Amanda narrowed her eyes at Sarek.  “You did what?”

The sitting room in their home rang with the angry words, jarring with the usual soothing atmosphere and warm colors.  The ambassador of Vulcan shifted under the blue-eyed glare, and glanced towards where Saavik sat on a nearby couch.

She cleared her throat.  “Amanda?”

Amanda immediately turned the glare on her.  “Don’t you dare take pity on him!”

Sarek sighed.  Apparently help from another quarter was not allowed.

Amanda whipped back around to him, and he tried to make her understand.  “Amanda--” he started.

She shook an outraged finger at him.  “Don’t you ‘Amanda’ me, Sarek!  I am furious at you!”

“I assure you, my wife--”

“And don’t you do that, either! I can’t believe you did this!  Without even considering asking me!”  She stopped and jabbed a finger at his broad chest, blue eyes beginning to now fill with tears.  “I have a right to be involved!”

Sarek looked as distraught at her sudden tears as a Vulcan could.  “I did not know you would be so displeased, Amanda.”

“I don’t believe you!” she snapped, wiping away her tears.  “After all of these years, you very well know me!”

Sarek again looked for help over her head at Saavik.  She took a deep breath.  “Amanda... it was not like that.”

Amanda pivoted hard on her heel and Saavik recoiled instinctively, caught off guard.  Amanda’s anger instantly evaporated, knowing attacks on Hellguard caused the other woman’s unwanted instincts.  “I did not mean to... remind you.”  She held the other’s gaze.  “I would never... ”

Saavik nodded quickly, but her posture was stiff.  “I should leave the two of you to your privacy.”

Amanda sighed and sank down on the couch beside Saavik.  She took the young woman’s hands.  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

Saavik looked up sharply, but Sarek already cleared his throat and nodded dryly.  “Your presence significantly increases the odds of my survival.”

Amanda gave him a glower.  “Don’t be too sure.”  Then her mouth twitched.  “She might help me hide the body.”

In a more calm voice, Saavik said,  “Lematyas.”

Sarek cocked his head curiously.  “I beg your pardon?”

She replied, quite logically, “Lematyas are a sufficient means for disposal of a body.  There would be no need to attempt subterfuge.”

Sarek’s eyes positively widened.

Amanda laughed.  She leaned forward and tucked a stray lock of hair back behind Saavik’s ear.  “I have missed you.”

Sarek gave Saavik a wry scrutiny.  “Perhaps the universe would be more... secure... if you spent more time here where you belong.”

Saavik’s brow drew together in thought, giving this serious attention, before giving Amanda a look.  “Given the corrupting influence of present company, this is doubtful.”

Amanda wrinkled her nose at Saavik. “From you!”

Sarek frowned ever so slightly.  “What is this?”

Amanda’s fine skin actually reddened.  “Nothing!” 

He looked expectantly at Saavik.  She answered, “Lady Amanda called the Klingon Ambassador a--”

“With just cause! He made a disparaging comment about your speech.”

Sarek almost managed to cover his satisfaction at this with a reproving frown.  “Amanda--”

“He most certainly did.  Saavik heard it as well.”

She stiffened her spine defensively.  “I am well aware of the proper behavior for such a gathering, Ambassador.”

His mouth flickered.  “I am not censuring you, I am awaiting the explanation of why my wife would engage in a verbal assault on a visiting dignitary.”

“He earned the correction,” Saavik frowned, protective.

He waited them both out, a diplomat’s maneuver he always found worked to his advantage.

It worked again.  Saavik admitted, “Perhaps not the remark on the legality of his parentage.”

Amanda met Sarek’s steady gaze in defiance.  “He made me angry.”

Beginning to feel he viewed a lirpa match, Sarek looked back at Saavik.  “Did you teach her this... remark?”

“I most certainly did not.  She had already acquired the knowledge before we met.”

“I am not certain that is comforting.”

Amanda gave Saavik a glower.  “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to call him names too.”

“Quite the opposite.  I was attempting to contemplate how a more permanent censure would be possible without breaking my promise to your husband.”

Sarek’s eyebrows rose.  “And?”

“My meditation was interrupted by Amanda’s outburst.  And in the security proceeding thereafter.”

Ignoring the terrible face his wife made, Sarek demanded, “There was a security incident?”

“It was nothing,” Amanda said quickly.  She gave Saavik a quelling look.

Saavik remained unfazed, earning Sarek’s respect.  “That is not true.  An attempted assault on a diplomatic personage is far from ‘nothing’.”

Unable to envision his wife doing so, Sarek still had to find out... “Tell me, Amanda, that you did not attack the Klingon Ambassador.”

Saavik rejected the very idea.  “She did not, sir.”

Amanda gave her another smothering look, and Saavik ignored it.  “The Klingon Ambassador attempted to attack her.”

Sarek paled, alarming Amanda instantly.  She was his wife, after all, and had lived through those horrible days of his heart troubles. He waved her concern aside and carefully lowered himself into the old rocker.  “Why was I not informed of this?”

Saavik watched him, picking up on the older woman’s alarm.  “Amanda received no harm.”

