect? Did you think we wouldn't have differences? That I would suddenly just stop acting like a human? That I would automatically look up to you and stop thinking for myself and just fall in line? I agree with the Vulcan way and with logic, but it seems to me that you don't agree with anything about being human."

"Amanda, if this is about our son-"

"This is not just about Spock! Yes, I said his name. Spock. We had- We HAVE a son, and his name is Spock! And you had another son who became mine, and his name is-"

"Do NOT speak his name!" he said almost heatedly.

"SYBOK! His name was SYBOK! He was real! He existed! He was a person! And he had his own mind and-" she found herself bawling, tears clouding her vision, voice shaking, unable to take the emotions washing over her. All pretext of trying to speak from a logical point of view went out of the window as her face heated up. "I understand how it is! I understand he had to be exiled! But how can you pretend he never existed? How can we keep pretending that? I should have put my foot down back then, all of those years ago! I should never have let you get rid of all of his pictures and all of his papers and the possessions that he left behind! If I'd have spoken up back then, maybe this wouldn't have happened with Spock now!"

"Amanda, this line of conversation is not proper-"

"I don't give a shit about being PROPER right now!" she found herself shouting at him. Once again, he was trying to control the conversation! Her voice dropped to an almost whisper as she found herself crying piteously while she confessed, "I've given up everything for you. I left my planet and became a citizen of your planet. I left my profession to be the ambassador's wife. Sure, we come to Earth, but we spend most of our time where? On assignment or on Vulcan. I've endured the ridicule of the press after we got married, galaxy-wide. My name and everything about me was dragged through the mud. I was the butt of every sort of mean, vulgar joke for almost a year and then when I had Spock I was the butt of even more jokes."

He knew all of this already to be fact. As always, when he thought of those facts he felt terribly helpless. "There was nothing I could have done to prevent those things, Amanda."

"But you never said anything to me! You never indicated that you understood that it hurt me! It was just business as usual and listening to rumors or gossip or putting any importance in it was illogical. So I took that and tried to justify that that was why I should just ignore it. Then I went to your planet and some of your people were rude and inhospitable to me and you just let them say whatever they wanted… and to him! I was an adult, but he was just a child and you never protected our son!" her voice rose again. "People said things and your answer was always 'Giving a response will only serve to add to illogical speculation'," she said in her best mocking imitation of Sarek's voice.

She shook her head as she forced herself to calm down. "How long before you realize your true mistake? That I will not change? That I am as human as I was when you married me? That I can't handle doing this over and over?" She stood, walked over to where he sat. His face showed nothing and she could tell nothing because from both their ends the bond was shut tight. "I carried him," she sobbed as she grabbed her womb. "Here. Right here!" She grabbed his hand, put it to her abdomen. "He slept here for months and moved around and- and hiccupped and stretched and did flips and played whatever games they play in there all of those months and I fed him directly from my body… Am I supposed to forget that? Pretend it never happened?"

Tears rolled down her face as she lifted her shirt. "These lines and stretch marks," she whispered as she trailed a couple with her fingers. "That was one big baby," she laughed sadly as she sat down directly next to him, exhausted. She wiped her tears away with the backs of her hands. She felt broken down as she told him, "You always made me feel like he belonged to your people more than mine. And you just kept snatching him from me! Every time he showed anything you snatched him from me and—and- and he said anything that sounded remotely human and you just never understood how that could happen! Well I'm his mother, that's how that can happen! ME! I am his mother and I am HUMAN!" she ended on a half yell.

Touched on a level he did not know he still possessed, "Amanda, I did not realize how deeply these thoughts ran," he admitted.

She shook her head. "No, you wouldn't. And I guess I should have expected that." She was suddenly worse than sad as she said in her normal voice, "It's my fault, really, when it comes down to it. I should have said something years ago. I should have stopped assuming that just because you were older than me and so damned smart you knew what you were doing."

He opened the bond from his end, then. There was something dangerous going on inside his wife. "Amanda, we have both made mistakes. The goal should be to rectify those mistakes with knowledge and patience."

She rolled her eyes. There was the ambassador-speak again! "I realize it now. We- We're too different. You can just cut him off because he didn't follow in your footsteps and you expect me to do the same?" She stood wearily and walked to the door. "You can do whatever you want to do. I've never fought you on that. But to ever dare to tell me or even ask me to cut off my son?" She shook her head at him with a look in her eyes that said, 'you should know better'.

He stood. Why was she so close to the door? "Where are you going?"

"You find people so expendable. Why don't you just get rid of me, too? I'm emotional, I'm illogical and I question you at every turn. Maybe it's time for you to let me go, as well," she said with all sincerity as she looked into his eyes.

And he saw it in her eyes and through their bond, she truly meant it. She meant to leave him for good. "Why did you return here?" he asked almost silently as his insides grew still. But he was calculating odds in his mind. There was a slim possibility he could reach her before she walked through that door. But he knew he had to be careful about how he did it. He slowly walked over to where she stood.

"Because there were things I needed to let you know. So now that I've told you all I needed to say, I can finally just go. I thought I needed answers from you, too, but I realize now it's not important."

He found himself reaching out cautiously for her hand resting near the door release, the hand that was about to let her out of the room and out of their mutual life. "But you cannot," he almost whispered as his hand covered hers.

She tried not to feel the warmth of his hand on hers, tried to be indifferent to it. But she still loved him. She knew she always would. As long as she lived there would never be another like him. "Why not? I think I've given you plenty of reasons to let me go. Spock is my son. When he calls, I will be there for him."

"And you will leave me?" he said as he took her hand off of the door release and pulled it into his chest, moved further into her space.

