The next several weeks were brutal for Amanda. Ambassador Sarek was just the first in a long procession of people poking into her life. She wanted to put the events of the conference behind her but no one else seemed so inclined.

Her mother was disappointed. She wasn't sure if it was in her, John, or the situation in general; she swore up and down she was angry with John for hurting her daughter, but Amanda sensed some other disappointment there. Before this whole thing, John had aspired to one day be Terran president and was actually on track to do so, probably in about thirty years. She could only imagine her socially conscious mother's delight in the thought of her own daughter being married to the leader of a planet, and then her disappointment as those dreams evaporated.

The Tellarite ambassador, a middle-aged man named Julan, was waiting for her outside of her classroom the following Monday morning before school started. He was the father of one of her students, a stubborn boy called Zhav. She hadn't been sure what to expect when she saw him stomping back and forth outside of her schoolroom, but he had come to apologize on behalf of Chancellor Gasek and all of Tellar Prime. After he was done apologizing, he stuck around.

He had been excited to discover she was well-versed in his language and insisted on meeting with her every week after that to discuss his son. He developed a curious habit of showing up in the small cafeteria in the basement of the North wing where she took the students for lunch, bumping into her in even the most remote corridors, and generally popping up more often than could possibly be randomly attributed to chance. He was nice enough, but he came on quite strongly and even if she ever thought she could be interested, she was pretty certain he had a wife back on his home planet. Avoiding her new Tellarite suitor was proving difficult, but keeping the media and the general public at bay had been impossible from the start.

Most of the media's portrayal of her was as a battered girlfriend, an innocent victim, or an idiot who didn't know how to move out of the way while the 'boys handled their problems.' She had thought sexism was of a bygone age and felt dismayed to discover such old-fashioned sentiments still existed in some strata of society. Earth of the 23rd century had come a long way, but apparently there was no such thing as a finish line where progress was concerned.

She had managed to avoid talking to anyone from the press, which had been a mixed blessing. Initially it made interest in her even more ardent as everyone fought to get an exclusive interview. They called and knocked on her door at all hours of the night. They waited outside of the embassy for her to get to work and waited all day for her to leave again. Eventually she learned it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because they were going to report on the story with or without some salacious quote.

She never realized how much she loved solitude until people recognized her everywhere she went. In public, complete strangers acted like they knew her and it opened her up to unsolicited advice, questions, and comments from all manner of people.

One man on the bus had accused her of staging the whole thing to make John look bad. The Monday after it happened, Congressman Molineaux's office released a lengthy statement explaining his support for interspecies cooperation, his disgust with domestic violence, and a bill he was putting forward in the next congressional session to fund a program to facilitate a student exchange among various federation universities to celebrate diversity. Included in the same statement was a single sentence indicating that she and the congressman had "parted their separate ways but still remain good friends in light of this unfortunate, unintentional incident." Amanda thought his campaign manager was playing rather fast and loose with the phrase "good friends" but she was happy all the same to be free of him entirely, both on a personal level and a public one. Still, there existed a fraction of society who thought she was horrible for deserting him in his hour of need.

Then there were the armchair warriors. A tiny, wizened old woman in a hover chair at the corner deli had told her in no uncertain terms that if she had been the one punched in the face, she would have hit him right back with her purse. Nearly a dozen people had criticized her directly to her face for not pressing charges, insisting he would hurt other people if she let him get away with it. She just wanted this whole thing to be forgotten. John had gotten drunk, tried to hit a waiter, and hit her on accident. That was all there was to it.

Unfortunately that seemed to have the counter effect of drawing it out more, just so people could tell her that she was making the wrong decision. She had never understood the burning desire that people have to give their opinions where they were neither needed nor wanted, but she quickly learned any choice she made would be picked apart and examined and found to be lacking or short-sighted in some way.

Eventually media interest about her slowed to a trickle, especially given that she was but a costar in the circus surrounding the incident. John took center stage, though people had also formed a wide range of views about Ambassador Sarek, Chancellor Gasek and his aide who had thrown the first punch that had missed John, and even Giles Marcus to a small extent.

Almost all of the media hailed Sarek as a hero who put a swift end to a brawl started by a drunken Terran congressman, though naturally some ultra-conservative fringe outlets decided to spin it a different way entirely. Some accused Sarek of assault and excessive force, and to hear one organization tell it, the fight was a ruse by the Vulcan government to try to assassinate John that had failed. The Tellarites hadn't fared quite as well as Sarek, but were generally absolved of most of the blame.

