Chapter Text
All Vulcans always return to Vulcan. Vulcan is the north, it is the first star, the brightest sun. Vulcan, with its warm red radiance, leads through the darkness of doubt, the storms of uncertainty. Even when it is gone, Vulcan always remains. Even when it puts on a new mantle and even changes its name, even then. Vulcan is more than a home: it is an essence.
From time to time, Sarek's son also returns to Vulcan. Not as much as Sarek, in defiance of all logic, would like. Being a father is the greatest challenge Sarek has ever faced, and he finds himself struggling every day: when he longs for Spock's presence at his side but duty and modesty and rigour dictate that he does not contact him; when Spock is finally at Sarek's side, as he is at this moment, and Sarek wishes for both of them that the time to part will soon come.
Sarek and his son raise their steaming cups of tea at the same moment, and disappear behind them. They sip in perfect synchrony, harmonised by years of repetition of the same exercise that neither of them, despite the distance of their souls, will ever forget.
"I would like you to tell me about your future plans," Sarek begins, straight to the point.
One of Spock's eyebrows rises.
The conversation has already played out in full in both their minds, echoing in the family bond or simply in the memory of other similar discussions they have already had. A good, more tactful father would refrain from bringing it up again. Sarek knows he is not a good father to a human being, and he knows he is an exemplary father to a Vulcan. Where this places him as Spock's father, that is more difficult to determine.
"What exactly would you like to know?" asks Spock, playing along. Always diplomatic, always caustic.
With a squeeze in his heart, Sarek thinks Amanda would have smiled at this point.
"I would like to know what your intentions are regarding your future marriage."
Spock still sips his drink and Sarek does the same, two actors with a tried and tested monologue, stalling for time.
"We have established that I am still young to have children."
"We have established that youth and old age are relative terms."
"And so, father," says Spock, his head bent to the side, "your old age is also relative." Always so expressive, always so alive. Amanda glows within him.
"You are suggesting that I should be the one to give new seed to the people of Vulcan instead of you," Sarek says, his tone monotone, his solemn face never betraying any emotion. For better or worse.
"I didn't suggest anything," Spock says, but one corner of his lips has lifted just slightly.
Sarek puts down his cup of tea. He never demanded that Spock follow in his footsteps - though he would have appreciated it. He never demanded that Spock be a perfect Vulcan - though he would have appreciated it. He will not clip his son's wings, will not bind his ankles with the laces of duty any more than Spock's conscience already does like for any other Vulcan. Sarek understands the wonder Spock feels for the universe, for discovery, for the other, for the beyond. He understands the benefits of Spock's labours and his work, and is grateful for the light that shines in his son's eyes each time he completes a scientific research project. Sarek understands Spock's need for his travels among the stars, and although Spock may forget it, Sarek understands love, because he had Amanda. That is why he knows that Spock is reluctant to leave his job in Starfleet. Spock does not even like to consider doing so in the future, when he will be older, when his thirst for mystery will be reasonably satiated.
But there is something Sarek does not understand, and that goes beyond all that. An unstable, unfathomable variable capable of polarising all of Spock's rhythm, all of his sense. Something decisive for his son, something towards which Spock is always turned and which conditions his every choice. It is no more a penalty for Spock than it is something precious, or perhaps it is both things, but Sarek does not have the tools to understand the problem.
Probing all the possibilities, Sarek has often come to the conclusion that this incognita may be the woman at Spock's side. Sarek has never opposed Uhura. Her intelligent, kind and so human gaze inevitably reminds him of Amanda's gaze. If she were the source of this great, mysterious, apocalyptic influence on Spock, Sarek might come to understand. But part of him believes she is not.
"Spock," he then tells him, "what is your real Vulcan?"
For a brief moment all of Spock's humanity flashes across his face - surprise, uncertainty, the hint of the first guess... but then his communicator emits a short, small sound and a foreign voice spreads across the room.
"Look, Spock, contacting you during your shore leave doesn't please you any more than it pleases me, but we've got a problem, damn it. You know those plant samples you collected the day before yesterday on Beta Teta? Well, Jim managed to get himself a pretty fucking nasty allergic reaction in a delayed burst, and the idiot thought it best not to let me know that he'd spent the night vomiting, and it was only by chance that they found him unconscious in his room, and here the lab is half empty and I need someone to synthesise an antidote immediately or..."
Within a moment Spock is on his feet, has gathered his things, thrown sharp, dart-clean questions, given terse, icy information.
"I must leave you, father," he only says.
And as his tall figure disappears behind the shimmer of the transporter, the image of Ambassador Spock, his eyes old with sadness, his lost world, his immortal affections, all that tears Sarek apart. And suddenly Sarek's mind produces another hypothesis: for Spock there was no choice but to leave, perhaps there never was any choice but this. Spock is more than his son, more than a son of Vulcan, more than a son of New Vulcan. Spock is the product of the mysterious intersection with something that has not yet been extinguished even universes away. And whatever nature it is that call that attracts him, his essence needs to follow it always, because it is of that enormous, all-encompassing north that Spock is truly a son.
Sarek sips his tea, puzzled.