Thank you to everyone who read or reviewed the last chapter. There may not be too many more updates between now and mid-May. I am going to focus on getting Starfleet Family Values done before the new film comes out. I also am tempted to wait on writing more chapters until after the film comes out so I can decide how much of that film is going to be incorporated into the story or if I'm going to ignore it completely. (For those of you who read my Ugly Betty story Gossip Mode Style, that I did live with the final season, you know that I can work with anything the writers can throw at me.) Of course this story is already unbelievably AU just for the fact that Amanda is alive. I may do one more chapter before then but it just depends on how much time I have. I cut this chapter short so I could post something sooner rather than later and I may do that next time to prevent digital pitchforks. I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Inspired by

Love is Blind by Eve

I suggest listening to the whole song because I can't choose just a few lines.

Keep Ya Head Up by Tupac

"But please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let up

Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up

And when he tells you you ain't nuttin don't believe him

And if he can't learn to love you you should leave him

Cause sista you don't need him

Chapter 5: Love is Blind and Clueless

She sat in Christopher's office shocked and slightly angry and it had nothing to do with an entire day of Vulcan Council mind games. She was already having a difficult week because a certain odious Vulcan who wanted her job keeps undermining her despite the decision of the Council to not decide on her fate at the moment. In the past, he just questioned her proposals and called her various synonyms for prostitute when no one was around to hear him.

Now he has resorted to mind games on a much more public scale. This included press conferences where he called her out directly. Although, at least he stopped mentioning her humanness as something abhorrent after his office was inundated with negative emails. Amanda is sure that he or his staff were responsible for an unflattering and extremely false story about her engaging in a sordid sexual relationship with a certain member of the admiralty for the entire course of her marriage that was now making the rounds through the net. Actually, several articles of a similar nature have come out during the last few weeks. Considering that this man has called her a Vulcan word that literally means "female who sleeps with farm animals for money," she sure that he is responsible.

Just this morning he sent an interior designer to her office to get it ready for when, not if, he takes over her seat. She knew that was done solely to unnerve her. If it wasn't for Chris constantly telling her to ignore the idiot in question, she would just give up. But Chris believed that she could deal with anything, including Sank's power-play, so she did too. The whole reason why she ended up in Chris's office was that she needed his comforting touch—words.

Because she had Chris's emotional support, Sank's games did not have their intended effect. Although this may also have something to do with the fact she was no longer worried about Spock losing his hereditary seat, but only keeping her own position on the Council until Spock was ready to take over. Although T'Panda has yet to find a way to prove her Vulcan citizenship to the satisfaction of the Council, they were able to prove that Spock was Sarek's official heir because he filled out the necessary paperwork naming Spock so. Sarek was smart enough to have the documents saved in multiple places off planet. She was shocked to find out that despite the precarious state of their personal relationship, Sarek formally named Spock his successor if Amanda was no longer living at the time of his death. (He probably assumed that was going to be the case, not expecting to precede her in death, even if he did prepare her for the inner workings of the Council. That's okay because she wasn't expecting it either.)

This will prevent Sank from taking the family seat, but if they cannot prove her Vulcan citizenship, she won't even be able to serve as Spock's proxy according to a new change that a certain council member managed to pass in a closed-door session that was barely legal and she wasn't told about until after the fact. Non-Vulcan proxies were no longer allowed and therefore Spock would either have to leave Starfleet or give up control of the seat to the next of kin. She was almost tempted to have a certain computer genius create the same background for her that she created for her other child, but now that things were nowhere near as chaotic, Amanda doubted that such documentation would be able to pass as authentic again. She was hoping that her late husband placed all necessary documentation on an off planet server, but they haven't found anything yet.

A part of her wondered if her ally was really helping her or merely using her for her own purposes. Amanda wasn't entirely sure if T'Panda truly no longer desired to be with Spock and was merely using her as a means to curry favor. Of course, she could just be doing exactly what she said, which was to make sure that Spock could hold onto to the family seat so that his future children will be able to inherit once the laws were adjusted to recognize heirs created via gestational carrier.

Of course, her main purpose for this was to make sure that her future children, that she wanted to have with Spock, would get to claim that seat or at the very least would get to claim her seat. Of course, that wouldn't happen now due to the news she had just heard (if they actually got the stupid rules change to recognize heirs created outside of a bonding, her previously unknown grandson David would be the first in line).

She never liked Carol. She never trusted the woman and always felt she had an ulterior motive for her interactions with Spock. Personally, Amanda wished that Spock was never assigned to work with Carol due to somebody else getting sick. Her using him as a means to satisfy her curiosity hurt Spock profoundly, and if it wasn't for Jim she doubted Spock would ever be willing to open his heart that much again.

