Chapter Two: Staking Claims
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When the bell chimes to end class, no one gets up to leave. Only once has a cadet ever made the mistake of thinking the bell was a dismissal, gathering his PADD and satchel and standing up hurriedly, looking around in confusion at his seated classmates. Spock said nothing—merely raised an eyebrow—and the cadet sat down with a thump, waiting, like everyone else, for Spock to dismiss them.
That had been back in early September, and now, the last day of the semester before winter break, the cadets sit almost motionless when the bell chimes.
Except, of course, Cadet Uhura, whose hand is in the air.
Twice during the lecture today she had stopped him, first to ask for the source of one of the research papers he referenced, and then to question a graph listed in the pre-reading. Both times he had silently applauded her initiative and precision, though he suspected her classmates did not. The eye rolls from more than one cadet the second time she spoke suggested they were annoyed.
Why they would be is a mystery to Spock. Surely the other cadets appreciate how Cadet Uhura's participation raises the level of instruction and achievement for everyone in the class.
On the other hand, answering her question now may take some time. If he keeps the students too long, he could make some of them late for their next class.
"Cadet Uhura," he says, but before she can speak, he hurries on, "you may remain to ask your question if you wish. Everyone else is dismissed."
As the students stand and file out the aisle to the back of the room, Spock realizes—belatedly—that he should have said something to acknowledge that this is the last time he will see most of them. Few students, particularly in the language department, take him for more than one course. In fact, today is his last day doing double duty for both the language and the computer departments, a task he adopted reluctantly last year, and only when a language professor left unexpectedly for health reasons.
Instead of following her classmates out the lecture hall, Cadet Uhura makes her way to the podium where Spock is busy turning off the projector and packing up his notes. From the corner of his eye he sees her standing to the side, her arms hugging her backpack to her chest.
Sliding his PADD into his briefcase, he turns at last to nod to her.
"Your question?"
Ever since that day two months ago when he had slipped up and offered her a cup of tea in the office break room, Spock has corralled his attention, has kept all of his interactions with her formal, public, impersonal.
Even now he feels squeamish when he thinks about how much he revealed about himself in the story about his mother—though he told the story with much less detail than he could have, the way he tells it to himself in his imagination, from his mother's point of view.
Still, he has to be more careful.
Particularly with a student this bright, this engaging—
He's doing it again, letting himself feel drawn to her.
A flash of self-loathing at his loss of control. He struggles to keep his expression neutral.
"Actually," she says, "I have a comment and a question."
For a wild moment he is afraid that she is going to ask him to join her again for a cup of tea. She's done so before. One day shortly after their tea in the break room, she lingered after the dismissal bell and invited him to join her at a local tea shop, but he turned her down so quickly, so forcefully, that he was certain he offended her.
She invited him once more after that, and when he refused a second time, she stopped asking.
A relief, and a disappointment.
He picks up his briefcase and walks up the aisle. Without glancing in her direction, he hears her following.
Not until they exit the building and stand at the top of the wide stairs in full view of the commons does he feel safe enough to turn and look at her.
Her expression causes him instant pain. Clearly she's distressed about something, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed. When she tilts her head he sees her earring swing away from her cheek, like a pendulum.
"Commander," she says, her eyes searching his, "I apologize for taking up so much of your time. But I need to talk to you about something."
A sudden tightness in his chest shortens his breathing and he looks over her shoulder to the students walking past on the sidewalk. In the middle of the commons a group of cadets are throwing an aerodynamic disc to each other, a recent pastime that seems to consume an inordinate amount of their energy.
"Sir," she says, and he hazards a glance back at her face. "I noticed in the course descriptions for next semester that there are no second level xenolinguistics classes. Do you think the dean would add one if enough students petitioned for it?"
That's what she wanted to ask?
A relief, and a disappointment.
"As far as I know," he says slowly, "no one ever has. At this late date, however, it seems unlikely. The faculty have already been given their assignments for next semester."
"Oh!" she says, clearly disappointed. "I hadn't thought about that."
She looks so abashed, so cast down, that he feels words rushing to his lips before he can stop them. After all, today is, in all probability, the last time he will see her—
"If that offer of tea still stands?"
