As some of you are aware I new of the
events of ST09 a few weeks prior , at which point I started what I refer to as
my "Therapy Story" to help me deal with them.
SPOILERS- so if you don't want to know until you see the movie, do not read!
All That Is, All That Was, All
That Will Never Be
Mary Stacy
Part One: From This side of the Glass
The first time it happened…
In a meeting with Selar and T’Pau, they were
discussing the merits of a new trade agreement with Doltaurans.
As usual, T’Pau was taking the isolationist stance, opposed to any changes in the
terms to an agreement more than 100 years old.
Sarek sometimes wondered how it was possible that she was related to him in any
way, let alone as father-sister. It had seemed that his father had so embraced
the idea of spending time among the various species of the then new Federation
that no desire was left for his sister to journey beyond the edge of their
planetary sphere.
His mind had regretfully lingered on that point, trying to think past the next
argument with his counterpoint when all of a sudden a shift in the air, and for
a few brief seconds it was as if someone had made subtle changes in the room,
the light that streamed from the large clerestory windows fell across the
pattern on the floor at an odd angle, and the design in the floor itself had
changed in hue ever so slightly. Then just as quickly, everything righted
itself. It was such a barely perceptible moment, that had he been involved in
some physical task, he might not have even noticed it. But seated in the
council offices, hearing the same objections from T’Pau that he had been
hearing most of his life, there had been just enough of a fraction of time
where his mind had wandered for but a moment and been open to the anomaly.
“Sarek?”
He raised his brows in question, and then realizing that he had been caught in
a distraction.
“It would be well that you practice more control,”
It sounded more like a hiss coming from his aunt, an elder chastising a younger
family member, as she had all too often done when he was a child, but he had
come to expect no less from this woman. She had never forgiven him for marrying
Amanda and sought to reprimand him for every discretion,
no matter how small.
“It would appear that excessive time spent with outworlders
has affected your ability to concentrate. “
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Selar move
ever so slightly in his seat and he found himself regretting that the council
member was subjected to this ongoing family feud. Quickly he moved to change
the subject.
“I believe that we were discussing the new
trade agreement.” Sarek took the chance to step in before T’Pau could continue
her attack on the agreement and proceeded into his defense
of the hard-won concessions that had been made with the Doltaurans.
He gave it no more thought and the day continued as normal.
The second time…
This had always been his favorite time of day, when
the sun sunk low into the sky, signaling the end of
the day’s heat. He stood on the edge of their terrace, overlooking the desert
beyond the edge of the city’s barrier.
The departing rays of the sun cast shadows among the rocks below and glanced
off the quartz and crystals that were embedded in some of the stones, like
stars ready to be swept back up into the sky at the first chance of nightfall.
His sharp eyes could see the flurry of activity amid the outcroppings, as the
small furry cheerits awoke to the encroaching
coolness of the evening, scurrying about in search of a meal of the insects that
flitted about in the fading light. In the sky the night flyers started to
circle, silhouetted in the setting sun, in search of any victims of the day’s
heat that could provide their evening feast.
The air had shifted from the heavy, hot winds of the day to the light cool bite
of the night’s welcome breeze as it whipped about his outer robes, fanning the
light gauze ones he wore underneath. The breath of the wind was welcoming
against the final gasps of the day’s warmth and would be so until the sky darkened
and the true cold of a desert’s night took hold.
In the distance, he often thought it was if he could hear the cry of the desert
as it came to life at these times, the only sound more dear to him at this
moment, that of the soft hum of Amanda in the other room as she set about
preparing the evening meal.
No matter how many worlds he visited and how many wonders he had seen, this to him was the most beautiful, his home world on
the brink of Eventide. He took a deep breath, letting the brisk air fill his
lungs, and then…
The peaceful scene before him melted away, and he gripped tight the terrace
wall. What had been a gently falling twilight but a moment before,
was now filled with fire and smoke. The rocks and sand seemed to scream in
agony, twisting and churning, his world now a mass of pain and suffering. It
reminded him of nothing more than illustrations that he had seen of the human’s
hell, meant to terrify the viewer into mending their ways before they met some
heinous fate in the afterlife. But here there was no life, only destruction.
Before his eyes, the desert swelled then opened up like some great mawling pit. The sky rained showers of stone and fireballs
whistled all around him. All was now dense with corruption and death, and his
eyes stung with…
“Sarek?”
