Then Comes Spock, 15/15
Feb. 1st, 2011 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teaoliTitle: Then Comes Spock: What Was Silent In The Father
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 )
( Read First Comes Love )
( Read Down to the Bones )
( Read Tea and Sympathetic Natures )
( Read Basic Biology )
( Read Advanced Vulcan Physiology )
( Read Duty and Pleasure )
( Read The Medicine of Life )
( Read He Who Fails To Plan )
( Read More Mystery )
( Read Great Ellipses )
( Read Say What You Feel )
As soon as the ambassador left the two women to their preparations, Upenda reached into her closet and brought out a drawstring bag. She turned to her guest, a huge smile lighting her face.
“I was pretty certain Spock would feel uncomfortable with the slaughtering and roasting, so I brought these.” She opened the mouth of the sack to show Astra the fluffy white soft toys inside.
Astra laughed and pulled out one of the stuffed lambs. “This is perfect! Though, I have to say I’m a little surprised your very logical brother-in-law didn’t dismiss the ritual as illogical.”
“It was his idea, actually,” Upenda told her. “A bunch of Baba’s aunties cornered him before the wedding. They wanted to talk about babies. Even though back then there was still a question of whether Spock and Ennie could have babies, he told me he found the idea of the first meal ‘fascinating.’
“It’s not logical, of course — you got that part right — but I guess he liked the idea of the girls being brought into the cultural fold so quickly. I’m sure your Spock has told you what it was like for him. Our Spock wants his children to feel as if they belong.”
“Yes,” Astra murmured thoughtfully. “That part, I can believe. Who knows better than Spock how it feels not to belong?”
The women finished preparing what little more they could before settling into chairs near Upenda’s balcony entrance. There was nothing to do but wait now.
They chatted about nothing important until a familiar voice, calling out in pain, prompted Upenda to close the tall glass doors.
“You didn’t want to be the one to deliver your nieces?” Astra asked as her hostess resumed her seat.
Upenda grinned at her. “Can you imagine how that would have played out?” she asked, laughing a little. “You’ve got an older sister. What do you think you would do if you were in pain and she was ordering you around, telling you not to push when you wanted to push or to push when you just wanted to give up?
“Ennie and I are close, but I’m not sure I’d be the best choice as her obstetrician.”
“Are you sure it’s not that you’d lose your Uhura cool if you had to see your dada in pain?” Astra’s grin was mischievous, but her curiosity was real.
The fierce frown and stiffened posture that every Uhura-born woman could adopt at the drop of a hat didn’t fail Upenda.
“I’m a doctor,” she declared loftily. “I don’t lose my cool while doing my job.”
There was a moment of silence before Astra threw her head back, peals of sob-like laughter sending her body into tremors that were nearly alarming in their intensity.
“What?” Upenda demanded.
Trying to gain control of herself, Astra sat forward and leaned over her knees. “I’m sorry, Pennie,” she gasped through chuckles that continued to escape. “It’s just… it’s just, you sounded just like my own dada just then!”
Bones ended the communication and walked swiftly over to the desk he’d claimed as his own nearly two months before. With an efficiency borne of long experience, he opened the med-kit he’d packed weeks earlier and began checking several pieces of portable equipment.
“It’s time?” M’Benga asked, looking up from his own work.
“Looks like.” McCoy examined the last item and slung the bag over his shoulder.
M’Benga stopped him before he reached the door.
“I’ll finish up Sarek’s sample,” he said. “But you call me if you need assistance. I know they don’t want to bring the healers in.”
Bones gripped the other doctor’s hand and squeezed. Hard. “Thank you,” he said. Then he walked out.
Spock’s voice was calm and firm.
“This is the way of neither your father’s people, nor mine, adun’a,” he said. “I fail to understand the reason for your insistence.”
Nyota’s voice was firm and on the verge of angry.
“This is my way, adun,” she argued. “We don’t have to follow the path of our fathers’ peoples in everything that we do.”
“Your sister traveled to T’Khasi Vokaya from Earth to ensure we do just that in this matter.”
Uhura’s answering growl was clearly audible through entry to the balcony and across the bedroom. Bones decided to make his presence known before the woman started throwing things at the oversized elf.
He sprinted to the folded-back glass doors to find his patient sitting in her husband’s lap and glaring up into his eyes.
“Trouble in Paradise?” the doctor asked with a teasing grin.
Spock shifted his wife closer to his torso and they both tensed for a moment as, apparently, another contraction hit.
Bones took advantage of the moment of silence to pull out his medical tricorder and run it over Uhura and her protruding belly.
“Nyota has decided she would prefer to give birth on the terrace,” Spock explained once the wave of pain had passed.