She blinks then, obviously casting about in her memory. Spock berates himself for expecting her to remember something offered so casually weeks ago. What foolishness.
But her expression brightens into a smile and she says, "Oh, I wish I could! Maybe another time!"
To his astonishment she throws her hand up and he realizes that she is waving to someone on the commons. Turning to follow her gaze, he sees one of his more promising students, a junior, J. C. Ellison, making his way toward the bottom of the steps, his tall, lanky frame striding purposefully. Last week J. C. had asked Spock about working as his assistant next year—something Spock has agreed to consider if his current T. A. doesn't prove more satisfactory soon.
As he makes his way down the steps, Spock watches Cadet Uhura traipsing ahead of him, her motions as balanced as a dancer—the sway of her hips, the bend of her knee.
There it is again, that unwanted pull, something too close to the beginning of arousal. He feels his face flush.
Where the steps end and the sidewalk begins, she lifts her hand once more in greeting. From his position halfway down the wide steps, Spock watches as J. C. looks up briefly and nods at him.
And then, instead of heading toward him to ask about the assistantship as Spock expects, J. C. walks up to Cadet Uhura, and circling her waist with his hands, leans into her for a kiss.
Spock is so startled that he blinks.
It speaks more of friendship than passion. It lasts only seconds.
But on the shuttle ride from San Francisco to Seattle that evening, Spock thinks of little else.
He finds himself seated next to a chatty seatmate, his PADD in his lap to ward off an unwanted conversation, but he barely pretends to read it. Instead he revisits the scene on the commons that afternoon.
The way she dipped forward, her eyes shutting as she leaned up into the kiss.
Her lips parted slightly, her hand reaching up to stroke J. C.'s cheek. The way they turned in unison, arms linked, and walked away from him without a backward glance.
Nothing extraordinary for two young humans, two cadets thrown into a challenging environment. Nothing, indeed, that he himself hadn't done when he was a cadet, exploring human sexuality—
He stops that train of thought but in a few moments his mind circles back around to the kiss, like an afterimage…
The trip to Seattle is Spock's reluctant concession to his family. Most of the Thomassons will be in town at some point during the holidays, and though he has a great deal of preparation to do for his upcoming advanced computer seminar, Spock knows the time with his family will be pleasant.
And necessary. As his mother often reminds him, relationships take time. His parents may be there, too, visiting Amanda's sister Cecilia, his cousin Chris' mother.
Chris in particular has been anxious for his company. The last time they spoke, Chris confided that he was in a new relationship that was intense, serious, so much so that he was considering marriage.
"I want you to meet her," Chris said, and Spock had refrained from sighing into his comm.
"You hardly need my approval," he said. "And as I recall, the last time I met someone you felt a commitment to—"
He let his words trail off. Although from time to time they allude to her, neither Spock nor Chris has spoken at length about Chris' college girlfriend, C'rina. Of Orion and Romulan ancestry, she had flirted with Spock when he visited his cousin on the Mars colony campus, even going so far as to try to seduce him.
And would have been successful, if Chris had not discovered them. The cousins had not spoken to each other for months afterwards.
On the other end of the comm line, Chris laughed.
"That was then," he said. "This is now. Besides, we haven't seen you in months. You're overdue for a visit."
As he lets his gaze drift from his PADD to the rapidly approaching Seattle transport station visible out the window, Spock thinks that Chris is right, that he hasn't taken the time for family lately. Perhaps that's one reason his focus has started to drift—he's let his work consume too much of his energy. Closing his eyes, he reaches out and allows himself to sense the bond with his parents, like an undercurrent of care, his mother's bright presence as warm as a lantern, his father's consciousness softer, more reserved.
Stretching out further, Spock searches for an awareness of T'Pring. She's there, but so faint that he has trouble defining her borders, like trying to grasp a wisp of fog. He feels an upwelling of disappointment and then anger. They had parted badly when he left Vulcan, T'Pring not bothering to hide her disapproval of his turning down the VSA in favor of Starfleet.
He's seen her only rarely since then. If she were more supportive, or at least more available, he's certain he would not be buffeted now by unwanted thoughts about Cadet Uhura—
He stops that train of thought, too. It's unjust to blame T'Pring for his own lack of control.
