None of the other diners in the Enterprise’s officers’ mess had seemed to notice that Spock had not touched his plo-meek soup in nearly a quarter of an hour. He sat alone at a table in the corner of the room, spoon in hand, eyes downcast. Had anyone cared to spare him more than a moment’s attention, they might have thought he was staring at his soup. In fact, his focus lay far beyond the plain white bowl on a tray; his thoughts were light-years distant, on Vulcan, and decades into his own past, reflecting on a childhood he had never fully understood until now.
I had never been so arrogant as to think I understood my parents, he ruminated. But to realize I had misjudged them so unfairly . . . is troubling. On what other matters have I let my personal experiences cloud my logic? Who else have I judged and found wanting in some respect, without taking the time to truly know them?
He paused his reflections when he perceived the approach of Commander Una. She carried a tray on which was set a plate of vegetarian casserole and a mug of steaming green tea whose gentle aroma Spock detected as Una sat down across from him. He set down his spoon as he greeted her. “Good afternoon, Commander.”
“Mister Spock. You’re looking well.”
Una dug into her lunch and savored the first bite with closed eyes. After a sip of tea to clear her palate, she noted his half-full bowl of soup. “Not as hungry as you thought?”
Spock set the tray aside. “Apparently not.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“To the best of my knowledge, I am in good health.”
She reacted to his answer with mock suspicion, then smiled and resumed her own lunch. Between bites she said, “I read your report about the trials inside the Juggernaut. It sounds as if we’re lucky to still have you with us.”
Recollecting the events of the previous day, Spock found he did not share Una’s opinion. “I do not think luck was a relevant variable. If you read my post-mission analysis—”
“I read it,” Una cut in, exercising the privilege that came with her rank and billet. “Pretty compelling stuff.” She fixed him with a searching stare. He wondered for a moment whether she had deduced somehow that he had omitted from his report any mention of the Juggernaut’s final challenge, or of the mind-meld that had been required to overcome it. Then Una sat back and smiled at him. “You seem different since you got back.”
Her assertion aroused Spock’s curiosity. “In what regard?”
“You seem . . . I don’t know. Older? No—calmer than you did before.” She tilted her head as she continued to study him and collect her thoughts. “You present yourself in a way that feels more centered. Better balanced.” Her smile broadened to a grin. “You have gravitas now.”
He cocked one eyebrow as he contemplated the ways in which he might interpret her remarks. He found it acceptable that most such permutations yielded positive impressions. With a polite lowering of his chin, he said, “Thank you, Commander.”
“So,” Una said, “do I have Lieutenant Burnham to thank for this transformation?”
“I will admit that getting to know her proved, for me, to be a path to self-knowledge.”
“How so?” Una’s question sounded more like friendly interest than a debriefing.
Spock steepled his fingers in front of himself while he considered his reply. “There is an irony, I think, in the way that our lives have mirrored each other. She is a human who has strived since childhood to live by the codes of Vulcan stoicism, whereas I, a Vulcan—”
“Half-Vulcan,” Una corrected.
He pressed on without acknowledging her verbal edit. “I have long chafed against the limitations of Vulcan philosophy and social custom. All those things I turned my back upon by leaving Vulcan, she embraced by going to school there for over a dozen years. And yet . . . we both have found our way here, to Starfleet. And, for one brief moment, to each other.”
Perhaps sensing the personal nature of the unfolding conversation, Una leaned closer across the table and lowered her voice. “What kind of a connection did you find with her?”
He answered quietly. “As I told the captain yesterday, she is a friend of my family. What I did not say was that she was, for many years, a ward of my parents. Though it is embarrassing for me to admit this, a sibling rivalry, of sorts, had long existed between us.” He paused and remembered those bitter, lonely times in his youth. “It is only now, after getting to know her better, that I realized she and I have both, each in our own way, been disappointments to Sarek. And that we likely will never fulfill the expectations he holds for us.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Una said. “Children should strive to grow beyond their parents, not just try to conclude their unfinished business.”
“Most wise, Commander.” He stood and picked up his tray. “If you’ll excuse me—”
“Won’t you stay and eat with me?”
“I regret that I cannot. But I will see you tomorrow morning on the bridge.”
A forgiving smile. “See you then.”
He nodded in recognition of her polite release, and then he returned his tray and bowl of half-eaten soup to the matter reclamator in the mess hall’s bulkhead. No one else noted him as he passed by on his way out, nor did anyone pay him any mind as he walked alone and silent through the corridors of the Enterprise.
He returned to his quarters, and after he was inside he locked the door. Behind his new and improved mask of logic, he was plagued by his unquiet mind. He had admitted to Una the strange connection that he and Burnham had shared in Sarek . . . but he had been unable to broach the painful topic of his mother, and the long-buried feelings that the mind-meld with Burnham had resurrected and inflamed.
I have never regretted disappointing my father, Spock brooded. But to know that I caused my mother such pain by shutting her out, by obeying my father when he told me to deny, even to myself, the boundless quality of my love for her . . . I cannot forgive him for that. How can I?
He remembered the mind-meld, Burnham’s memories of being cradled in Amanda’s protective embrace—and in that moment he knew the sting of envy.
What I would not have given, he realized, what I would not give even now, to feel the courage in my mother’s love that Michael got to know for so long . . .
His Vulcan indoctrination reasserted itself with cold, intractable vengeance. This is not our way, he castigated himself. A Vulcan does not wallow in emotion, in nostalgia. To fixate upon the past is neither productive nor logical.
It took all of his mental training, all of his discipline, to deny the truth he had been shown. With terrible effort but no admission of regret, he did what he had so long ago been conditioned to do, and buried all of Burnham’s memories of Amanda.
Because it needs to be done.
Because this is our way.