teaoli

Title: Then Comes Spock: First Comes Love
Author:

teaoli
Characters: McCoy, Spock, Uhura, Ambassador Spock, Sarek, OFC, Enterprise ensemble
Summary: The Enterprise has completed its first mission & its senior crew have settled into their roles. Unusual circumstances send Spock and Uhura to the Vulcan colony. Sequel to Don’t Lose Your Compass, which is also available somewhere on lj and might even eventually make it to my journal.

( Read Hybridogenesis )
( Read Clarity )
( Read Business as Usual )

Quietly humming machinery ringed the round, mid-sized laboratory. The xenogeneticists on board were linked to Starfleet Medical, as well as working directly under the biological studies area of the Fleet’s Science Division. They got funding from both departments, and had their own space adjacent to Sickbay. Powerfully sensitive equipment, used as much to diagnose disorders as it was to study the genetics of the peoples of the galaxy, was housed there.

There had been no mistake. Though he had been hoping for a far different result, he wasn’t surprised. He almost pounded the console sitting in the center of circular room.

He hadn’t been boasting — well, maybe just a little — when he’d told the Enterprise’s science officer that he deserved to be chief medical officer for Starfleet’s flagship. He was that good, and he knew it. His remarkable ability to diagnose and treat the many difficult illnesses they’d encountered during those first five years had afforded him a certain respect from the powers-that-be in Starfleet Medical that even his strong personality, widely regarded as… unpleasant, was unable to dilute. Many were in awe of the man’s medical acumen, though few would admit to it. Still, it meant that he had his pick of staff. The galaxy was full young bucks and fillies who were eager to ignore (or attempt to ignore) McCoy’s bark, in order to say they’d served under the man who was gearing up to be one of the best doctors in Fleet history.

So Bones wasn’t surprised when further analysis of data downloaded from his lead obstetrician’s tricorder told him that Nyota Uhura was carrying half-Vulcan twins. He’d downloaded the data from the lieutenant’s scans into the most powerful sequencer/analyzer available to the Federation, expecting such confirmation. His people didn’t make many mistakes and stay his people. He’d never been one to refrain from opening a can of verbal whoop-ass just because he happened to be standing in Sickbay.

And he was acutely aware of the analyzer’s capabilities; he’d helped design it.

Officially, the machine was dedicated mapping the genomes of the many new species the crew could expect to encounter during their travels. In fact, it was more often utilized the to aid in McCoy’s pathological research. It had often proved to be an invaluable tool when the medical staff had been faced with disease among populations of the previously-unknown. They’d found more often than they could count, that if time allowed, it was to the benefit of their patients, humanoid or otherwise, for McCoy’s staff to begin with a greater understanding how those beings were built. And if whatever was making them ill was organic in nature, well, it could be pretty handy to take at peek into those things, too.

But this time, Bones had already had a damn good grasp of what he was dealing with before he even let the sequencer act as a third or fourth pair of eyes. Maybe he was wasting time — something he hated almost more than he hated stupidity in anyone else — but he needed to have a hell of a lot more than a pretty good grasp of this situation.

Nyota Uhura was a damn fine woman, and despite outward indications that he had none, a great friend — almost family. She could brush aside or reach right through his nastiest moods as easily as she saw through the frozen mask damn near permanently affixed to that green-blooded elf of a husband of hers. He wasn’t taking any chances with the first woman he’d let get truly close since his ex-wife had taken him for all he was worth.

“God damn it!”

The doctor finished going over the read-out and shoved his chair away from the screen. Because now that he’d laid aside the last lingering infinitesimal strands of doubt about the ifs of the twins’ heritage, as long as they and their mother remained out of danger — Sarek had responded to Spock’s queries with confirmation that Amanda Grayson had experienced none of the complications during her pregnancy or during Spock’s birth that she had had with her earlier miscarriages — there was time to start looking into the whys and the hows. The doctor was enough of a scientist to want to know. And even if he didn’t, it would have been his duty to Starfleet to find out.

He glanced up at his companion and glared.