The shuttle pilot announces the landing and the passengers around him begin collecting their luggage. Beside him, the middle-aged woman who tried unsuccessfully to engage him in conversation unlatches her seat restraint and darts him a decidedly unfriendly glare.
As soon as he exits the passenger area in the terminal, Spock spots Chris standing on the other side of the room, his rumpled shirt and tousled blonde hair a study in contrast to Spock's neat gray uniform and trimmed bangs. Even from this distance—and even as distracted as he has been since leaving San Francisco—Spock can tell that Chris is unhappy.
Irritated that he has been asked to interrupt his schedule to pick Spock up at the transport station? Unlikely. Of all the humans Spock knows, Chris is the most accommodating, unusually easy-going, adaptable. More than once Spock has wished he had Chris' same equanimity.
Nor is it likely that Chris is distressed by something professional. Whenever he mentions his private practice as a therapist, Chris seems fulfilled, content.
The relationship, then.
"Cassandra?" Spock asks when he's within earshot, and Chris gives a half-hearted smile and says, "No use trying to hide anything from you."
It's an observation Spock rarely hears about himself. Indeed, more common are pointed complaints from colleagues and acquaintances that he misses their cues, misreads their facial expressions, ignores the toll their emotions have on their posture, their choice of words. Idly he rubs the scar on his thumb that he's had since childhood, identical to the one on Chris' right hand, an artifact of a ritual involving a rusty razor that Chris had called "becoming blood brothers." At the time Spock dismissed it as fanciful, though the reality is that he's always been able to read Chris better than he can most people.
"Your relationship has ended?"
At that Chris laughs mirthlessly.
"That's one way to put it. She dumped me is another way. You know—broke my heart?"
"Meaning you did not initiate the ending."
"Right," Chris says, leading the way through the milling crowd to the front door. Spock follows in his wake, careful to tuck his arms to his side.
"I knew it," Chris says as they approach his flitter outside. Attached to the windscreen is a small flashing flimplast, a notice that Chris' parking in a restricted zone has been tagged and fined.
"I should have taken public transport," Spock says. "I have inconvenienced you."
"This isn't your fault," Chris says, peeling the ticket from the windscreen and slipping it into his pocket. "I made the decision to park here."
For a moment he sounds like himself—affable, unconcerned—but with a sudden motion, he kicks the side of the flitter so hard that it rings with a dull thud.
They ride to Chris' apartment in silence.
"If you prefer," Spock says as Chris sets the flitter down and unsnaps the door locks, "I can stay elsewhere this week."
At that something seems to shift in Chris' posture.
"Don't be crazy," he says. "I've been looking forward to this. You'll cheer me up."
That, too, is an observation Spock rarely hears about himself.
When Spock drops his duffel in the spare bedroom, Chris' distraction is apparent. The room is clean but bare, with none of the extra blankets he usually piles on the bed for Spock's comfort. Perhaps he should insist that Chris let him stay in a local hotel instead.
But when he comes out of the room, Chris hands him a mug of hot tea and motions for him to sit on the sofa.
For the next hour Spock listens as Chris tells the story of Cassandra—the familiar human arc of attraction and desire, compromise and regret, the inexorable conclusion. When he finishes, the silence seems to call for some response, though Spock is at a loss for what to say.
"She may change her mind," he offers at last. Immediately he realizes that his words are inadequate. A shadow flits across Chris' face and he shakes his head.
"I think it's too late for that," he says.
"There are always possibilities."
"That's what your father said," Chris says, glancing up.
Chris has spoken to Sarek about a broken heart? The incongruity makes Spock blink.
On the other hand, Sarek has always shown an interest in Chris, his only nephew, keeping up with his school progress and supporting his decision to specialize in counseling instead of surgery as his father, David, had hoped. The irony is not lost on Spock.
Still, that his father and his cousin have a relationship apart from him is something he rarely considers in any conscious way.
"He reminded me," Chris adds, "that Aunt Amanda turned him down at first, too. That he had to work hard to convince her to give him a chance."
Leaning forward and setting his empty tea cup on the coffee table, Spock says, "My mother's account of that story differs somewhat. Would you care to hear it?"
X X X X X X X
"It's only one night a week and an occasional weekend."