Giles became an overnight chivalrous sensation, and still images taken from the video projections showing him holding Amanda has her face bled made the rounds on all the morning talk shows. Quickly that devolved into the assumption that she had Giles were having a torrid love affair, and she had called his wife to explain. Thankfully Celeste was too busy with newborn twins to watch much news and had laughed it off.

Amanda did her best to bury her head in the proverbial sand and wait for the storm to pass. She completely locked down the settings on her PADD, making her contact information private. She recalled Giles' comments about third-party access to her messages and though she wasn't particularly tech-savvy, eventually figured out how to reconfigure the settings to disallow remote access to her messages. Eventually she stopped receiving hundreds of calls and messages a day from the general public and did the best to go on with her life.

Unfortunately, the incident at the conference had impacts that reached far beyond her and John. The interplanetary conference in general had served as a curious catalyst for the Earth Autonomy Movement and generated increased interest in the Earth First Party. She never paid much attention to current politics, preferring instead to let history be the judge, but it was sneaking its way into her life. Vera was oddly politically active and often talked about various rallies and meetings she attended. According to Vera, the EAM and EFP were a huge problem.

The Earth Autonomy Movement supposedly traced its roots back to the Xindi crisis when it had been known as Terra Prime. It was rebranded several years later when the Romulan war broke out as a means of distancing itself from their predecessor's extremist tactics. It had gone on to consume several offshoot organizations, some extremist, some not. For more than eighty years, support for the organization had waxed and waned, usually coinciding with Federation or Terran elections or some interplanetary crisis. Over the past year, Vulcan's interest in expanding the Romulan corridor had reignited interest in the EAM.

Vulcan wanted to push their boundaries outward for scientific exploration, which some believed came too close to the existing Romulan Neutral Zone. Vulcan's insistence spurred interest in the fledging Earth First Party, a small independent group that sold itself as a protector of human interests. Their holo ads often featured old style nuclear fusion weapons and an insistence that Earth should never relive those days. Most people generally regarded the EAM and the EFP to be one and the same, though those well versed on the subject would call the former a terrorist organization and the latter a political party a half step removed from endorsing terrorism. The EFP had a handful of candidates that were running in the mid-term elections, and the events of the conference only spurred support for their numbers. Things were becoming so ridiculous that she started avoiding holo screens and news articles altogether.

Her entire life had morphed into a sad cycle of evasion. She often left her apartment before the sun came up, so as to avoid large crowds on the shuttle bus who might recognize her and have something to say. She would arrive at the embassy school only to spend her days craftily dodging Ambassador Julan. Though she screened calls on her PADD, occasionally a reporter would find some way to get through.

She hadn't had a very active social life before, but now it was dead, buried, and food for worms. Vera seemed to come by more often, and Amanda finally realized that for all of her eccentricities, she really was a good friend. At the moment, she was her only friend. She had spent weeks begging Amanda to get together and do something like actual friends would do, but they kept such different schedules that it had proved nearly impossible. She had taken to sending her messages with advertisements for various shows, attractions, and museums in the bay area, but Amanda wasn't certain she was ready to venture out into public like a regular person just yet.

So she immersed herself into Project Rosetta, spending almost every evening and weekend in the basement of the embassy complex. If she didn't have a cat to feed or require a shower and clean clothes, she imagined she could easily take up residence in her basement cubicle. She wasn't sleeping or eating as well as she should, and it was showing in her increasingly thin frame. Eventually it caught up to her.

She awoke on a Friday morning to the sound of her PADD alerting her to a new message. She rolled over, noted the time, and shrieked. She was due at work in half an hour. She dressed and showered in record time and tore down to the bus stop, only to find her usual mode of transportation pulling away down the city's narrow streets.

She sometimes walked to work when the weather was nice, but even at a brisk pace it usually took her about twenty minutes. She checked the time: she had half of that. So she ran, sprinting all the way to the embassy complex, pushing through occasional groups of fellow pedestrians.

She arrived at the school building security checkpoint with one minute to spare, swiped her card, and dashed down the hallway, arriving about twenty seconds late. Her students sat at their two tables, staring at her. Sweat poured down her temples and she was breathing heavily. She set her bag down on the desk and marched immediately over to her educational holo screen.