Somewhere, he felt the gentle touch of an arm as it linked into his. Pulling
himself back to reality, he almost lost his balance with the intensity of the
shift. Beside him, Amanda stood, her brow furrowed with concern.
“Are you all right? The look on your face- it was as if –“
He took in a breath and composed himself before tuning to face his wife. “It is
nothing. Come , your ni’ch’pa
smells tempting as always.”
His wife gave him a hard stare, trying to will him into a confession, but he
would give no hints of the chaos he had seen. Trying as hard as he could to
dismiss it, it cowered in the dark corners of his mind, a fear of a foreshadowing.
He looked down at his still-shaking hands, their palms bruised and scraped by
the force of his grip on the stone wall, quickly
hiding them within the folds of his robe, away from his wife’s all too sharp
eyes.
And that night the dreams began—he would not allow them the power of calling
them nightmares, though that might be the better description…
They were in the Katric Ark? And then suddenly, the
world started tumbling about them, walls giving way, and they started to run,
fast and hard, through the dark caves, dodging remnants that seemed to be
directed at them from every crevice and crack along the way. Stumbling over
outcroppings, some ancient and some newborn of the violence that seemed to be
occurring under each footstep. A few steps in front of him, Amanda struggled to
hold her ground alongside Spock (Spock?) racing away from the terror— or was it
into it? He tried to catch up with her, but she always seemed to be just beyond
his grasp, head cast down to avoid the debris that came from all angles. And as
each night went by, the race to safety somewhere, somehow, became more and more
furtive.
He would awake each night with a feeling that he thought was all too closely
allied to terror, reaching out as he pulled away from the dream, to assure
himself that he was in his own bed, his wife by his side. And as in slumber she
moved closer to him, subconsciously spurred by his touch, he allowed himself to
settle back into a sleep. But with each night, it seemed to take longer.
The final time….
The fears of the night had begun to creep into his waking hours. He would find
himself listening for any suspicious sound, watching for any sudden unexpected
moment. Too often he found himself reaching out for Amanda, as if to verify
that she was really here and they were both safe.
Then finally, a night with no dreams, or at least none he could remember, but
which found him upon waking with a new unwelcome sense of dread that he could
not stop, something that might change all things beyond mending. He had managed
his morning meetings, but with mid-day break, and the weight of some unknown
and illogical dread bearing upon him with more urgency each minute, he
cancelled his appointments, seeking refuge at home, hoping that meditation
would calm him, and allow him to examine the source of his anxiety.
The meditation room was always kept clear of any outside influences. Without
windows, there was no time of day, and the ambient light from strategically
placed firepots softly played against draped walls.
From each of the corners came the soft music of water spraying over stones, and
the air was cool with the barely perceptible scent of the ha’lei’ha
plant, known for its abilities to ease one’s mind into a relaxed state when all
else might fail.
Sarek had already changed from his street robes and into the loose fitting
house ones, and he allowed the incense to fill his
lungs and put him at ease before he settled onto the straw mat below.
He willed the tension out of his body, down through the flooring, into the
ground deep below, anchoring himself, letting the welcome energy of Vulcan’s
life force purify and transform it. With each breath, he allowed his heart to
slow and his mind to release the tensions of the day. Gradually, he allowed all
conscious thought to drift away, slowing the internal dialogue of the mind
until it was no more than a distant hum. He was at peace…
But he was not. Once more was running for his life, in a frantic reliving of
the dream. But here and now it was not a dream, it was as if he were in the
shadow world of a doppelganger, someone who was him, but not him. His lungs
filled with the sulphur that spew from the cracks as
they stumbled and faltered, trying to reach safety even as the ground beneath
them fought their effort with all it’s might.
And when finally, they stopped, the ground seemingly solid beneath their feet,
it happened. He had turned to look at Amanda, it was an Amanda who was not his
Amanda, with brown eyes dark filled with fear, and then---
She was gone forever in a beat of a heart.
And the Sarek who was Sarek, safe in his own time and place, let the world pass
away from him in protective blackness.
“Sarek, Sarek?”
There was a great urgency to the voice that sought to rouse him, slender arms
that sought to hold him tight and pull him out of the abyss. He allowed his
mind to follow the sound of that voice and back into the world as he had left
it, tranquil and still. His hand reached out to grab Amanda’s, eyes still
closed. What would he find upon opening them? A sudden fear rushed through him,
and he steeled himself to look.
