Writing AOS makes me cry, so I don't like to do it. But the damn muse wouldn't let me write anything until I got this out of my system today....



Mementos
Mary Stacy

There was no logic to having mementos, there should be no need for the physical to remind one of the past and what was lost. Indeed, what was lost was gone and there was no logic in trying to hold on to it, no logic in maintaining any emotional attachment to people, places, and things that were no longer.

But he had seen his entire life disappear in a few brief seconds. It was as if everything he was, everything he had, everything he treasured was gone in a flash. A future and a past had given way beneath him when his world died and took her with it.

There was no logical reason for him to desire just a single personal photograph of her. Certainly, there were enough in public records, taken at various gatherings with other dignitaries, even ones of the two of them together at semi-private times, taken by a somewhat obtrusive zoom lens. None of these were of any desire to him. But as he sought to say goodbye to their son in the privacy of Spock’s quarters, a photo-vid caught his eye, hidden in a corner.

It was Amanda, at a relaxed moment in their garden, laughing in response to a remark he had made off camera, and then she turned and looked straight at the photographer, dark eyes flashing, so full of life. Something within him filled to breaking.

“My son, I would ask of you a small favor, a copy—“

*************************

And that was all Sarek had left now of her and their too short life together: their son, gone back too soon to a distant life of his own, a copy of a photo-vid, and the note that he had discovered in one of his pockets after she was gone. He had fingered and read it over and over these now too empty days. A short note that she had slipped to him sometime in those last few hours, his last remaining trace of her—

“Whatever happens, always remember, I love you. A.”