"Good morning, class," she said as steadily as she could, though she could tell it came out as more of a gasp.

"Good morning, Miss Grayson," they responded in unison.

She got to the wall only to realize the power to the screen was on the fritz again. She turned to face her students, watching them watch her and she felt instantly drained. It was going to be that kind of day.

Her lessons on geology and literature had to be put off without the use of the holo projector, and she spent most of the afternoon stepping over maintenance crews as they toyed and tinkered with various components. She did her best to improvise, and thankfully most of her students possessed the maturity to get through the disruption in their usual routine. They were young, but they were the children of diplomats and it often surprised her how well mannered they were. She had always been a bookish sort of student herself, but her students were well ahead of where she had been at their age, both intellectually and socially.

Eventually 16:00 rolled around and she turned her young charges over to their parents and caretakers for the weekend. She stopped by the food stand in the rotunda for a salad and headed down to the basement, fully intending to finish the source code for formal Romulan dictation recognition she had been working on for weeks.

The embassy complex was an intricate network of above ground buildings that were all connected by a central, circularly shaped basement. The Rosetta Project occupied offices in a small wing on the West side, hidden away in a corner behind nondescript metal doors.

She swiped her access card on the terminal and entered, finding the usually busy office space was nearly empty. It was nearly 17:00 on a Friday, and she imagined most people had better things to do than slave away in a basement all weekend. She certainly wished she did. She plopped down unceremoniously at the computer console she had commandeered from the people who worked with syntactical structures and stared at the screen, realizing her heart wasn't really in this today.

Her PADD chirped, alerting her to a new message. Vera sent her a brochure for Palo Alto's hanging gardens, and she smiled. She knew she couldn't stay cooped up in hiding in her apartment or the stuffy basement of the embassy forever. The hanging gardens were widely regarded as one of the bay area's premiere attractions and she had wanted to go since she moved out to San Francisco months ago. Something clicked inside of her and she promised herself that tomorrow, she would get out of her rut and go. She checked the weather, learning it was supposed to storm overnight and rain tomorrow, but Sunday was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably warm. It seemed like a sign. So what if people recognized her? Was she really so timid she couldn't handle it anymore?

She messaged Vera back saying she would love to go on Sunday, only to be met with the immediate response that Vera already regrettably had plans all weekend. She felt a bit dismayed, her boldness to take charge over her life fading a bit. She could still go by herself, but suddenly it didn't seem as fun anymore. She frowned. Maybe next weekend.

No, she thought sternly to herself. She needed to get out and about now, or it might never happen and she would end up like Mrs. Lasachek, who lived down the street growing up and hadn't stepped foot outside her house in more than twenty years after her husband died. Her mother had called it agoraphobia, and often sent her down to deliver roasts and pies. She never understood what could cause a person to just abandon the world in that way, but the events of the last month made her realize that sometimes circumstances can drive people to a number of irrational behaviors.

She smiled to herself at her newfound resolve and prayed it lasted. She was about to click her PADD off when she noticed an unread message. She had forgotten about the morning message that woke her up and smiled when she realized it was from her father. She swiped her finger across the screen to open it and read:

Amanda,

I love you very much. We haven't talked much lately, but I just wanted to remind you that I think about you often. Things are getting tense out here and I've run into some problems I wasn't anticipating. I may not be able to talk much for a while, but I wanted to give you the authorization code to my deposit box. It's at the old bank. You know the place. If something happens, everything in there is yours.
Box 77619
Code: 12-F-77L181

I love you, sweetheart. You'll always be my little girl.

-Dad

She was confused. The tone of his message made it sound like a last will. She knew his line of work wasn't exactly safe; he occasionally ran into smugglers or competing surveying teams, but he had never sent a message that sounded nearly as ominous as this. She dialed a com link to him on her PADD and got no answer. Her heart started beating quickly as anxiety rose in her chest. She tried thinking about the situation logically: he was often out of range or busy, so it wasn't unusual that he wouldn't answer. The message seemed cryptic but he had never been a man for using ten words when one would do.

She pulled the lid from her salad and began to eat, mulling over what to do. It wasn't time to panic. She would try him again in a couple of hours.

She finished her meal and dove headlong into her algorithm. She lost herself in her work and time seemed to accelerate. When her PADD chirped and she looked down to see a message from Vera asking, "Where are you?" she noted the time and panicked. It was 0030 hours and the shuttle buses stopped running half an hour ago. As she was messaging Vera back, the lights shut out and auxiliary lighting came on.