Of course, Amanda never suspected that she would do something so horrible as to create a child without her son's consent and then hide said child from his father and grandmother. Amanda was most upset about the fact that her grandchild was kept away from her for nearly 3 years and he almost died without her even knowing that he existed. It was almost unthinkable that anybody would do such a thing, but she'd always found Carol to be quite selfish. Amanda even had a hard time believing the part of the story where the young woman sacrificed herself to protect her child. Amanda will give her the benefit of the doubt because she knew she would do the same for any of her children.

When she saw the images of David, she just knew this was her grandson. He has her smile, Sarek's ears, and the sweetness of Spock at that age. Other than hair color, David got very little from Carol, which Amanda was thankful for. Considering how light Jim's hair was, they can always tell David that they chose an egg donor with that trait so he would look like his other daddy when he was older. She wanted to wipe out all traces of Carol from existence. She despised the woman. How dare she keep a grandchild from her? If she was alive, Amanda would kill her with her bare hands. She actually broke the glass that she was drinking from when Chris told her.

Amanda had so many questions for Chris (and her son, once he actually called her). Why did Carol do this? Why would somebody kill all the scientists? Did what happened have anything to do with what they were researching? Why was David at a Starfleet research facility when the rule change about children does not even go into effect for another 73 days? Why was Admiral Jackson trying to cover-up whatever happened on that planet by sending his own people, despite the great expense at a time when she had trouble getting grant money to feed the poor? How was her son handling his sudden foray into fatherhood? More importantly, how was Jim handling it?

She was more worried about her son-in-law, mostly because she was now completely aware of how crappy his childhood truly was. After they found Sam's body, Chris was kind enough to let her see every police report related to Frank Williams. Chris tried to fill in the blanks, but it was hard for him to talk about the woman who he considered a mentor during the early part of his Starfleet career. Amanda was pretty sure Jim's fears about fatherhood were caused by the fact he was raised by such a horrible person.

After spending decades in the child advocacy world, she doesn't understand why anybody in their right mind would have allowed Mr. Williams to retain custody of his two stepchildren. A couple of weeks before Sam's 'disappearance,' James ended up in the hospital with three broken ribs, a shattered pelvis, and internal bleeding. Because Frank's family owned Riverside for all intents and purposes, child welfare services didn't have the good sense to remove Jim and Sam. Maybe if they had done their job, she wouldn't be planning a funeral for a boy who didn't make it to 16.

That was one of the other things making her miserable this week. Jim had told her how hard it was for him to plan his mom's funeral, complete with scattering of her ashes. He also mentioned something about running away to get completely drunk after Frank had the audacity to show up at the funeral (not that she blamed him, considering she was sedated for the first six months after Sarek died). Now that Jim has a two-year-old to take care of, he wouldn't have time to do it. It was the least she could do for a man that she considered her other son.

Despite all the questions she had, only one would come out, "Why didn't Spock tell me this himself?" She always believed that she and Spock had a good relationship where he could tell her anything. That included his horrible disaster of a relationship with the guy who he put in a coma. So she's a little upset that Spock didn't trust her with this. She should be hearing this from Spock not Chris.

"Well, technically Enterprise is having long-range communications issues. I'm sure he would have contacted you otherwise," Chris said as he avoided eye contact. That usually meant he was lying to her by omission if nothing else. She was good at telling when he was lying to her.

"Why am I sure there's more to this than that?" she asked.

"I haven't been able to get back in contact with the ship since I called to let Jim know about Sam and was informed that you are a grandmother. I'm sure it's intentional, but I could never prove it," he said with a sigh. She could see Jim doing something like that as a sort of temper tantrum of a response to what happened.

"How did he take the news?" she asked, slightly worried.

"I don't know because I didn't get to tell him. Nyota said she would break the news at a more opportune time and then said that they were having transmission issues and the feed went dead. Of course, before the line went dead it was suggested that I look into why Jackson was trying to get custody of your newly discovered grandchild." Now, after being married to a politician for several decades and working with other politicians for the last three years, she's able to understand what she's not being told. The feed was purposely cut so Chris could not break the news to Jim.

"I knew I always like that girl," she said with admiration.

"I thought you told me that you did not like the fact that she was trying to sleep with your son when she was at the Academy?" he told her with a smirk.

"I like her, just not as a future daughter-in-law." Chris chuckled at that.

"There may be also Jackson-related reasons why Enterprise is having communications issues, but you didn't hear that from me."