If only that didn’t mean saying what he was about to say to Spock. The thought gave him the heebie-jeebies more’n the time he’d helped deliver an Agenian tree dweller’s litter up a tree in a rainstorm. Bones grimaced, not quite able to repress a shudder. Eww. Argenia was a small M-class planet, covered almost equally in rain forest and ocean, and while its dominant species were humanoid, their skin emitted a thick slime that facilitated oxygen absorption and kept their bodies from becoming water-logged. The arboreal people rarely bred, even the mated couples — but when they did, they tended to give birth to at least six young‘uns at time. The task before him seemed worse than the memory of that night.

“Doctor, the look of distaste you are directing at my person suggests that you have confirmed the initial determinations of Nyota’s personal obstetrician as well as those of the head of your obstetrics team.” Spock paused. “Not to mention your own preliminary hypothesis.

“By your own admission” Spock, who had been standing across the room from McCoy for the past twenty-five minutes and six point thirty-five seconds, quirked his left eyebrow as he said this “you are the most qualified individual to help me discover the reasons behind the unexpected genetic make-up of the fetuses my bond-mate carries. No other practicing physician in Starfleet has your experience and understanding of the nature of the human, and the half-Vulcan, body. You have had opportunity to learn more of my unique physiology than anyone in Starfleet Medical has been allowed in the past. So, there is no one more intellectually suited to the task.”

He walked across the room until he was standing beside the doctor’s chair.

“Moreover, my bond-mate considers you to be, among other things, a friend. And I’ve come to appreciate that she might not be illogical in her estimations of your social attributes. So, I’m perfectly willing to work with you to discover why Lieutenant Uhura and I seem to have conceived the impossible.

“However, as it appears you might be uncomfortable with the nature of the discussion in which we must now engage, doctor, I wish to assure you, my father has already told me where babies come from.”

McCoy stared at him for a moment without speaking. The god-damned Vulcan was trying to make a joke. He was attempting to lighten the mood, ease the tension, with humor. Even though he wasn’t entirely successful, that he had tired at all was nearly enough to make the doctor let loose a crack of laughter.

If only things were that easy.

Instead of laughing, Bones stood next to Spock and placed hand on the younger man’s shoulder. He knew, of course, that many Vulcans preferred not to engage in casual physical contact. Too bad, he thought. Things were about to get a lot more uncomfortable around here.

“Son, I wasn’t worried about stepping on your daddy’s toes and giving you ‘the talk,’“ he said. “I just know you aren’t gonna like what I’ve gotta say. And I’m not in the mood to become a human pretzel when you let go of that… control you Vulcans are so damned proud of.”

“If you are implying that something you wish to tell me will make angry enough to display an emotional response, you are mistaken.”

“You better make sure you feel the same after I tell you I’m sending you and the delightful Miz Uhura to Vulcan Beta.”

Outwardly, there was little sign that Spock’s mind was flooded with contrasting thoughts and emotions. Few looking at him would see anything other than the expressionless façade they’d become accustomed to associating with the science officer. But the woman seated across the table from him — even if she hadn’t had a direct line into his mental and emotional frequency — would suspect that underneath, longing warred with fear and anger battled anticipation.

“I still do not see the advantage of leaving our respective positions for an indeterminate amount of time when we have already been assured that you and the children would face no additional danger should they be born on the Enterprise.

“Nothing in Doctor McCoy’s arguments show any benefit you or our children will enjoy if we travel to T’Khasi Vokaya for their birth. Why should the Enterprise suffer our absences when it is not medically necessary for us to be elsewhere?”

“Oh, for god’s sake, Spock, use a contraction!” Uhura was not insensitive to her husband’s struggle, but she found it in increasingly difficult to deal with his adamant opposition to their trip to the planet another — older — Spock had found after the destruction of his homeworld. She sighed. “We won’t be gone that long, k’diwa.”

This younger Spock had visited the planet only twice since the remnants of his people had taken the first steps toward colonization, just weeks after the Enterprise and her crew had embarked on their first official mission. Both visits had been official, ordered by Starfleet to conduct Federation business.