She had never stayed so late at the embassy complex before and was uncertain if it was common for the lights to be turned off after certain hours. The hallways were illuminated by emergency lighting only and it cast strange shadows up on the walls. She walked to her usual turbolift, only to discover it seemed to be out of service for the night. She swallowed her frustration and tried the stairs, only to get to ground level and discover the exit was also locked, and her annoyance began to turn to fear. Then the lights shut off completely and she stood in total darkness, trying to keep a scream from coming out. This couldn't be routine. They wouldn't lock down the exit to the stairs. It had to be against some kind of safety code, in case of a fire or emergency.

She used the light from the screen of her PADD and slowly doubled back around the side corridor of the basement and found another turbo lift that she had never used before, which to her relief was operational. She took it from the basement to the ground floor and the doors opened about 30 centimeters before power failed and they froze. She could hear thunderstorms raging outside, and managed to pry the doors open wide enough to squeeze through, counting her blessings that she hadn't gotten trapped inside.

She exited into an unfamiliar lobby and tried to collect her bearings. The sign on the wall next to the elevator illuminated in the darkness as she approached it, indicating she was in the West lobby, where important dignitaries often entered for privacy.

The embassies of all Federation planets to Earth were housed into a tight complex shaped like a honeycomb, each facing inward into an enormous courtyard. Each building had the impression of being a free standing structure but were all interconnected by skywalks on the second floors. There were various administrative buildings throughout, as well as several eateries, the school Amanda worked at, a massive auditorium and a few other buildings on the West lawn she had never identified.

She stepped off the lift, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. She could barely make out the long, curved glass wall stretching out in both directions around the rear of the courtyard. Suddenly a bolt of lightning illuminated the lobby for a second and she realized she was locked in. To the left was the corridor that led to the front North entrance, but the heavy, metal doors were shut tightly. She tried swiping her access card, but as she expected, received a red "access denied" message on the adjoining console. There was considerable security at the embassies, and since she was only a teacher at the school, she didn't exactly have free reign of the place. She pressed the call-button on the screen and got no answer.

She clicked through her PADD, trying to locate the contact information of the night watchman at the public service entrance. After several minutes she located it, dialed, and got no answer. She fought back the exasperation and sinking feeling that she might be spending the night.

She walked to the long glass walls and peered out through the storm. She could see lights in the other embassy buildings, but they were flickering on and off with no discernable pattern. She noticed a light on in what she assumed was the public entrance to the embassies but it was too far away across the open courtyard to be sure. She tried the number for the front desk again, and this time there was only static.

She weighed her options. She looked back at the turbolift she had just emerged from, noting the adjacent computer terminal was still nonoperational. The thought of returning to the pitch-black basement wasn't particularly appealing either. She could wait here for the storm to pass, but there was no telling when that would be and she was feeling rather on edge, standing in a cold marble hallway completely alone and in the dark.

She moved toward the glass door along the wall and pushed and was moderately surprised to find it open. She judged the distance from her position to the illuminated building on the opposite side of the courtyard. It was maybe 150 meters, and there was no way she'd make it there without looking like she had stepped out of a shower. She waited about five minutes, praying the storm would stop or the power would return. The lights remained off but the rain had subsided to a drizzle and she tucked her PADD and access card into her shoulder bag, clutched it closely to her chest, and darted across the open courtyard.

She was about halfway to her destination when the torrential downpour resumed. She ran faster, though it didn't matter because after about ten steps she was thoroughly drenched. She made it to the lit building and tried to pull open the glass door but it was firmly locked. She peered through it, noting the computer console at the desk was illuminated but there was no one manning it. She pounded her fists on the glass, hopeful the night watchman or some after hours clerk would hear, but no one came. Then the lights went out inside there as well.

She turned back to the courtyard and jumped when she realized there was a man standing just two meters behind her.

"Ambassador Sarek?" she yelled over the rumble of the storm.

What was he doing out here? It occurred to Amanda that he probably wondered the same about her.

"Can you not gain entry?" he asked, coming closer to her.

"No, it's locked. Do you know what's going on?"

"No," he replied. "We should seek shelter."

"Obviously!" she snapped, embarrassed by her rudeness. "But where do you suggest we do that?"