"You can't be punished for ignoring orders that you never received," Amanda mumbled under breath. "So what's the other reason why I'm finding out about my grandson from you?"

"Because what happened on that planet is about as top-secret as you can get at this point and that includes David's existence. Spock cannot tell you about it," Chris said in all seriousness.

"Then why are you telling me about it?" she asked, slightly confused. She knew that despite their personal relationship, Chris would never tell her something that he wasn't supposed to.

"Because I don't feel like getting punched out when you find out. Besides, you have a top-secret clearance and obviously a need to know."

"Considering David is my grandchild, I really have a need to know," Amanda said just as her personal communicator chirped.

"You know you're not supposed to bring those things in here?" Chris said with a chuckle.

"I forgot," she said sheepishly. It was a call from her daughter's preschool. It was the third call this month because her four-year-old doesn't play well with others, or rather others don't play well with her. She gets bullied a lot for having pointy ears and the ability to read on a seventh grade level at four. Both of her daughters get in a lot of fights and she gets a lot of phone calls. Amanda told herself that if she did it once, she could do it again, but it really was so much easier when she had a husband. She just hopes that T'Pay did not do any property damage this time. The four-year-old didn't know her own strength.

Chris decided to go with Amanda to deal with the four-year-old situation because young T'Pay likes him and respects his authority (unlike her big brother and his husband). Sometimes she calls him Admiral daddy and he really doesn't have the heart to correct her. Amanda said it was okay because he was the most solid male role model in her life.

Okay, maybe he went with Amanda so he could prolong his time with her. He enjoyed anytime he slept— he means, spent with her. Sex was not part of their relationship and it wasn't going to be. Considering he was in a wheelchair, he doubted that was going to be a part of his life with anyone for a long time, not that he thinks of Amanda like that because he doesn't, really he does not.

In all honesty, anything else would have been preferable to spending time around Admiral Jackson. The man was currently flipping out over the fact that he still can't get a hold of Enterprise after 24 hours and he was taking it out on Chris by being as nasty as he could. Chris despised the fact that the prick technically outranked him. Chris tried to remind the man that it was normal for a ship to go off-line for a little bit, especially if they are in an extremely remote place.

Of course, the man ran away as soon as Chris asked any questions about David. He still has yet to receive an explanation of why the two-year-old was at the research facility in the first place. Also, according to Jackson's assistant, who used to be Pike's assistant before Jackson took him away to be spiteful, Jackson broke a chair and a window when he found out that Spock now had legal custody of David (he was sure that Dr. Cruz had some friends in the legal department and that Enterprise had no problems whatsoever getting transmissions from that office).

It was reported that he broke another window when he found out that David was being given permission to stay on Enterprise until the ship arrived back on earth. The video file that he just received proved that to be the case. Watching it repeatedly kept Chris entertained on the ride to the school.

Preston Academy was one of the better private schools in the San Francisco area, filled with children from all over the galaxy, and had stellar academics. It had top-of-the-line equipment and teachers that knew not to touch the telepathic kids. From what he's heard from his two favorite girls, Mrs. River (he was informed by T'Pay that her favorite teacher had a wife last week) is an excellent teacher and was the only one who had had the chance to keep the young Vulcan from doing all sorts of crazy things. She also could keep the bullying down to a minimum, which others couldn't do. Any other teachers would have given up on T'Pay after summer session. That was probably because they couldn't deal with a four-year-old that actually was smarter than they were. The year before, T'Pay went through six babysitters and three different preschools.

However, Mrs. River could handle her better than most to the point where she was only calling Amanda on a weekly basis and not daily. This time T'Pay locked herself in the bathroom after one of her classmates called her certain things that Mrs. River would not repeat over the phone. After an hour they still have not been able to get her out of the bathroom.

It probably helped that unlike her predecessors, Mrs. River wasn't some hapless twenty something whose only exposure to small children happened when they were a child. According to his favorite little Vulcan, her teacher was in her 50s and had a daughter named Georgia, who was a couple years older than T'Pay, who played with her after school whenever Amanda was kept away by the Council of the idiots and the babysitter was unavailable. That was happening more since that asshole started actively trying to strip Amanda of her Vulcan citizenship and Council seat. Considering how much T'Pay talked about Georgia, the older girl was probably her best friend.

Because both Amanda and T'Pay spoke so highly of this Mrs. River after only a few weeks of school, he wanted to meet her. When he saw the dark headed woman and her young daughter pleading with T'Pay, he sincerely wished that he had gone to parents' night with Amanda last month. He recognized that voice because he heard it every single day for two years when they served together on the Clinton. Winona Kirk was (?) a good friend of his.

