Fool
Fool
Captain's Personal Log: Stardate..... whatever the hell it is.
Oh Christ, what do I do now?
I've left him sleeping in his cabin. And I've got to decide what to do and I... I... (unintelligible)
(Pause)
Trouble is you forget how young he is. He looks.. what? 35/40 now and you just forget that in Vulcan terms he's barely hit puberty. I thought we felt the same, I thought... well, I don't suppose it matters what the hell I thought, I know better now.
We were lying there on his bed, arms and legs all tangled up, the pair of us stuck together with sweat and semen and he looked so happy, eyes shining, his hair all over the place and I was so happy I could do that for him, so happy that this was just the beginning of all that we could do and see and be. So when he offered the meld, I grabbed it with both hands, brushed aside my doubts and rushed in where angels fear to tread. I looked into his mind and he laid it out before me, without fears or doubts: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the lousy truth. He didn't even know enough to try and hide it.
Maybe it's better to know. May be it's better that I found out before I married him. 'Cause I would have, was going to ask him tonight and wouldn't that have been a fucking disaster?
No, it's too soon. I can't be glad I saw it, not yet, maybe not ever.
The damnable thing is that I recognised it. I know why he loves me. He loves me for the same reason that Sarek loves Amanda, for the same reason I loved Sadie Beckerman when I was 15.
I haven't thought about Sadie for years. I mooned after her all one summer. She had the most gorgeous green eyes I've ever seen and legs that didn't know when to quit and she didn't have the brains God gave a tribble. That's what really hurts, finding out the only reason he loves me is because he thinks I'm beautiful. The fact that I'm also stupid and ephemeral is irrelevant, he isn't thinking with his head or his heart, he's too busy thinking with whatever Vulcans use for gonads.
Shit, even before we became friends I thought he respected me, professionally at the very least. Instead I could see -- plain as the nose on your face -- the skills I've spent a lifetime acquiring make me no more to him than... I don't know... a professional sportsman or those women who make ice sculptures for parties, highly skilled in something completely trivial. Not worth bothering about beside the important things, the things of the mind, the things that are nothing to me and never will be. I guess that's why he didn't bother looking into *my* mind - nothing there worth seeing.
Oh shit.
(Pause)
(Sound of glass on glass)
No, the worse thing is finding out he isn't the man I thought he was.
All these years I've thought he left Vulcan to escape the bigotry, the scarcely concealed xenophobia and it wasn't that at all. He ran away to join the circus. He did just what Milos did, ran off to spend a couple of years as a beach bum before joining Daddy's firm. Underneath he's just as bigoted as the rest of them. I thought all those "jokes" about humans were just jokes, I should have realised how much contempt there was in them. He didn't detest the bigots who made his childhood miserable, he just wanted to join them.
As far as he's concerned, the things we can't do are the things his culture has taught him are the only things worth doing, the things we can do and do well, aren't worth doing at all.
Part of me is so fucking angry! All that effort, all those lives saved, all those planets surveyed, all those civilisations encountered, all the glories of the universe discovered.... all worthless. I thought he was a scientist: he doesn't deserve the name. He's only a collector, gathering knowledge as human boys collect credit chips or model starships, all the time knowing that as soon as they're grown, they won't bother any more. In another 10 or 20 years he'll go home and join up with Daddy and they can spend their days happily despising the rest of us.
And wouldn't that be fun for me - "That unsuitable mate Sarek's boy picked up on his travels". And when I'm 80 and he's still in his prime, I won't know whether to hate him more for the times he tries to explain or for the times he won't even bother trying.
I'd spend the rest of my life playing Dora to his Copperfield, and he could have everything, he wouldn't be giving anything up because I'd die first and then he could find himself a nice suitable Vulcan Agnes and do the whole thing properly.
There isn't even any point in arguing with him. I saw it all, hardwired into him, decades of careful training in arrogance. If he regards his mother as little more than a trained poodle, someone Sarek married because he'd fouled up a Vulcan marriage and fancied something less challenging for a change, what chance have I got? He loves her, he loves me but he'd no more consult either of about anything he considered important that he'd consult his.... whatd'yemaccallit sehlat.
I can't live like that, god knows how she does, I don't think I want to know. Maybe she's one of those people who needs to turn over life's decisions to someone else, but I can't live like that. I make decisions and in the end there is only one decision I can make.
I'm going to go down there and break his heart, the same way Sadie broke mine. At least the five year mission is nearly over, we can get away from each other without making a spectacle of ourselves. He won't understand -- why should he? Rejected by a human - that's gotta hurt like the devil but I can't see there's any choice, not if there's to be anything left of either of us in the end.
It's 0400 hours. I feel exhausted and a little sick. The man I thought I knew better than anyone I've ever known, is a complete stranger. Everything I thought we had was built on sand.
Hell, if I don't know Spock, what do I know?
Even the engines sound out of tune.
I'll be glad when we get back to Earth.
The End
