He could hear Spock's choppy steps pattering up the hallway, followed by Amanda's inevitable shouting.

"Spock, stop!"

A high-pitched giggle was the only response, and moments later, the tiny figure of his shirtless son teetered into the kitchen with Amanda on his heels, waving a small blue shirt like a flag.

In a singular motion, she caught him by the arm with one hand and pulled the shirt over his head with the other. His small head popped through the neck of the shirt, but his arms struggled to find the sleeves and he began to whimper with frustration. Amanda knelt to adjust the shirt's fit, and after a brief bout of screaming, Spock was clothed and attempting to trot away again. She caught him under the arms and lifted him to her hip instead.

"You need to listen to me when I tell you to stop," she said, waving her finger at him.

"Kroikah?" the child muttered in Vuhlkansu.

"Yes, kroikah. Stop."

Her face was firm but her voice was full of frustration, and Spock began to bounce up and down and mimic, "Stop stop stop."

Sarek was concerned about his wife's inability to control her emotions in front of their son, and often urged her to employ a Vulcan nursemaid to help Spock better learn to control his emotions at this vital stage in his development.

Nearly three years earlier, he'd resigned his post as ambassador to Earth, but his schedule had remained busy. Recurring conflicts between the Federation and Coridan and his duties at the Vulcan Science Academy had caused him to miss much of Spock's short life, but now that diplomatic tensions were settling, he felt compelled to be a more present figure at home. Spock was nearly two years of age, and for all of Amanda's wonderful qualities as a mother, she wasn't setting the most Vulcan example for their son.

Spock began to whine to be let down, but Amanda ignored his pleas, which caused Spock to start pulling on her shirt.

"Down," he proclaimed. "Let down!"

"Let me down?" she corrected.

Spock nodded impatiently.

"Will you stay right here while I make you breakfast?" she asked, pointing down to her feet.

Spock nodded.

She lowered him to the floor, and he briefly looked up at her before darting back into the hallway into another fit of giggles.

Amanda covered her face with her hands and sighed.

"The child needs more discipline," he said, taking a sip of his plomeek soup.

"You don't say?" she snapped, wheeling around to face him.

"You must learn to better control your emotions, or else Spock will never learn to control his," he said.

"Look, I'm trying my best, but he's two. It's like you think he should already be quoting passages from the Teachings of Surak."

"I did not imply that," he replied.

They were approaching an argument that would end without resolution. He understood this, because they'd already had the same argument four times since he'd returned home from Coridan two days earlier. She was raising him as she would a human child, but Spock was not human. Her argument that he was not fully Vulcan was equally valid, but they had agreed before he was born to raise him according to Surak's teachings.

Amanda's PADD began to chirp, and as she stepped forward to answer it, Spock screamed from the hallway and began to cry. She grabbed the device with an unusual amount of force and rushed after the source of the wailing.

He drank the rest of the broth, set his bowl in the sink, and found them in Spock's bedroom. Amanda was sitting on the corner of his tiny bed, holding him in her lap and patting him on the back with her right hand while he sobbed against her chest. Her brow was set in irritation, and her left hand was holding her PADD out to read over Spock's shoulder.

"They need a backup guest speaker at the Academy for a xenolinguistics panel," she said, tossing the PADD behind her onto the bed.

It bounced on the mattress, and she hung her head in her hand while Spock continued to cry.

"Why today of all days?"

Since they'd relocated to Vulcan several years earlier, Amanda had struggled to make use of her education and language skills. His wife was a brilliant linguist and educator, and was occasionally called upon to give guest lectures at both Shi'Khar Academy and the Vulcan Science Academy.

"Why is today inopportune?"

"There's no one to watch him," she said, gesturing to Spock, whose sobs had turned to hiccups. "Though maybe- I don't know, let me look…"

"I am unoccupied today," he explained.

She reached for her PADD and began scrolling through a list of contacts and mumbled, "That's nice."

"I intended to imply that I could supervise him."

Amanda snorted and looked at him with an expression that bordered on derision.

"You?"

"Yes."

"You?"

"Why does this confuse you?"

She looked down and started to laugh. Before he could ask after the source of her amusement, she asked, "Do you know what time he eats lunch? Takes a nap? When was the last time you changed a diaper? Cleaned up puke?"

"You may be the more proficient caretaker, but I believe I am capable of following simple instructions."

Amanda looked down at their son, who looked up at her with eyes stained green from crying. Mucous streamed from his nose and she wiped it with the collar of her nightshirt.

An hour later, she was rushing out the door with her shoulder bag in hand. Sarek and Spock stood by the garage door to bid her goodbye, and just as the door closed, it flew back open and her head poked through.

"And don't give him the kaasa juice in the fridge. It's been making his tummy hurt lately."

"That was item number twenty-three on your list of things to avoid," he reminded her. "And 'tummy' is not an anatomically correct term."

The door closed again, and seconds later, reopened. His wife strolled through it purposefully and breezed past them both.

"I forgot to check the portico door," she called over her shoulder. "He's tall enough to reach the handle now."

Sarek and Spock exchanged glances. Several seconds later, Amanda raced back around the corner and slowed as she approached them.

"I don't know about this," she sighed, eyeing Spock. "I'll be gone all day. What if…"

Sarek took his wife's left hand in a finger embrace. She was visibly anxious, and Spock was watching.

"It is illogical to believe you can prepare for every eventuality," he explained. "Spock and I are capable of enduring your short absence."

She bit her lip and looked back down at their son.

"I left the contact information of his pediatric healer, right?"

"Yes."

She had also left the contact information for every emergency medical center within a one hundred kilometer radius. It was truly puzzling that his wife should think him incapable of so basic a task as locating information in the event of an emergency, but he supposed it was an attempt to mitigate her human tendency to worry.

"I believe you will be late," he said.

"Yeah," she sighed, turning to walk out the door in her third attempt to leave.

He sensed she would return, and she did twelve seconds later, but rather than allow her back inside, he followed her out to the garage and opened the door to the shuttlecar. With a little more protesting, she took up a position in the driver's seat and started the engine.

The window rolled down, and she said, "You will call me if anything happens, right?"

He'd tried in vain to explain the illogic of such a demand. "Anything" implied any action or event, which by such a definition would be guaranteed to happen. Rather than argue over the imprecision of her language, he simply said, "Yes."

Moments later, the shuttlecar backed out of the garage and inched down the driveway. He shut the bay door as he watched her pull onto the main road, and then he reentered the house.

Spock was nowhere to be seen.

"Spock?"

No reply.