At that moment, the storm decided rain wasn't enough and decided to deliver hail as well. Pellets of pea-sized ice pelted them, stinging her skin. He yelled something that she couldn't hear but she noticed a light flicker over his shoulder and instantly recognized it as the embassy school.

"Come on," she yelled, running past him and motioning for him to follow.

As she ran she pulled her access card from her bag and when they arrived at the building she swiped it through the terminal. She felt the door mercifully click and ripped it open. They stood inside the rear entry to the school, both dripping puddles of water onto the floor and shivering from the cool air conditioning.

She looked at him, fighting the urge to laugh. He had been so intimidating all those weeks ago in her apartment, but now he looked like he had neglected to remove his clothes before a bath. He had ice pellets clinging to his usually immaculately groomed hair and water dripping from his chin and nose. She knew she couldn't look much better, and tried to brush away the wet tendrils of hair plastered to her forehead.

"What were you doing out there?" she asked, ditching formality in light of the unusual situation.

"I was out of my office when the power failures began," he responded, attempting to wring water from his long shirt. "I found myself locked out. Then I noticed you running across the courtyard. What were you doing out there, Miss Grayson?"

"I was in the basement and it went dark."

As if on cue, power to the school building failed again and they stood in the blackness.

"Yeah, like that," she said in annoyance, pulling her PADD from her bag and wiping the water off. "I made it up to the ground level and found myself locked in to the private embassy hall. I saw the light on at the public entrance and thought someone could tell me what was going on."

"These outages are unusual," he noted, turning to look back across the courtyard.

"How so?"

"These systems are integrated. The power should not be on in some areas and off in others at random. An auxiliary power system should at least provide restricted entry and exit from buildings," he replied.

"So what does that mean?" she asked, still drying her PADD.

"I don't know," he murmured.

She clicked her PADD on and tried calling the front desk again, only to be met with static, again. She asked him if he could think of anyone else to call, but he could not. The PADD provided just enough light for her to escort him down the wide hallway to her classroom. Their wet shoes squeaked on the stone flooring and they trailed water all the way there.

The classroom doors weren't secured using the embassy computer system and relied instead on old fashioned locks and door handles. She considered her surroundings and immediately went to a side closet on the wall and produced a battery-powered model of the Terran solar system. She set it on one of the desks and turned it on. It illuminated and began rotating, demonstrating the orbits and transits of the planets. It wasn't bright enough to light the room, but it was better than nothing. Ambassador Sarek stood in the doorway watching her.

"You might as well sit and take in Jupiter's majesty," she declared, pulling out one of the small chairs for herself. Noting that his size would easily dwarf one of the chairs her students sat in, she added, "you're welcome to sit at my desk. It's a little more comfortable."

He pulled the chair from her desk over to the table and sat next to her.

"This is your classroom, I presume."

"Yes."

"Mr. Marcus told me you were an educator."

"Yes," she answered, remembering how awkward the last private conversation she had with him had been.

"I was unaware your profession kept you so late," he said, peering closely at the model solar system.

"It doesn't," she laughed nervously. "I also work part time on the Rosetta Project. That's where I met Giles, er, Mr. Marcus. Anyway, I stayed to finish a few algorithms and lost track of time. Besides, you seem to be burning the midnight oil too."

He canted his head and considered her words.

"I take that to be a euphemism for working beyond a traditionally set work period."

"Something like that," Amanda admitted, smiling at the persistent formality of his speech.

"I often stay until I am satisfied my duties have been adequately attended to," he stated.

"Do you not often get the chance to get out and sight-see?" she asked, immediately wondering if she was venturing into territory that might be considered too personal.

"Not since I've been back, no. I find the winter season here disagreeable."

"So does everyone else," she said, trying to avoid a sarcastic tone. "But it isn't winter anymore."

"You seem to imply now is the perfect time to be out of doors and exploring Earth's attractions, however the current weather conditions would suggest otherwise."

"The weather isn't always this bad. That's just the way spring can be sometimes. The forecast for this weekend is actually supposed to be sunny. I was planning a trip to the hanging gardens on Sunday. You should go."

He turned his head to look at her, his eyes squinting a fraction of a millimeter. A peal of lightning streaked across the sky and illuminated his features temporarily from the high windows in the classroom.

"Do you mean with you?" he asked.

Thunder rumbled ominously and suddenly the ambiguity of her words slammed into her like a freight train. Her cheeks started to flush and she was at a loss for how to answer.