“And how,” he paused to control his breathing, “did she manage this?”

Amanda positively beamed.  “Saavik came to my rescue.  Yes, my husband, exactly the way you’re imagining it.  She did a good job of it too.”

“Saavik, you attacked the Klingon--”

“Self-defense or defense of another is not an attack.  He resisted my attempts to solve the argument peacefully.  As I also studied Klingon physiology to learn the necessary nerve junctions, rendering him unconscious, I furthermore contest it was not an attack.”  She frowned.  “You would have preferred I had allowed him to harm Amanda?”

“And what of his guards?”

She dismissed this easily.  “Your aide and security attended to them. You should commend Stoval, he was both efficient and effective.”

“I will so note in his record,” said Sarek dryly. “And should I be contacting the Klingon High Command with my apologies?”

Amanda actually snickered.  “No!”

His eyebrow lifted.  “And why, may I ask, not?”

The younger Vulcan, so calm up to this point, now rivaled his disapproval.

“Apparently,” Amanda answered, “he is rather taken with our Saavik here. You know how Klingons are about strong women.”

Saavik gave her a displeased look. “I hold you responsible for my current situation.”

Amanda looked entirely and cheerfully unrepentant.  “It got you to take leave earlier.”

“A simple suggestion to alter my schedule would have been sufficient.”

“Ha! I know how you work.”

Sarek gave Amanda a narrow eyed look that made her color.  “My wife nearly creates an intergalactic incident and when I attempt to simply provide a companion for our son--”

A tactical error, he soon found out, as Amanda’s temper rose instantly.  “You had no right not to include me!”

Sarek’s eyebrow lifted.  He looked at Saavik.  “Correct me if I am wrong, but was my choice not logical?”

Saavik eyed how near Amanda was and elected to wisely remain silent.

Amanda, however, was utterly incensed.  “Look what happened with the -last- logical marriage arranged for him!”

“I have taken great care to make a more suitable match,” he answered. Turning to Saavik, he asked, “Did you not approve of her characteristics I described?”

She nodded reluctantly.  “The woman you describe is equal to him.”

Sarek gave Amanda a triumphant look, but she held firm.

“We agreed to let him make his own choice!  He will get around to it!”

“Amanda, as much as I am fond of our son, if we do not take an active role in this, he will never ‘get around to it’.  His attention is set on his destiny, he will not waste time searching for a mate when his work is the Sundered’s return.”  He looked gently at his wife.  “If you are honest, you will admit to this truth.  You know him as well as I.”

Amanda fumed for a long minute, and then her shoulders sagged and she sighed deeply.  “You are right.  He will put duty first.”  She looked at Saavik mournfully. “But I wanted him to choose.”

Saavik’s eyes softened in her own understanding.  “Ambassador Sarek has assured me Spock will approve of his selection.”

Sarek nodded.  “In this, my logic is certain.”

Amanda still held firm.  “But...  I wanted to be a part of this.”

Sarek’s dark eyes were almost tender.  “My wife, it is illogical to repeat an already original agreement.”

Amanda blinked and her forehead creased in confusion.  “What?”

“You already agree with my decision.”

She frowned.  “Explain.”

Sarek turned to Saavik.  “I will not be attending the diplomatic function I was scheduled to participate in this evening.  As you have already met my aide, would you be so kind as to inform him I will be attending to my son’s betrothal instead?”

Saavik immediately nodded and rose.  She bowed respectfully to them both and disappeared back further into the house.

“Who?” demanded Amanda instantly.  “And I mean it, Sarek.  This had better not be that woman from--”

Sarek leaned back in the rocker and merely flicked his eyes down the hall where Saavik had gone.

Amanda utterly stopped.  Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in shocked delight.

Sarek nodded to himself, looking entirely satisfied.  “My logic was correct, yes?”

Amanda burst into happy laughter and leapt up to break all sorts of propriety rules to ferociously hug her husband.  Sarek calmly endured the emotional outburst and managed to keep all but the glint in his eyes from showing.  “I take it,” he said, “that you are no longer upset with me.”

She wiped tears from her cheeks and kissed him soundly on the nose.  “I love you.”

“Quite gratifying.”  He sobered.  “Now we must inform Saavik of our decision.”

Amanda choked.  “Wait a minute–what?”

“I thought it best to convince her through impartiality first.” His eyebrow rose in good humor.  “Her sense of self is remarkably erroneous.  She has made no connection between my characteristic description of Spock’s intended and herself.”

Amanda sighed.  “She wouldn’t.”  She shook her head sorrowfully.  “They destroyed it for her.”                           

Sarek gently touched his two fingers to hers. “We will recreate it.”

Amanda looked uncertain.  “I don’t know if she will let us, Sarek.”

His gaze firmed.  “We are not giving Spock a choice, why should we give one to his mate?”

Amanda couldn’t help it, she laughed and her blue eyes glinted mischievously.  “Then, given the current state of the Klingon Ambassador, I’d better get you a weapon!”

He frowned.  “To protect me from the Klingon?”

Amanda snorted and bent to kiss her husband again, this time on the forehead.  “No, my dear, to protect you from her.”