Title: Supposed Expert Author: Kerry Response to this Challenge: Spock introduces Saavik to ice cream for the first time. According to the Sarek-Amanda Yahoo group, cinnamon is an aphrodisiac for Vulcans...and the ice cream is cinnamon flavored. Unfortunately, Saavik's Romulan half is allergic and she requires medical assistance. How does Spock explain how he chose the flavor of the ice cream...or does he? He sat waiting... left alone with no company but his thoughts until someone brought him news. News about his wife's condition. The details on whether she was breathing yet. The whole situation his fault. When his vast years of experience knew better to ever cause such a situation. What had he been thinking? Spock braced his elbows on his knees and leaned into his steepled fingers. Fingers his wife had touched with her own, causing an electric charge that stemmed from the passion of touch telepathy. They were both home. Not just time to themselves which by itself was something to celebrate, but *home*. Together. And not just them, but T'Kel, their eldest daughter, taking leave with her betrothed while their ship was in a standard refit not needing their expertise. Of Spock and Saavik's three children, only T'Pren would not be on Vulcan. Instead, Spock had to contact all three children to tell them their mother was hospitalized with respiratory failure. He had withheld the fact that it was his fault. As if answering a cue, T'Kel burst into the tiny waiting area with Sihahs, her betrothed, by her side. Once Spock had contacted her, she had dropped their plans to use public transportation and had chartered a small ship home, piloting it herself to rush here. Neither she nor Sihahs had even bothered changing from their Vulcan Fleet uniforms. "What news, Father?" The same short speech pattern of her childhood, showing how much his daughter was affected by what had happened. His daughter-in-law, T'Qet, had met T'Kel and Sihahs at their docking bay here on the orbital station. She had trailed T'Kel through the door by only a step. Now she seemed to call her husband to her, because Spock's son, Setik, entered the room wearing his brown Healer's robes. "I spoke with Mother's doctor," he said without preamble. "She is on a respirator and will remain that way overnight. They do not know if permanent damage has been done." Permanent damage... Spock pictured Saavik -- vital, strong Saavik -- having to carry oxygen with her the rest of her life. Because of him. T'Qet came to Setik with all of her dancer's grace and touched her paired fingers to his. Spock didn't see the comfort his son took in her touch as he remembered his own wife -- the touch of *her* fingers -- the look in her eyes... He realized Setik was asking him a question. "--Father? Because I still do not comprehend how this happened." How? Because his father had made romantic plans that made him forget everything he supposedly knew as an expert. It started with him discovering an innocent fact: his wife had never tasted ice cream. "Why not?" he had asked her, what with all her years of being around humans. "You'll remember, I once had a negative experience with being given a Terran dessert," she had explained. "Afterwards, I tended to avoid them. An illogical action, I know." Of course, she trusted her *husband* not to harm her, so she had agreed to try the ice cream. Sihahs' voice rumbled like it always did from somewhere deep in his chest. "T'Kel told me of how Saavik instructed them to avoid cinnamon, so I agree with Setik. Why would she order any food with cinnamon as a part of it?" Because she hadn't ordered it. Spock had. For the foolish reason of-- He couldn't look at his children. "She told you to avoid cinnamon?" It explained why he had to configure the ice cream flavor into the house replicators... because Saavik must have removed the harmful ingredient. Although, looking back... he seemed to remember Amanda and Sarek mentioning removing a few replicator items for Saavik's sake. But he hadn't stop to remember anything. T'Kel gave a barely perceptible nod. "All three of us. Remember, Tenu't?" Tenu't... the Vulcan word for the color blue, and the memory hit Spock hard of Saavik teaching T'Kel to say the word. "Tenu't," Saavik had said, pointing at the color chart, and then, playfully, at Setik's blue eyes. "Tenu't." "Tenu't!" T'Kel had echoed, reaching for the brother who was the hero of her toddler world. Saavik had tried to correct the mistake, but T'Kel had remained equally determined. Now she called him by that name again, for the first time in years. The same way she resorted to her childhood speech pattern. "Mother must have told you this story, Father," Setik said. "Early in her career, another officer gave her a dessert of yogurt, honey, and almonds roasted with cinnamon." Setik's voice grew hard, as hard as T'Kel's obsidian eyes at hearing the story again. "He had heard the rumor that cinnamon acts as an aphrodisiac on Vulcans. He desired Mother and sought to gain what he wanted despite her indifference to him. He didn't bother to remember Mother is not only Vulcan, or that he introduced an alien substance to a Romulan without knowing what reaction it might cause!" Saavik's words came back: *I once had a negative experience with being given a Terran dessert...* The way her nostrils had flared with a Vulcan female's highly acute sense of smell when the cinnamon hit the air and her system. How she had grabbed her Starfleet communicator, only getting out the words "Emergency transport--" before collasping... Spock closed his eyes, and missed T'Qet suddenly seeing his reaction. He only heard her ask, "What happened to this officer?" Spock opened his eyes as T'Kel answered. "Transferred to ground duty on Earth." Sihahs added, "He deserved worse. A deep space officer who ignored standard practices of interacting with species other than his own..." Spock barely kept his eyes from squeezing close again at the reminder. All his years in Starfleet -- as a *science officer*, all his years as an Ambassador! The first practice of all those duties: never ingest alien compounds until tests assured they were safe. Never offer anything of your environment -- medicine, food, water, air! -- to another species until assured it will not harm them. What he would never do to strangers, Spock had done to his *wife*. He became aware of how T'Qet looked at him as she spoke. "All to give her an alien aphrodisiac? When so many exist on Vulcan that are safe to the Romulan system?" Spock turned away, but caught how her eyes widened. She knew. Worse, Sihahs saw the interaction and figured it out as well. For a second, part of him wondered how T'Qet knew what Vulcan aphrodisiacs safely worked on his family's mixed-blood systems, but being Setik's father, he equally shied away from the thought. Especially when his wife had a machine breathing for her. Little more was said in the next hours. Eventually, Setik and T'Kel took advantage of the Starfleet orbital station's meditation gardens, and with Sihahs and T'Qet sensing Spock's discomfort, he was left alone again. Which was preferable to facing his children. At last, the doctor in charge of Saavik's case came out and said she was awake. They believed they got to her fast enough, especially with being able to call on the Vulcan Science Academy. They had cleansed her system so she had no permanent damage. She was off the respirator and breathed on her own... And she asked for him. When he reached her side, she struggled to tell him to keep the incident secure. The information on how to incapacitate -- even kill -- a Romulan so easily in the wrong hands... Their own children the target of bigots, and those in Starfleet who wouldn't stop at defense but push for a preemptive strike to cripple or destroy the Empire... She never saw he had done this to her or the real reason why. He hushed the raspy words coming from her raw throat, and assured her he would secure her records. But she insisted, The doctor. Not able to make the sounds now, she only formed the words with her mouth. He dealt with it immediately, and returned to her side. Spock had always forced himself to face any responsibility and confessed to this one. "T'hyla... I did this to you... deliberately... ignorantly..." He made himself look at her as he explained.