By Scarlet

Fandom: TOS
Rating: PG
Codes: Gen, implied S/f

Summary: The events as they could have unfolded after the episode All Our Yesterdays.

Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to Paramount and Viacom. This is a piece of fan fiction, not meant to infringe upon their copyright.

This story is for Pam. It was awarded 3rd prize in the "challenge" category of the Golden Orgasms 2000.

* * * *

Oh seek, my love, your newer way;
I'll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday
Go take your damned tomorrow!

Dorothy Parker, _Godspeed_

* * * *

In the warmth of the cave, Zarabeth fought for her sanity.

It had taken her some time to come to terms with the idea of a future. When Spock and McCoy had left, she had only wanted to die. All these years of loneliness, then suddenly company -- even love -- and then loneliness again.

A war was going on inside her, a war between the forces of despair and hope. Logic told her that they were not coming back. *He* wasn't coming back. She couldn't decide the best course of action: Try to erase the memory of him, or turn to it for comfort. Or maybe she should just try to kill herself.

It would be easy enough. Just walk right into the snowstorm until she dropped from exhaustion. She would fall asleep and not wake up again; it should be more or less painless. It would certainly be easier than living with the memory of the loss.

But then, that sneaky devil called Hope would whisper in her ear: "They came here, didn't they? They could come back. He could come back!"

The war inside her went on and on, until she began to notice the changes.

At first, she thought the dried meat had gone bad. She felt sick, especially in the mornings, and the sickness wasn't getting better although she threw away the meat and went hunting for fresh food. Maybe the visitors had given her some contagious disease. Well, wouldn't that be just perfect. She would spend the rest of her days not only in loneliness, but throwing up in loneliness. Wonderful.

Then, the sickness abated and a strange thing happened. She was out hunting and was just reaching for an arrow meant for a long-eared jumping creature -- small, but tasty -- when she was kicked in the stomach.

From the inside.

Zarabeth sank to her knees in the snow. Her dinner was escaping, but she had already forgotten all about it. Something was kicking inside her stomach.

Back in the cave, she sat by the fire and pondered the future. She was as uncertain as ever. One part of her was thinking about having company again. She wouldn't be alone anymore, she would have someone to talk to, someone to help her with the hunting, even someone to care for her when she eventually got old and tired. And more important, someone she could care for. Long ago, she had tried to domesticate some of the animals and keep them as pets, but they had all escaped, or fought, or died.

Someone to care for -- someone to love --

Someone who would be sentenced to a lifetime in this freezing hell. Could she really do that to an innocent child? And when Zarabeth died, the child would be alone. Then what?

But as Zarabeth struggled, the days went by. Almost automatically, she stocked up on dried meat and plenty of furs. It was a good thing she had invented the traps, because hunting was becoming increasingly difficult. Finally, moving around at all was difficult. Was this never going to end?

The answer came one moonless night. The contractions she had been experiencing on and off for a few days increased in frequency, duration and intensity. Something was definitely going to change.

Zarabeth almost panicked. She had been very young when she was exiled to this ice age prison. She knew, vaguely, how children came into the world, but had no idea what to do or what to expect. Was there still time to get out of this? She fought for her sanity, drank some water, and waited.

There came a time when she actually panicked, when the pain was so unbearable that she heard herself screaming, "No! I don't want it! Go away!" She even considered walking out in the cold, ending it all for both of them, but her legs wouldn't comply.

Then there was a different kind of pain and she found a new kind of strength. "Come on out, damn you! Come on out and show yourself!"

And then, for a microsecond, Zarabeth had a vision of a frighteningly cold place, colder even than her own prison world, a place where eternal blackness was pierced by countless bright lights. She was soaring in the sky, and somewhere among the stars was the soul of her child. She had to bring it back with her -- she had to bring it back --

And then she heard the baby cry and knew that nothing would be the same again. It was a girl-child, this miracle with ten fingers and ten toes and two tiny, delicate, pointed ears.

* * * *

"Good shot, Sarah! We'll have lots of juicy meat tonight, thanks to you!"

"Can I have the fur, Mother? I want new gloves, these are getting too small."