“I seem to recall, when it was confirmed that you were pregnant, you told Doctor McCoy, the captain and me that you would be present for all of your shifts until the end of your term. Your exact words were ‘until this baby comes crawling out of me to take over after her father faints at the science station.’“

Uhura found herself smiling in spite of her continued frustration. He really was getting better at using humor. These days, he wielded irony almost like a natural. He was learning to deftly dodge her flashes of temper without incurring even more of her anger.

It would have been easy to think that his resistance made little sense. After all, he’d been on the verge of resigning his commission in order to live out his life in the very place he was so reluctant to even visit now. Uhura knew better. She reached her left hand across the table to touch his left.

“Eat your dinner before it gets cold,” she admonished, her tone far more gentle now. “And before you say it, I understand that this trip really isn’t about me and the girls. I know it’s not me they really want to poke and prod. I can even see why part of you would want no part of what’s going to happen. But what about Spock the scientist, who wants to unravel the mysteries of the universe? What about the Spock who was willing to sacrifice all of this to help rebuild his people?”

She swept her right hand out in motion that seemed to indicate the common area of their quarters. Spock knew she meant all of the Enterprise. All of her crew and their friends who served aboard. All of Starfleet. All that she and Spock had been to one another, and everything they had become.

Spock turned his left hand so that it rested under hers, palm to palm. He slid his fingers down and over until his first two his fingertips touched hers.

“I am no longer willing to give any of it up,” he told her, “no matter what the reward.”

Sarek had been alone in his dwelling when the transmission from his son had come. All was well, Spock had said, but he was contacting his father to ease the mind of Doctor McCoy. He had asked about the time when Amanda had carried their only child in her own body.

“Your mother experienced no difficulties. There were no complications caused because she carried a half-Vulcan child. Indeed, unlike with our first attempts, there were no complications at all with you. Your mother was remarkably strong,” he had told his son.

“She was kept under such heavy observation only because of the uniqueness of our situation. While we already knew that Vulcan and human reproductive systems were sufficiently compatible to assure conception — your predecessors were concrete proof of that — we did not know whether a human woman would be physically capable of enduring the gestation of a Vulcan hybrid without damage.”

“Why did you try?” Spock and asked upon processing this information. He had not known this much about his own origins. He had wondered, of course. But it would have been unseemly to ask.

“I infer that you are asking why your mother and I decided to have you when we were unsure whether or not she would have the strength to survive your birth or even your gestational period.” Sarek had let his mind drift back to his days with Amanda Grayson for only a brief moment before answering his translation of his son’s question.

“Your mother was my mate. She wanted to bear me a child. I wanted a child born of her body.”

Spock had heard the words his father had not said.

They were in love and wanted to share their lives as fully as any other couple might strive to do. For the second time in Spock’s life, he’d heard his father had admitting to making a decision based on sentiment, rather than logic.

“Your own mate and children should require even less scrutiny, as they will be far more human than Vulcan,” Sarek had said, allowing his confusion to show.

“All indication suggest that the female twins Nyota carries are half Vulcan, Sa-mekh, rather than one quarter Vulcan. We do not yet understand why or how what we are currently calling paternally-initiated hybridogenesis has come to pass,” he had explained. “However, since neither Nyota nor our daughters should expect to be in danger because of their heritage, and since no special precautions would appear to be necessary, Doctor McCoy and I intend to undertake the study of the matter.”

Spock had come away from the conversation relieved. Not because he now knew he had been conceived in love — he’d had many years to integrate the knowledge that his father had loved mother and that his father loved him, into his consciousness; this new development was a logical extension of those facts, though he had not been convinced it was a fact in and of itself before now. He was simply pleased to confirm he had no need for additional concern about his mate’s condition.

Sarek had come away from the conversation torn. His son had clearly been pleased to learn his mother had not suffered during her pregnancy, and that it might follow that his wife — also a strong, healthy human woman — might not suffer during her own. This also pleased Sarek.

But he would have been lying if he did not admit he was disappointed that his granddaughters would seemingly carry nothing of his late bond-mate.

He had immediately contacted Leonard McCoy.

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