Mr. Johnson blinked behind thick, old-fashioned glasses, an affectation that Amanda found amusing, just like his silk ties and fossil-fuel ground car. Despite his personal quirks, however, Mr. Johnson was a capable principal of the elementary school where Amanda led an after-school tutorial for the children of Federation representatives.
"But I've never taught adults," she protested when he asked her to tutor some of the workers at the Vulcan embassy.
"I'm sure you'll adjust," Mr. Johnson said, waving his hand dismissively. "And quite frankly, I don't think the job will last that long. The Vulcans are notoriously difficult to work with. You aren't the first teacher they've hired."
"And it sounds like I won't be the last."
"Just so," Mr. Johnson said, handing her a slip of paper with an address and a comm number.
For two days she debated whether or not to go to the trouble to apply. An overdue notice about her rent settled the issue.
The woman on the other end of the comm sounded pleasant enough. Perhaps the Vulcan reputation for being difficult was unjustified? Amanda had never met a Vulcan personally. If they brought any of their children with them while they were posted on Earth, they didn't enroll them in the local schools.
The embassy was housed in a nondescript building near Federation Headquarters, the next bus stop past Starfleet Academy. On her ride to the interview Amanda watched uniformed students—cadets, she corrected herself—making their way through one of the large gates onto the campus.
The woman who greeted her in the reception area was tall and thin, her heavy robe dusting the floor. When Amanda told her why she was there, the woman made no sign but turned and headed down the corridor. For a moment Amanda stood motionless, and then realizing she was expected to follow, hurried after her.
Entering a small room at the end of the corridor, she saw a striking man sitting behind a desk. Wearing heavy robes embroidered with an unusual signet, he nodded for her to take the chair opposite. His pointed ears and upswept brows reminded Amanda of a graceful cat. She found herself staring and jumped when he suddenly looked up and said without preamble, "How well do you understand Standard?"
Her laugh ricocheted in the small room.
"I've been speaking it all my life!" she said. The man sat motionless, his face a mask.
"I'm a native speaker," Amanda stumbled, "if that's what you mean."
Clearly her attempt at humor was a misstep. She sat up straighter and let the smile fade from her face.
"How versed are you on Terran traditions and customs?"
Despite herself, Amanda let out another bubble of laughter that she tried, ineffectually, to squelch.
"I know a few," she said, bobbing her head.
"Only a few? Then you may not be suitable," the Vulcan said, his eyes narrowed.
For a moment Amanda felt a ripple of alarm. Without even trying, she was going to lose this job.
"I was joking," she said hurriedly. "I'm very familiar…with Terran customs and traditions."
Flicking his eyes to his digital notebook, the Vulcan said, "Your references seem to be in order. I am only the adjutant, but I believe the ambassador will approve your hiring. I will contact you in either case."
He looked back at his notebook and Amanda realized with a start that she was dismissed.
"Oh!" she said, standing up so quickly that her chair teetered backward and fell over. Blushing furiously, she leaned down and righted it. "Thank you, Mr.—"
"Sarek," the man said, meeting her gaze, his eyes black, flat, expressionless.
Or not quite. As she turned to leave, Amanda thought she saw a hint of amusement in his face.
A week went by, then two. At first Amanda was miffed—he said he would call—and then sanguine—it's probably for the best. She began telling the story of the interview to her friends, acting out her own clumsiness in exaggerated pantomime, deadpanning Sarek's response. It never failed to get a laugh.
And then one night as she was curled up on the sofa, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, a schmaltzy movie on the vid, her comm rang, an unfamiliar number flashing on the screen. Setting it to audio only, she answered.
"Your services are required," the voice said by way of greeting.
A crank call! Her finger poised to disconnect the line, Amanda hesitated. Something familiar niggled at the back of her mind.
"Mr. Sarek?"
"I apologize," Sarek said. "I have been told that human hearing is not as acute as Vulcan."
"I recognize your voice!" Amanda said hotly. "But it is polite to identify yourself before you start speaking!"
A pause on the other end of the line and Amanda half expected him to hang up. Once again she was sure she was going to lose the job before she had it.
"A Terran custom," Sarek said, his voice more musing than annoyed. "Fortunately I have you as my teacher. Your task will be to help me avoid future cultural misunderstandings."