"Of course you can. The best hunter must have the best gloves!"

They walked back to the cave in silence. Sarah prepared the meat, while her mother worked on the fur.

"Tell me about The Others, Mother."

"No, not now."

"Please."

"Maybe later."

"When are they coming back?"

"I don't know. Hey, don't forget to save the blood, we'll use it in the soup."

"I don't like blood soup."

"You have to eat it, your body needs it. You're a big girl now."

* * * *

Sarah fought for her sanity. Her mother had been there always, and now she wasn't there anymore. One step in the wrong direction, on a cliff covered with thick snow -- so thick that she had been fooled to think that the cliff was much bigger -- and she fell. She wouldn't rise again.

Sarah was numb inside for days. Then, when she remembered her mother's voice, her touch, her jokes, she cried. Then she went out to hunt.

In the evenings, she would sit very still and look into the fire. This had a strangely calming, if not exactly soothing, effect.

Often, she daydreamed of The Others, as she had done all her life. One day, the two nice persons would come back and keep her company. They would talk to her, and hold her like her mother used to do. In her dreams, The Others looked just like her mother, although she had been told that they looked different.

"Different how?" she had asked.

"They were men, not women like you and me. They had ... different voices. They talked more like this ... " and her mother had changed her voice and made her laugh.

"And what did they look like?"

"Shorter hair on the head. One of them, the one named Spock, had ears like yours. The other one was named McCoy, and he had ears like mine."

Sarah had run her fingers over the tips of her own ears. She had never seen herself, but knew that her ears felt different from her mother's.

"Was Spock small, like me?"

"No". Surprise in her mother's voice. "He was big, bigger than me."

"I thought my ears would become like yours when I got big like you."

"No." A patient smile. "They will stay just as they are."

Sarah had never tired of the story of The Others, even if there were times when she thought they were just that -- a story, like the other stories Mother would tell her when she couldn't sleep.

* * * *

Then one day, The Others came.

But they were not just two, they were many more! And they looked different from both her and Mother. These Others had blueish faces, huge yellow eyes, and long, drooping ears, almost like the animals she used to hunt. She asked them about Spock and McCoy, but they didn't seem to recognize the names. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she was excited to have company.

But as it turned out, these Others had not come to keep her company. They had come to take her away!

The journey among the stars was the most amazing thing that she had ever experienced -- until it ended. When she left the ship and set foot on the ground, the air was warm, like her favourite place by the fire in her cave! She had always hated the cold, even more than Mother had, and now she had a new home, which was like one gigantic fire-place! She turned around to thank The Others -- but their vessel was already leaving.

Sarah's mouth went suddenly dry. They had abandoned her in this new place. She would be alone again, warm, but alone. Why had they done this to her? She wished they had just killed her. When she heard a voice behind her, she turned again.

It was a person as tall as Mother and the voice had sounded almost like Mother's. She looked at Sarah kindly and inquiringly. Two small children came running to her side. They looked a little wary at first, but they soon began chatting in words she couldn't understand.

The woman -- or, as Sarah had already begun to think of her, the Mother -- smiled, inclined her head and lightly touched Sarah's cheek.

Sarah raised her trembling hand and touched her fingertips to the woman's pointed ear.

* * * *

"T'Sara stayed with the woman and her family, learned their speech and their ways and lived long and happily ever after, and she married and had many children of her own, all of whom lived long and prospered. And now, it is time for you to sleep."

"But my Mother, who were the people who brought T'Sara to her new home?"

"No one knows. They were never seen or heard of again. Perhaps their kind have all grown old and died."

"Is this tale the truth, my Mother?"

"It is the truth. I learned it from my parents, who learned it from their parents, who learned it from their parents, and so on all the way back to the time of the beginning, when T'Sara herself told her tale to her own children."

"This is very intriguing. Does this mean that T'Sara is my great- great-great-great-great-grandmother?"

"If I told you what she is to you, you would be asleep before I could finish. So many generations have passed since T'Sara lived."

"This thought makes my head spin."

"No, your head is spinning because you need to sleep. I will leave you now."

"Good night, my Mother."

"Good night, Surak."

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