Absence

Author: Amanda Grayson

Code: Sarek, Amanda, Spock

Series: TOS

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Star Trek et al is owned by Paramount. No infringement or disparagement is intended by the author.

Summary: Amanda recounts the early beginnings of the relationship between Sarek and Spock.

Notes: This story is in response to a recent Father’s Day challenge. Credit for inspiration also goes to my partner, Jane and my daughter, Ausa.

From the moment we brought Spock home, he preferred me to Sarek. Spock really didn’t want anything to do with his father. He figured out very quickly that Sarek was not equipped to feed him and so he often fussed when Sarek held him. If he was with me, he was guaranteed a meal. Sarek also had very little instinct and intuition when it came to his son. I found that amusing. After all, Sarek was telepathic, but that ability didn’t seem to help him here. I would often come home from some errand or something and find Spock in a snit and Sarek rather put out, although he would always deny this.

Sarek loved Spock. He still does. But he didn’t always understand him.

Spock was not your ordinary baby. I don’t just mean his physiology. It was more than that. He was born—aware. I remember when they put him on my stomach after he was born. These penetrating, obsidian eyes looked at me, knew me. He was not your average, cuddly little bundle. He was unique, even for a Vulcan infant.

Sarek was unprepared for this. He had expectations of how an infant should act, how an infant should be.

Spock HATED being a baby. He often fussed, not crying really, just complaining. He hated being helpless. From the beginning, we often talked to him as though he could understand everything that was going on. He certainly acted that way. But it was difficult for Sarek to understand why Spock couldn’t just enjoy this state of infancy.

The estrangement between them seemed to grow wider and I was unsure what to do. Throwing them together was usually a disaster. Trying to act as a mediator between them was often worse.

When Spock was four months old, he and I left Vulcan to go to Earth to visit my mother. Sarek was unable to accompany us due to his obligations. I hated being alone. The journey was long and while my mother was delighted to see her first grandchild, I soon found myself in competition with her for Spock’s care and feeding.

Spock picked up on all the tension and began to refuse the breast. I wound up spending what felt like hours with him in the rocking chair in my old bedroom, trying to get him to eat. Eventually we went back to our old routines, but it was a wearisome time. After a month, I was more than ready to go home to Vulcan and to Sarek.

The journey home was, of course, long. Every thing seems long when you have a baby. Time that would generally fly away while you are reading or engaged in a game ticks by very slowly with a howling child in your lap. We were not so incredibly confined on the liner, but once we got closer to Vulcan, our transport changed to a smaller shuttle. That was a bit more claustrophobic.

I remember finally getting off the transport, weighed down with Spock on one hip and his large diaper bag slung over the opposite shoulder. The Shi'kahr station was a welcome sight. Even more so was my husband, waiting at the end of the terminal to greet us. Suddenly, the bundle on my hip began to wiggle and move.

‘Spock, no,’ I admonished him. ‘Not now.’ But the wiggling continued. I glanced over to see him bouncing up and down, his face broken out in a wide baby grin, arms reaching out—for Sarek. I was shocked. Spock had never given his father such a greeting before. As we neared Sarek, Spock literally jumped from my arms to his, almost choking his father and giving him a wet, open-mouth baby kiss on the cheek.

I could tell Sarek was taken aback. Neither of us had been prepared for such a reaction on Spock’s part. I was trying to hide my smile—and my tears. ‘I suppose absence really does make the heart grow fonder,’ I said as I greeted my beloved, two fingers extended.

‘Indeed,’ Sarek replied, eyebrow raised. ‘Perhaps he is simply overjoyed that I am not your mother.’

I turned from him, trying not to laugh. Never let it be said that Vulcans do not have a sense of humour! ‘Perhaps,’ I said, smiling as I took his arm and we walked through the station together, Spock on Sarek’s hip, his little arm resting on Sarek’s large shoulder.

This began one of the idyllic periods in their relationship, where Spock often seemed to need his father and where Sarek always seemed content to fill that need.