To her horror, Amanda heard herself snap, "I haven't agreed to take the job! It is also a Terran custom to ask."
"I see," Sarek said, though his tone of voice suggested that he didn't. "Miss Grayson, we are offering you a position as cultural aide. Do you accept?"
Setting aside the bowl of popcorn, Amanda said, "When do you need an answer?"
"At once," Sarek said.
For less than a beat Amanda wavered. Pretending to consider it was absurd. Of course she needed the job. Without intending to, she glanced to the stack of bills on her desk nearby.
"Very well," she said. "I accept. When do I start?"
"2100 hours."
"You mean—tonight? 2100 tonight?"
"I can send a flitter for you," Sarek said. "The Vulcan delegation is hosting a reception for the Arkan Convention at our embassy. Because some of the attendees are Terran, Ambassador Somak felt that having a human host might…prevent…a repeat of certain unintentional missteps."
"But it's late! And I'm sitting here in my pajamas getting ready for bed—"
The absurdity, the ridiculous intimacy implied by her comment, made her laugh.
The other end of the comm was silent.
"Of course," she said, hiccupping with the effort of speaking soberly, "I can change. Give me some time to get ready."
"The driver will call for you in ten minutes."
"Better make it fifteen," she said. To her surprise, the comm line clicked off then, and as she headed to the bedroom, she added phone etiquette to the list of things to teach.
That evening was the first of many like it, soirees and formal receptions that highlighted what Amanda came to think of as the "odd duckiness" of the Vulcan staff—their inability or unwillingness to bend, to try to blend in, almost a defiance or stiff-backed pride about it, too, a resistance to cultural sensitivity that struck her as a contradiction of their expressed values of infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Outside the embassy the Vulcans seemed even odder. Several times Amanda was called on to accompany one of the staff members to a gathering arranged by Federation representatives, and each time she came home exhausted, worn out by spending the evening soothing ruffled feathers and stepped-on toes, half-convinced that the Vulcan demeanor was a sham, that they knew exactly what they were doing when they stripped their conversations bare of any social niceties, when they gave a blank stare to some hapless Terran who tried to chat them up.
As she got to know him better, she sometimes called Sarek to task for it. Rather than argue with her, however, he merely heard her out, maddeningly calm, almost as if he was listening from a distance.
Not that he was inattentive. Anything but. In fact, he often startled her with his observations, some of them embarrassingly personal about her clothes, her habits.
His questions also skirted the edges of impropriety, asking, as he did, about her work outside the embassy, her family, her friendships.
Vulcan curiosity was legendary, touted as something laudable, and Amanda scolded herself for being taken aback from time to time by something Sarek asked. If she was going to call him to count for being provincial, she couldn't then prove herself more so.
"I have been meaning to ask you something," he said one afternoon as they sat in his office looking over an agenda for an upcoming meeting. "I am curious about human sexuality. My research indicates that human mating practices vary considerably, from arranged marriages to casual encounters without the expectation of any further contact. Do you yourself have a preference?"
"I beg your pardon!"
Too late she heard how shocked she sounded, how offended. Sarek, by contrast, seemed oblivious. She waited until she was sure she control her voice before she continued.
"Human sexuality is a private issue," she said. "We generally do not discuss our…preferences…with just anyone."
Sarek looked up, an unmistakable look of surprise on his face.
"Indeed," he said. "I had not noticed that sort of reticence. If anything, much of your literature, your music, your dramatizations involve sex—"
"Yes, I know," Amanda said, watching his expression shift again, this time into befuddlement. A few months ago she might not have noticed any change at all. A common lie, that Vulcans had no emotions. Hearing it bandied about in her friends' conversations riled her to the point of speaking up, speaking out.
"You're getting tiresome," her best friend Catherine told her recently. "We get it. You like working for the Vulcans."
"It's not that!" she had protested. "It's just that I don't like hearing them misrepresented. It isn't fair."
It wasn't even true that she liked working for the Vulcans. Of all the staff members, Sarek was the only one she felt she had gotten to know well—and even he was still a cipher, comfortably predictable one day and utterly surprising the next.
Like asking her about her sexual preferences. As if it mattered to him personally! As if the question were more than just some intellectual itch he wanted to scratch but was a veiled question within a question, an exploratory salvo.