She hadn't seen this side of him for years. He was crowding close to her, his face in hers, his arms now slowly snaking about her waist.

Having clamped down on his control impeccably in the past few years, he rarely, if ever, lost control. Even sexually. But now there was a sort of desperation in his eyes paired with immovability. "Show me all that I need to know," were his last rapid words as one hand quickly went to her face, fingers splayed at the correct points.

Sarek's fingers connected and before she could guard herself, he was inside her mind, searching:

Anger. So much anger there toward him!

He moved past the anger and searched for what he wished to know. Sarek saw the past couple of weeks, saw that his wife had been sickened physically by everything that had happened between himself and his son. Saw her conflict, her unwillingness to go through this again…

A memory intruded of her looking into a mirror at her own face, angry, disgusted with herself. "I have no children left," she whispered as she looked at her reflection and a lone tear traveled down her face. "Empty nest, my ass!" she said as she broke the mirror with her fist.

Churning anger, resentment building for every time she attempted to teach Spock anything about being human, human values, human thoughts and motivations, he was always there to remind her, the child was a Vulcan, did not need to know of or understand that part of himself. From her point of view, it appeared to be more than simply unimportant to him. It was worse than that. She thought he found it to be a nonissue.

The sting of anger lingered from several pivotal moments from her son's life: How Sarek ignored her point of view about choosing the child T'Pring to bond with him. She said before and continued to maintain, the girl was duplicitous. The way Sarek insisted that the engagement ring she held dear would not need to be passed on to Spock since Vulcans did not have this custom of the exchange of jewelry. Having the audacity to tell her that the child she carried within for so many months would never contact them again until he returned to the way of life that he was admittedly still following as far as they knew…

She was tired of the anger, of him making her feel as if she were inferior, of him making the excuse that marrying her 'seemed the logical thing to do' since he was ambassador to Earth. She almost left him for good this day. She was still ready to leave him…

His trembling hand dropped from her face as he was in a near state of shock at everything he had seen and felt from her point of view.

She stood there, holding onto her emotions, not knowing how he was going to take everything.

"You have hidden these things from me for so many years," he said on an almost low whisper as his eyes bored into hers.

"I have," she admitted.

He swallowed as the shockwave of her anger went through his mind. She had become adept at hiding things from him, even within the bond. But now she had let him see them. And information was still coming at him from what he had just glimpsed. He looked at her almost accusingly. "You informed me, my wife, that the mirror in the bathroom had been broken accidently."

"It was," she shrugged nonchalantly, almost pleased in a rebellious way that she had surprised him. "I didn't mean to break it with my hand," she admitted

He looked down at her hand, carefully took it into his own. "And your hand? It is well?"

"I went to the Healer and told him I'd had an accident. Sokam healed it without any questions. That's what he does."

He continued to think. "You did not tell me that you had been physically ill, my wife," he said as he realized how distressed she had been over the past couple of months. He realized from the meld, "You even went so far as to go to a physician outside the embassy to hide this. Why did you do so?"

She swallowed back tears as she shrugged. "I knew the reasons for my stress and I didn't want to talk to a Vulcan about it."

"But you did not speak to the human physician about it, either," he realized. "Who do you speak to, Amanda? When you are troubled, who listens to you?"

"No one," she admitted with a shrug as she pulled her hand out of his. "I speak to no one."

"And why is that?" he asked as he looked down into her face, into her eyes. "Why do you say nothing?"

"Because it isn't anyone else's business."

But he saw the truth behind the words and what she meant. He was an important man and he could not afford to have any kind of rumor or innuendo circulated about him. She had decided a long time ago that that would never happen because of her. No matter how angry he made her, no matter how much she might need to speak to someone about whatever problems they had the issues would always remain exactly where they were. Between the two of them. She loved him and her emotions for him were beginning to tear her apart from the inside. She couldn't take it any longer.

"Amanda," he said on an exhale of realization. His hands went out and grabbed her shoulders. He pulled her to his chest. "You do not understand, do you? You cannot leave me," he said as he looked down into her face.

"Because you say so?" she asked, angry again.

"You cannot!" he almost shouted as he pulled her in even closer. He left no room for her to move away from him. "Marrying you was the logical thing to do at the time because I was faced with having to leave you for extended periods of time and I could not! I am still unable to give you up and I shall not do so! It is imperative that you do not leave!"

When was the last time he had touched her like this? She found herself putting her face to his chest and inhaling him as her tears began to run again and soak his robes. "Why are you showing me this now? Why now?"

"It is necessary!" he said as he looked down into her tear-stained eyes. "You are vital to my thoughts, to my life, to me!" His words were almost rough in texture to her ears. "You do not understand, Amanda!"

"It's been how long since you really shown me anything? You can't do this, not now! This isn't fair! You don't get to turn on the charm just because-"

"It is logical that we attempt to find a way to make things better between us before we terminate our union," he said, grasping at the frayed edges of his emotions and their marriage.

"But I'm not feeling very logical right now! It would be better for me to let you become what it is you need to be, what you've been trying to become. I make you emotional and I cause you too much trouble, but I'm human and that's natural and I'm not going to fight what I am any longer. Without me around you won't have any impediment to becoming the Vulcan you want to be. You won't have to fight logic anymore. You're trying to be two people, too, and it isn't healthy for either one of us to be in this constant state or push and pull! Please, for your sake and mine, let me go!"

"NO!" he shouted.

A/N - I'm exhausted. This stuff is ringing me out. But there's more ahead, I promise... As usual, tap dancing for those reviews. Soft shoe, anyone?