They were as they had always been, those eyes blue
like a jai blossom. This was his Amanda, and he stroked the contours of those
beloved eyes gently with his fingertips, willing himself to forget the horror
that had played out before him a universe away.
If there were another Sarek out there somewhere, it was a Sarek that was not
him, mourning an Amanda that was not his Amanda, but one with bright dark eyes,
lost now forever. For him, the dreams and visions would cease, and eventually
he allowed them to fade from conscious memory …
Part
Two: The Other Side of the Glass
When they first started to layout the settlement, he had made his decision to
build this new home, if ever he could call a place home again, at the very
farthest reach that he could. It seemed fitting—he was an oddity now, someone
who had gambled away his life choices and was left with nothing in the end. His
personal life had revolved around one lone bright star, lost to him forever
now, and his public life? No more was Vulcan a major force to be reckoned with, and he would no longer be a voice to be heeded among
other worlds. What need of an ambassador for a population that was no more than
one of a small Terran city?
If Sarek had his way, he would spend his days here in solitude, alive and
alone. But he knew it would not be long before he would need to submit to duty,
always duty. There were so few of them now, he had no real choice but to marry
again. Already he had been approached by a few survivors, who were more than
ready to forget his past indiscretion in order to carry on an ancient and honorable bloodline. He was Vulcan,
he could do this, despite the inner pain that tore his soul apart.
All that was left for any of them was to pull together the tattered remains of
their once proud civilization and start anew, here in this strange world. None
could escape the burdens that were placed upon them,
none of them could turn away from the needs of their people. But in those times
when the day was done and duty no longer called, he would have a solitude where
he could, if he tried hard enough, imagine her in the shadows waiting for him,
a treasured smile upon her lips, bright dark eyes sparkling in laughter, the
remembrance of a soft caress against his cheek, feather-light lips brushing
against his.
His only escape was in the dreams that started not long after their arrival
here on the new colony. More and more Sarek found himself eagerly waiting for
the night, where in those dreams an Amanda still lived and laughed. An Amanda
who was not his Amanda, with eyes the color of jai blossoms or that of the
It became his habit to sit upon the terrace at twilight and watch the fading of
the evening sky, holding on to memories of the time of day he and Amanda had
both cherished the most. In time, he found the Old Man would join him with more
and more regularity until it became a custom with them both to sit out the
Eventide together in silence broken only by memory.
At first, they had restricted any conversation to the activities of the day—how
the building of the settlement was going, what new survivors had made their way
from distant reaches, driven to create a new home for their kind from the few
remnants that remained, before settling into a comfortable silence. The two men
sat together, as had become their habit of remembering, for they needed to
remember all that had been in order to pass it on to all those that might
someday be.
Eventually, he found himself speaking to the Old Man of Amanda. Somehow, there
was an air of family about him, someone Sarek could trust and he now, more than
ever, needed to speak his thoughts. And whether it came with the old one’s
advanced age, there was a lack of censure about him, as if he understood what
was lost in that fraction of time when Sarek’s world fell apart beneath his
feet and within his heart. Sarek would speak of his wife framed in golden
memories, and the Old Man would speak of his mother and comment
on how much the two women were similar.
So it was when he told the Old Man of his dreams one day, as twilight started
to fall and with it melancholy for what once had been his and Amanda’s.
And then one night, when the air was fragrant with the smell of night flowers,
it slipped…
“They remind one of jai blossoms.” Sarek let his thoughts travel off to a
memory of the Amanda that was not his Amanda, but who still graced his dreams.
“My father was always fond of saying my mother had eyes –“
It might have been a trick of the fading light, or perhaps his loneliness was
playing tricks on him, but there was something…
“Like jai blossoms?” The words came to
Sarek without thought or question.
“In this universe I regret that they are both no longer.” The Old Man’s voice seemed to fill with
sorrow draped in the forgiving veil of night, as he looked off into the
darkness. “I do not think I ever realized how much my father cared for her
until now.”
He wanted to ask how and why, but somehow none of that mattered and Sarek found
himself saying the only words that did—
“However you came to be here at this time and place, know this: your mother was
and would always be deeply loved, no matter in what time or place she existed
or continues to exist, and this she always knew.”