That thought, she realized much later, was the beginning of her undoing.
When she told this story to Spock, to her sister Cecilia, even to Sarek, not because he needed to hear it but because she needed to tell it, Amanda omitted the courtship that followed—her astonishment at soon discovering herself in full career of a romance, the gentle coaching Sarek required, both to pleasure her physically and emotionally as well, her delight that he was willing to learn more than phone etiquette, her discovery that his unique avenues of arousal and fulfillment were ones she shared willingly, even enthusiastically. She only hinted at that part of the story she kept private, particularly when she shared it with her son, skipping ahead to what she called "the end of our beginning"— the quarrel.
The quarrel started as just that—an argument whose resurrection kept a solution at bay. It began innocently enough, after an announcement that T'Mira was retiring from her position as junior ambassador to Earth. The size and scope of the Alpha quadrant meant that the junior ambassadors assigned to the scattered embassies often did double duty, not only fulfilling their own roles, but standing in for Ambassador Somak as well. At the ripe old age of 278, T'Mira wanted to spend her last years tending her garden back on Vulcan and getting to know her great-grand children.
Her successor wasn't immediately clear. Sarek wasn't the only adjutant in line for a promotion, but he was, in Amanda's estimation, the one most deserving. His initiative in hiring her, for example—that willingness to adapt to Terran cultural norms in the interest of better diplomacy should count for something.
"I agree," Sarek said, his arms tucked behind his back, one wrist clasping the other as he walked with Amanda through the front corridor of the embassy, "but the decision is not mine. Ambassador Somak will make the final determination."
"But he's hardly ever here! In the past year he's been to Earth—what? Once? Twice? How can he know everything you've done?"
"Our communiqués are quite detailed," Sarek said, his tone indicating that the matter was closed. Amanda, however, chose not to hear it.
"I've seen those communiqués," she scoffed. "Dry as dust! Where's he going to hear about the Wednesday night tutoring sessions, for instance? Not from Savil."
The Wednesday night tutoring sessions were, for all intents and purposes, the closest thing to informal parties the Vulcans ever attended. Each week Amanda hired local entertainers to perform—comics, singers, musicians, even acrobats and magicians, and then she and Sarek deconstructed the performances over a catered meal, explaining in detail the reason humans found such diversions interesting. Skeptical at first, a few Vulcans had become regular attendees, though Savil, the other adjutant, didn't bother to disguise his distaste.
"I am sure Somak will choose well," Sarek said, the strain in his voice beginning to show. This, too, Amanda chose not to hear.
"Then it's your obligation to give him all the data," she said. "Send him a copy of that letter from the mayor thanking you for talking to the city council last week. I have pictures of your visit with my students—"
"Amanda."
Not her name, but a command to cease.
They parted then, he to meet with his secretary, she to drill one of the newer staff members on Standard slang. She didn't see him before she left later in the afternoon, but when he called that night, the argument reared up again.
"I just don't understand why you aren't staking your claim," she said. "Isn't that what diplomacy's all about? The art of give and take? You've worked hard for this promotion."
What she does not say—what she does not need to say—is what is foremost on both their minds, that if Savil is made junior ambassador, the odds are high that Sarek will be transferred from Earth, replaced by someone more conservative, more tradition bound, more like Savil himself.
Someone not obviously fraternizing with a human.
Their conversation ended abruptly soon afterwards, without their usual agreement to meet later—as often as not at Amanda's apartment, with Sarek staying over. Her omission in asking him to come by—and his silence about the possibility—sent her to bed angry and tearful and more than a little shaken.
They argued on and off for weeks, and when they weren't arguing, the specter of the argument haunted them, souring their other conversations, making their outings fraught with an underlying tension that spoiled everything.
When Savil was promoted at last, it was almost a relief.
"Somak arrives next week to make the official announcement," Sarek told her over dinner at a small café near the embassy. "After that, I suspect I will be recalled to Vulcan for reassignment."
She nodded, not meeting his eyes. Instead she focused on her plate of uneaten salad, one hand idly cradling her fork, the other curled in her lap.