They first met when he was trying to finish his dissertation on the Kelvin. He may have come off as a bit of a George Kirk fan boy, even though he wasn't trying to. She was still nice to him despite that. They started to build a friendship after that, until she decided to marry the asshole. He didn't hear from her again for nearly a decade. That was immediately after the Tarsus incident and she was doing some cultural program on Vulcan. She mostly apologized for not listening to him. Unfortunately, his suspicions about Frank were very right.

Their friendship continued where it left off, even though they were both in various parts of the galaxy. She was the one who tried to talk him into making a move on 'Number One'. Chris wished he would have listened to her now. Unfortunately, he was too stubborn.

Winona was just as stubborn. He told her not to go back to Frank after the guy showed up at her door telling her that he had changed. Chris knew people like that did not change, but Winona wanted to see the best in him. She was too much of an optimist for Chris's personal taste. The only good thing was she opted not to renew their wedding vows.

Calls and emails became less frequent, and he found out why when he stopped by her house one time when he was babysitting cadets in Riverside. There wasn't enough makeup in Iowa to cover her bruises. If he had actually run into Frank at that moment, he would have met with Chris's Phaser and it would not have been on stun. That outcome was more likely to happen now in light of what was found at the old Kirk family farm.

He had tried to get her to leave again, but she wouldn't. He was half convinced that she was convinced that if she left, Frank would kill her. At that point, he knew that was going to be the outcome regardless. She stopped returning his calls. She called him one last time to let him know that the asshole got her pregnant at the age of 47. Pregnancy in your late 40s and 50s wasn't that unusual nowadays considering 60 is now middle-aged for most people, but it wasn't something she wanted under the circumstances. She was crying hysterically the entire time. He made her promise that she would get out. She also made him promise that if anything happened to her, he would look after Jim.

Three weeks later, she did get out, in a body bag. If it wasn't for 'Number One' holding him back, Frank would have joined her. That prick had the audacity to show up to help the family mourn a life that he took.

Jim was nowhere to be found. He found out a few years later that Jim was getting completely wasted at the same bar Chris found him in a year later. It took him a little while, but he did keep his promise to his presumably late friend to look after her son. Although apparently she wasn't as late as he thought she was.

His suspicions were confirmed to when she turned around and he saw her eyes widen as she recognized him. He was thankful for his chair, because if he had been standing, he would've collapsed. It's not every day that someone you assumed to be dead for nearly 7 years turns out to be your girl—friend's daughter's preschool teacher.

Because the school day ended about 30 minutes ago, the room was devoid of all other children except for who he assumed to be Georgia. She looked like Winona with an unfortunate amount of Frank in there. The name Georgia cemented in his mind that this woman was Winona. Of course, she would name her daughter after her late husband and child.

"Sorry we couldn't get here sooner. Traffic is a nightmare from the Academy to here," Amanda said as they walked into the room.

"I know." Chris was sure Winona did, considering she spent a good four years at the Academy.

"I'm sorry I had to call you. Your nanny freaked out and pretty much quit." That was the fourth nanny this year. Because of her job, Amanda needed someone to take care of the kids after school sometimes, because her hours were a little unpredictable at times and she still felt T'Pend was too young to be left unattended for long periods of time. Unfortunately, due to the girls' penchant for science experiments and hacking into computer systems that they should not be breaking into, they had a tendency to scare people off quickly.

"You must be Admiral daddy. T'Pay talks about you all the time. Although, I had no idea that Admiral daddy was the great Christopher Pike, who finally decided to get married. Although, I really don't watch the news that much, so I wouldn't know," Winona said, looking at him directly with a smile that scared him.

"We are not— Chris is just a friend— T'Pay calls him that because he's the closest thing she has to a father because I'm a widow," Amanda stammered out as she was blushing. He would say something similar but he was in a little too much shock at the moment from the fact that he had just found out that Winona Kirk was not dead. "I'm going to go see if maintenance has a key or a code for the bathroom," Amanda said, as an excuse to get out of there as fast as possible. Of course, she turned around seconds later. "Where is the maintenance office?"

"I can show you, Dr. Grayson," the little girl said, grabbing Amanda's hand and dragging her out of the room.

"I see that reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated, Winona," he said, turning to her as soon as Georgia left the room.

"I see that you're still too afraid to let the woman that you love actually know that you love her. You'd think that you would know better after what happened last time." If there were any doubt left in his mind that this woman was Winona Kirk, it was gone.

To be continued.