Disclaimer: I don't Own Spock, Nyota or Sarek, nor am I making money from this.
****ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE*****EXTREME ANGST & CHARACTER DEATH

Beta'd by Notes in the Classroom

Response to a kink meme prompt: "Can I get a Sarek/Uhura fic? I don't really care how it's done... I just suddenly want this pairing." I couldn't imagine Sarek or Uhura ever cheating...so you get this.

Another Star : Chapter 1

"You never really loved her," the human said.

And as Sarek watched, Spock let out a cry of rage. His son's fists began to beat down on the human man as though he were a rag doll.

Beside Sarek, the young woman gasped. "Please, Spock..."

At that moment he suspected.

He added his own voice to hers. "Spock!"

His son released the choke hold. Surrendered his captaincy. Walked towards the turbolift...and as he exited the bridge, his eyes met those of the young woman who had been standing beside Sarek -- she was now standing by the lift. How had she gotten over there? Sarek hadn't even seen her move.

The young woman's eyes were wide and moist. And Spock...his son...held her eyes in his own gaze too long, looking at her like a man adrift at sea might look to land.

And then Sarek was certain.

x x x

His son was beautiful in his eyes. He had always been. How could he not be?

His brilliant son -- mind more open than a Vulcan's, more powerful than a human's. His tormented son -- cursed with Vulcan emotions and only human emotional control.

If Sarek had pushed Spock too hard to be logical, it was only to protect him from the pain his emotions could bring. But on the transporter pad Spock was so beyond control...control was no longer rational, simply because it was impossible.

Sarek had been honest when he told Spock he married Amanda because it was logical. But it was a half truth. Love, when real, is a very logical thing. Like land is logical for a man adrift at sea.

"I married your mother because I loved her." As soon as Sarek said these words, he felt his son come back to him. Through the tenuous telepathic link they shared, remnant of the bond of infancy, Sarek felt Spock's feelings...his son felt...absolved...

There was no time to tell Spock he had never committed any wrong.

Never in Sarek's eyes.

x x x

Just as his son came back to him, Sarek lost him. Spock died with the vessel from the future, in a brilliant burst of flame that saved the Enterprise and her passengers, perhaps the galaxy. A brilliant burning star. Spock had always been so.

In one day, Sarek lost two stars.

x x x

He saw Lieutenant Uhura, the woman from the bridge, at the memorial service, meters ahead, facing away. She stood near the captain and the doctor, not touching them.

Approaching her from behind, Sarek swallowed. Cleared his throat. "Miss."

She turned her head slowly, her motion so graceful it was almost balletic, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

The doctor and the captain both grabbed an elbow on either side. Protecting her. Supporting her.

"I grieve with thee," Sarek said.

Her eyes flowing, she responded in perfect Vulcan, "And I with thee."

x x x

She stared at him through the subspace connection. She looked paler than he remembered. Her cheeks hollowed out.

"There is something you should know..." she said lowering her eyes.

When she was done he found he could not breathe. Could not dare hope.

x x x

She received a medical discharge, came to New Vulcan and moved into his home...there was a housing shortage on the new world. His house was close to the New Vulcan medical center which she needed. Which the new lives she carried inside of her needed.

She was very quiet the first three days. On day four she said suddenly, "We were not irresponsible. We both took precautions. The odds of being struck by lightning on Earth in a given year are 1/750,000...but it happens..."

For a moment Sarek stared at her. He had been busy making sure his home was just the right temperature, seeing that her water rations were adequate for a human woman pregnant with twins, and providing her with proper nutrition -- she couldn't synthesize protein like his people. If he thought it would help her mental well-being, he would have found a way to procure her Andorian fire stones.

"I had not thought of it," he said softly. Nor would he care. She gave his son comfort when he was drowning...and she chose to carry his son's children thinking she would endure the experience alone. He wanted to say these things, but his tongue stuck like dry cotton in his mouth.

Attempting to fill the empty air he said, "In your case lightning struck twice, Ms. Uhura."

It was a small joke, something he would say to Amanda to loosen her up, but his sense of humor had always been imperfect. Perhaps it was wrong in this instance?

He swallowed. "And I am glad of it."

Her posture softened. "Under the circumstances, I think it is appropriate for you to call me Nyota."

x x x

Coming home one day he found Nyota with her head bowed over a PADD. Her brow slightly furrowed. He had yet to see her smile. So serious. Like his son. He had no idea if this was her true personality or just the personality of her grief.

Did she know he grieved? He knew humans found his face and motions inscrutable. He poured his grief into taking care of his people, and taking care of her.

It was her fourth month, and Nyota did not show at all -- at least not through her clothing. This was to be expected. It was her first pregnancy, and Vulcans had a very slow thirteen month gestation -- the twins were only the size a human fetus would be at two and a half months. But still, it made the experience somewhat unreal for Sarek.

It took Amanda three tries...This will not work. Cannot possibly work. If he thought about the odds he felt his stomach constrict...no one's emotional control was perfect on New Vulcan.