"I guess that's it for me, too," she said, and Sarek said, "When Somak arrives, I will recommend that you be retained as an aide. There is no reason you should lose your position if I leave."
"I wasn't talking about my job," she said, looking up at him at last.
It was a moment when she needed to hear something, anything—if not words of promise or hope, then at least words reflecting her own sorrow, showing his despair, his heartbreak. Until that moment she hadn't doubted that he loved her, that he had always planned some unspoken future with her.
But Sarek said nothing.
When they finished their meal she feigned a headache and went home alone.
The next morning she woke her sister Cecilia with a long phone call. Later she sent Sarek's secretary a short resignation note thanking him for the opportunity to serve the Vulcan people. By the afternoon, her few appliances and her clothes were packed, her sofa promised to her downstairs neighbor, and the refunds on her utilities deposited in her bank account. When Sarek came looking for her two days later, concerned that she wasn't answering her comm, a startled young university student answered the door chime, claiming he had just moved into the apartment and had no idea where the former tenant had gone.
It took Sarek two more days to track her down to her mother's house in Seattle.
"Who are you?" the bewildered gray-haired woman said, peering into the late afternoon sun at the tall man standing in her doorway. From the hallway Amanda heard them, her mother's voice imperious, formidable, a force to be reckoned with, someone who made the neighborhood children quake with a glance, a word.
"I'm S'chn T'gai Sarek, the Vulcan junior ambassador to Earth," Sarek announced, a note of triumph in his tone. "I've come for Amanda."
X X X X X X
"I can picture that," Chris says, leaning back in the chair next to the sofa. "But I thought you said that other guy had gotten the promotion. What happened?"
"My mother has never explained that fully," Spock said. "Just that my father took her advice and, as she called it, staked his claim."
"For her, too, sounds like," Chris says, grinning for the first time in several hours. He stretches his arms over his head and yawns. "I'm beat. If you don't mind, I think I'll head on to bed. There's more water in the kettle if you want some tea."
Standing and yawning again, Chris starts down the hallway when Spock calls out.
"Perhaps you should try something similar," he says.
"What do you mean?" Chris asks, and Spock adds, "Stake your claim. With Cassandra."
"Yeah, well," Chris hedges, running one hand through his hair, "if you wait too late to stake a claim, sometimes you just have to let it go."
He sounds tired and sad, but the anger Spock had detected earlier is gone. Progress? He isn't sure.
"Goodnight, then," Chris says, closing the bedroom door softly behind him.
For a minute Spock sits in place, trying to hold onto the unusual feeling his mother's story has evoked in him, an uneasiness of sorts, a sense of being unsettled.
A cup of tea? He's not thirsty. He catches sight of a candle on a side table and considers lighting it as a substitute for his asenoi.
But he's too restless, too consumed with the unnamed emotion to meditate.
Drifting to the spare bedroom, he spies his duffel where he left it on the bed, and with a sudden motion, he unzips it and takes out his Academy PADD. His students have until tomorrow at 0100 to send their final projects, but some may have sent them early. He might as well get a start on his grading.
Sure enough, when he opens his queue he sees several projects tagged for reading. There at the head of the line is Cadet Uhura's.
He lets the stylus rest in his hand, the weight almost negligible, while he considers what to do.
And then with a swift tap of his finger, he closes the queue and starts a note to the dean, offering to teach a second level xenolinguistics course next semester—if anyone should happen to want to take it.
A/N: Several reviewers rightly note that Spock's telling a story to Uhura in Chapter One seems premature this early in their relationship. I agree—and I chalk it up to needing to get the ball rolling! At any rate, I hope this chapter smooths the edges of that revelation so that it is believable.
Another concern is how to tell Amanda's story. I pondered long and hard before settling on letting her tell it in her own voice. It requires a willing suspension of disbelief from you, dear reader, that when Spock tells his version to his listener, it is less detailed that the picture revealed to you. I apologize if that's awkward. I hope it is at least entertaining.
Chris Thomasson, J. C. Ellison, and C'rina have chapters of their own in "What We Think We Know."
As for the part of the story left untold—the details of Amanda and Sarek's courtship, how Sarek beat out Savil as junior ambassador—those are Sarek's to tell. He might be convinced to—some day.
Thanks for reading, and double thanks for leaving a review!