The equivalent of a three-martini lunch with the wife of a visiting dignitary had left a blur in a certain area of her brain. On second thought, she chided herself, make that areas. Looking out the study window, the midday sun seemed to take care of everything else. Reality was wobbling around her, the edges all bleeding into one another. Now Amanda had to come up with an answer to this doozy of a line of inquiry. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have problems with Spock's questioning. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have sent him off to his father for some sanitized, acceptable version of the truth, properly censored. But this time, Sarek was a couple of million miles away and their eight-year-old son was not taking "wait-'til-your-father-gets-home" for an answer. Especially considering that at the rate negotiations were going, who knew when that great event might happen.

He asked about when he was born.

It seemed that she had turned it over and over in her head an infinite amount of times in the last minute or so. Nothing was coming up suitable or making sense for that matter. Maybe if she waited long enough, he might give up. Looking at her son's reflection in the glass reassured her that that was not going to happen. Amanda certainly didn't know where this child had gotten his damned patient streak. Surely, Sarek tried to put on a good front at times, but he always managed to give himself away to her, if to no one else. If she hadn't been absolutely sure otherwise, there were a great many times when she might be led to think that Spock was some strange changeling, switched for their baby at birth.

She tried again to let the events of Spock's birth pass before her, memories that held too much of her heart: Sarek's voice and mind easing her through the pain, his hand never letting go of hers until long afterward.

The alcohol was making her maudlin and teary-eyed, and that certainly wouldn't do. Not now. This story couldn't be whitewashed, at least not by her inexperienced hand. She had agreed that their son was faced with a confusing enough existence; he had made this choice…the choice to be Vulcan…himself, but there was no point in complicating it further with stories that would confuse him more.

They had agreed, she and Sarek. But that seemed to mean that their only child was destined, at least for the time being, to have the true nature of his parents' relationship hidden from him. First, he had to learn all the rules without question before he could learn how far to stretch them. And maybe even break them…in the privacy of his own home.

There was no way she could shape this into Vulcan acceptability, no way she could make this story into a series of cold, hard facts. She doubted she would even want to if she could, even if her mind had not gone limp around the edges. And yet, her son stood waiting impassively and, yes, patiently for an answer.

A nap was what she needed right now. Damn it! Sarek was what she needed right now, and not just to sanitize a story. What a dry, loveless thing censorship had made their marriage appear to others, and what a far cry from reality.

Pivoting on her heel, landing slightly off-balance, Amanda turned to her son, steadying herself against a chair, the mischief in her eyes lost on him. It would serve Sarek right for all the things told out of sequence in the way their life was related to their son.

"You were born in a cave."

(printed with permission by TRUE VULCAN CONFESSIONS)