"It says here that Vulcans develop their telepathic skills in the womb through their bond to their mother...but Amanda was human, and Spock was telepathic," Nyota said, not looking up at him.

"I used to connect with him. We took some time each day...on average thirty-seven minutes and sixty-seven seconds," Sarek replied.

Looking up at him, her brow slightly furrowed, Nyota asked, "How?"

Sarek put his hands behind his back. Looked at the floor. "I used to touch her abdomen."

"Will you do that for them?" She put her hand on her stomach.

x x x

The first time was awkward. They sat on the floor and she lifted her shirt until the hem was just below her breasts. She took off the "girdle" the doctors had her wear to keep her womb warmer than her natural core temperature. On her wrists, ankles and throat she wore bands to counteract this warmth.

For the first time Sarek could see the slight bulge of the two new lives inside her. Reaching down, he brought his hands to rest upon them.

Nyota shivered. "It's strange; I have all sort of people prodding me every day, but..."

"Yes." He understood. It was highly unusual.

"Do you feel them?" Nyota asked.

He did. The most basic of awareness. Light. Dark. Temperature.

"They are there," he said as though it was a revelation.

He looked up to her eyes. She was a revelation. How had he not known? Why hadn't Spock told them?

Looking back down to his hands, he said, "I wish Amanda had gotten a chance to meet you."

"She did," Nyota said.

Sarek looked up, startled.

Nyota licked her lips. "Over subspace only..."

Sarek blinked. "She hid it from me." Even across their bond.

Nyota took a deep breath and through his fingertips Sarek registered...shame. And it certainly was not from the two beings inside her.

"Spock was an instructor; I was a cadet. It was against regulations. He didn't want you to know. He was afraid..."

Sarek looked down at his hands, his olive skin against her caramel.

An illicit relationship. "Like father, like son," he whispered.

He felt Nyota's confusion through her shame.

"When I married his mother, I went against law and custom."

The shame vanished. Comprehension flickered through her. And perhaps affection.

Was that when things started to change?

x x x

At five months Nyota's doctor appointments were down to once a week, her morning sickness was over, and she began to have more energy. She started to go out of her mind with boredom -- her words.

She found a job helping coordinate aid shipments from various Federation members to New Vulcan. She was fluent in the five dominant languages of the galaxy, and more importantly, was well versed in the cultural differences of just about every Federation world.

She seemed happier. She began to talk more. She got braver.

One day not long after taking the job she began to open boxes that had come with her from Earth but had remained sealed.

Sarek heard rustling and then heard something that sounded like choking. Dropping the PADD he was holding, Sarek rushed to her room and found her kneeling on the floor staring at a holo, her body slightly shaking with muffled sobs.

The young woman and man in the holo were almost unrecognizable. Nyota, happy, laughing, smiling -- Spock with his lips quirked ever so slightly. At one point Spock put two fingers up behind Nyota's head in a gesture Sarek recognized as teasing. The holo-Nyota smiled and swatted his hand away.

The real Nyota went from shaking to nearly convulsing.

Sarek found himself kneeling on the floor beside her, staring at the strangers in the holo. The Spock there was a man he'd never known. Happy. Confident. A sense of humor. The Nyota there so much like Amanda.

Closing his eyes, he turned from the holo. Opening them, he saw her half bent over with sobs.

"What do you need?" he asked.

She didn't respond.

He did what he would have done for Amanda. Gathering her into his arms he pulled her close. She did not resist.

He let his hand drift down her hair, the texture not the same as Amanda's. But the open expression of grief, everything he could not show...so human...so familiar.

"I grieve with thee," he said.

Pushing her face harder against his chest, the moisture of her tears seeping through the fabric of his shirt, she whispered, "I know you do...I know you do..."

Something in his belly uncoiled and was set free. She understood him. Of course. She'd understood his son.

x x x

Nyota lay on the couch, her head on his lap, her growing midriff exposed -- his hand there. It was an...unusual position...but comfortable for her. The gravity of New Vulcan was higher than Earth. After being on her feet all day, she needed to lie down to relieve the pressure on her cervix. She would soon have to be confined to bed rest.

The twins were sleeping, but normally around this time they would begin to stir.

"I'm as big as a whale," Nyota said.

He wanted to say she was beautiful. She was. The most beautiful thing on this new world...all that was left of his wife and his son inside of her. He could not bring himself to say it though. Instead he said, "The smallest whale on earth is the Minke whale, and it still outweighs you by at least four tons."

She laughed softly. "That is just the nerdy sort of joke that Spock would make." He heard her swallow. "He never said you had a sense of humor."

"I never displayed my humor to him," Sarek said. "I was modeling proper Vulcan behavior."

She covered the his hand on her stomach with hers. "We won't do that to them."

"No," he agreed. "We won't."

A/N:
For happier Spock/Uhura pls read just about any other of my fics. I've got a WIP called "The Native" for Sarek Amanda origins.