Death in the Family

Posted on 29 Aug 2025 @ 12:41am by Lieutenant JG Serran

1,529 words; about a 8 minute read

It has been fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes since I received the communication from my mother. Fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes since the universe... shifted.

The message was brief, as is the Vulcan way. Mother's face on the screen betrayed nothing, though I now wonder if I saw something in the slight tension around her eyes. "Serran," she said, "your father has died. The funeral arrangements will proceed according to tradition. Your presence would be... appropriate."

Appropriate. Not needed. Not wanted. Appropriate.
Theo was still standing there when the comm ended, his unfinished sentence about questioning something hanging between us like a shuttlecraft caught between two gravity wells. He saw my face – and despite my efforts at control, he saw. The soup he had made with such care sat cooling on the table, the sizzling rice now silent.

"Serran?" he asked, and then, more quietly, "Dad?"
I told him. Simply. Directly. My voice lower than usual – that tell-tale sign of my emotional state that Finn used to point out.

Theo didn't try to embrace me, didn't offer platitudes. He simply sat beside me, his fifteen-year-old shoulder barely touching mine, and said, "I know what it's like. To lose a father. Even a complicated one."

Complicated. Yes, that is perhaps the most accurate description of Sorek of Vulcan, Commander, Starfleet Academy instructor, and... my father.

I have been attempting to meditate for the past three hours without success. Each time I reach for that centered calm, I am confronted with memories: Father's disapproving silence when I struggled with advanced quantum mechanics at age twelve. The way his left eyebrow would rise precisely 2.3 millimeters when I displayed what he considered excessive emotion.

The conversation – if one could call three minutes and seventeen seconds of stilted words a conversation – when I told him about Finn.

"Illogical," he had said. Not about my sexuality itself – Vulcans, for all their adherence to logic, have long accepted that biological diversity includes variations in sexual orientation. No, what he found illogical was my choice to embrace it emotionally, to seek love rather than simply a logical partnership for procreation or companionship. Not that Finn or I could procreate. Father just didn't see the logic in our type of relationship.


The last time we spoke was forty-three days ago. A subspace call that lasted six minutes. We discussed the weather patterns on Earth, the new curriculum changes at the Academy, and Mother's latest diplomatic assignment.

We did not discuss Theo, though his name had come up before. My father thought my adopting him was...noble, though perhaps not the most logical decision when there were other choices.

To me, there were no other choices. No options. Not real ones anyway. There was a need. Adopting Theo was one of the last things Finn and I agreed on. But that day, we didn't discuss Theo at all.

We did not discuss my divorce. We did not discuss the paper I had published on innovative operations management techniques that had been well-received by Starfleet Command.

We did not discuss anything that mattered. That was so typical and as much my fault as it was his. It was easier. Easier to avoid... complications.

I find myself thinking about probability. The statistical likelihood that a Vulcan male of seventy years would die suddenly. The odds are approximately 0.003%.

Father was in excellent health at his last medical review four months ago. Mother's message provided no details about the cause of death, which is... unusual. Even for Vulcans, there are typically explanations offered, logical reasons provided for the cessation of biological functions.

Theo made tea earlier. Vulcan spice tea, which he had to look up how to prepare. He got it wrong – too much kreyla, not enough fosak – but the gesture was... I believe humans would call it touching.

He is processing his own grief through mine, I think. When he lost his family on Herios IV, he was twelve. Now, at fifteen, watching me navigate this loss, perhaps he is revisiting his own.

"You know," he said to me four hours ago, "grief isn't illogical. It's the price of connection. Even Vulcans must feel it, just differently."

A human teenager explaining emotion to a Vulcan. Father would have found that deeply inappropriate. I find it... instructive.

I should feel guilt. That is what humans feel when someone dies with whom they have unresolved conflicts. But what I feel is... heavier than guilt. It is the weight of paths untaken, words unspoken, and time that I assumed would stretch on for at least another forty years.

Father never said he was proud of me. I tell myself this is because Vulcans do not express pride – it is an emotional response that serves no logical purpose. But S'jens received Father's approval for his research. T'janikrel earned his respect for her diplomatic achievements. Even young T'lar gained his acknowledgment for her academic excellence.
I received his silence.

And yet... there was that day, two years ago, when Finn and I visited during our shore leave from the Resolute. Father observed us together, and for seventeen seconds, his expression shifted. Not to disapproval, but to something I couldn't identify.

Later, Mother said he had commented that I seemed "settled." Coming from Father, that was perhaps the closest to acceptance I would receive.

I have decided ask the Captain's approval to attend the funeral. We are on a mission now. An important one, but we were always on an important mission. All I can do is ask.

Theo will accompany me if we're allowed to go. When I told him this, he simply nodded and said, "Family shows up for family. Even when it's complicated."

The boy has wisdom beyond his years. Perhaps that is what happens when one loses everything at twelve – you either break, or you develop an understanding of loss that others take decades to achieve.

I am struggling with what I will say at the funeral. Vulcan tradition dictates that I speak of Father's achievements, his contributions to science and Starfleet, his logical approach to life's challenges. But I find myself wanting to speak of other things: The way he would absently hum ancient Vulcan melodies when he thought no one was listening.

How he kept a holophoto of all four of his children in his office, even after I disappointed him. The fact that he attended every one of my Academy presentations, standing in the back where I wouldn't see him.

These are not the observations of a proper Vulcan son. They are the observations of someone caught between two worlds, never quite fitting into either. Father knew this about me. It troubled him until his final day.

No – that is an assumption. I do not know what troubled him in his final days. I was not there. I was here, forty-three days since our last conversation, dealing with routine operations issues and believing I had time.

Time. For beings who pride themselves on logic, Vulcans are remarkably illogical about time. We assume its abundance. We postpone conversations because logic suggests there will be future opportunities. We fail to account for the 0.003% probability.

Theo is sleeping now in his room. Before he retired, he paused at my door. "The thing I was going to tell you earlier," he said. "It can wait. But when you're ready, after all this, we should talk. About identity. About being different. About finding where you belong when you don't fit the mold everyone expects."

I believe he was offering me more than just a postponed conversation. He was offering understanding. This boy who lost his royal family, his entire world, who has had to rebuild his identity from scattered pieces – he sees me. Perhaps more clearly than I see myself.

Mother says the funeral will be in two weeks. Traditional Vulcan mourning periods are brief and efficient. We do not wallow. We do not prolong. We acknowledge the loss, we honor the life, and we continue.

I will mourn in my own way. The way I have done most things in my life


I will never have the chance to become the son he wanted. He will never have the chance to become the father who could accept the son he had.

The universe has shifted, and I must find my balance in this new configuration. Logic suggests I will adapt. Experience suggests it will take time.

Emotion – that unwelcome visitor Father taught me to suppress – suggests it will hurt for longer than logic would dictate is reasonable.

Computer, end log. Maintain encryption.
A pause of nineteen. fives seconds


Computer, addendum to personal log.

I just realized something. In trying to teach me to be a proper Vulcan, Father gave me the tools to survive this loss. The meditation techniques I'm failing at tonight. The logical frameworks I'm using to process these events. The discipline that will allow me to stand at his funeral and speak with composure.

Even in his disappointment, he was still teaching me.
I do not know if that makes the loss harder or easier to bear.
Perhaps both. Perhaps that, too, is part of being caught between worlds.

Computer, end log.

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