Satisfied with the tricorder readings, Bones quickly scanned the over-sized balcony. The stone floors and railings were immaculate. There were several comfortable-looking chairs and small tables scattered around, but the large space was uncluttered.
“Okay, darlin’. This is your party,” he said, earning an almost-glare from the supposedly oh-so-stoic Vulcan. “I brought sterile sheeting and portable monitors. If you give us something a little higher to work on, I don’t see why this should be a problem.”
“Doctor,” Spock said slowly, and Bones knew the half-Vulcan was spoiling for a fight. “We are outside. My mate is about to give birth to children whose genetic make-up spawned an as-yet-unsolved medical and scientific mystery. Which part of that scenario do you not see as being a problem?”
Bones sighed. Spock may have been spoiling for a fight, but he’d wasted his time on the wrong opponent. Well, it wasn’t his place to interfere. If the overgrown jackrabbit liked sleeping on sofas…
“Your very healthy wife is about to give birth your two very healthy little medical miracles,” he pointed out instead of warning the hobgoblin that his wife was fixin’ to deck him or do something equally painful. Hell, contact telepath that he was, Spock probably already knew, and just didn’t care. “There’s no danger in pleasing her in this. Now, I’m just gonna go hunt down your daddy and see if we can shift a higher bed or table or something out here. You two — you four — sit tight.”
_____
It didn’t take long for Bones to commandeer a long, broad padded bench with high legs — Sarek explained that many Vulcan women gave birth on such pieces of furniture — and get his equipment set up.
He managed to calm Uhura down when she suddenly got his arm in a death grip and looked at him with wild, terrified eyes.
“It’s not too soon is it, Len?” she asked. “Can you do anything to stop it?”
“Darlin’, I’d think after more than ten and a half months you’d be tired of carrying this load around,” he told her with a soft smile. “It’s not too soon, sweetheart. Your girls are fine, and ready to come meet their mama.”
“But they’re Vulcan,” she protested. “They need thirteen months.”
“They’re half human,” he countered. “You’ve pretty much split the difference. We’re almost dead even between the two.”
Everything was going fine.
Until she started screaming.
__________
Even before her sister’s anguished cries penetrated the thick glass doors to her balcony, Upenda’s bedroom door chimed.
The elder Spock entered without waiting to be admitted.
“Your assistance is required,” he told her.
That’s when she heard Nyota screaming, “I want my dada. Get. Me. My. DADA!”
Upenda pushed past him in her rush to get to her little sister.
_____
“Push, now, dada. We need you to push.”
“You push,” Nyota snarled. “Or make Spock push. I’m tired and this is all his fault, anyway.”
Upenda’s face, as she exchanged glances with Leonard, seemed to be torn between amusement and frustration. Spock was uncertain whether she would chastise his wife or resume the gentle coaxing and teasing she had utilized for the last two point seven hours of Nyota’s labor. He was certain he did not wish to find out which behavior she would choose. Neither would be a good choice.
“Beloved,” he said, before Upenda could make up her mind, “if you push now, I will help carry your pain.”
He was astounded — as well as relieved — to see his wife turn her tear-stained face up to him and smile weakly.
She pushed.
_____
“Oh! Oh, she’s beautiful,” Upenda murmured. She quickly wrapped the mewling infant in a birthing cloth and placed her in Spock’s free arm. “Just look at how beautiful my niece is.”
Spock glanced down at his daughter, and had to admit he agreed. But he could not lose himself in her beauty because her sister was already making her appearance.
_____
“Two for two!” Bones announced happily. He hugged Upenda to his side.
Both girls lay on their mother’s chest. Their father was hovering over all three.
For a moment, just before they’d delivered the first baby, Bones had been afraid Spock was going to pass out and fulfill Nyota’s long ago prophesy, but the pointy-eared bastard had held his ground. Even shared the pain with her, as illogical as that was.
They lit the fire in on the terrace. The burner looked like a giant version of a meditation firepot — far from what they would have used at home — but it suited their purpose and their location.
“Of course,” Astra began to say as she roasted the first sweet potato, “my father was also Kiguyu — Agĩkũyũ.”
Upenda rolled her eyes and Nyota smirked.
“You don’t say,” they chorused.
Astra tested her sweet potatoes to see if they were ready, while Upenda cut off a manageable piece of raw kīgwa raw kīa nyamūirū. The unripened bananas didn’t take long to cook and would be roasted after everything else was ready.
“Unfortunately, where I grew up, we were unable hold on to the traditions of our ancestors, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t proud of our heritage,” she continued, ignoring the sisters’ teasing. “But during my travels, I was able to find some of what had been lost and learn more about the things that were only the vaguest of concepts for my family.
“So, I wanted to thank you two for allowing me to be a part of this.”
Chagrined, the Uhuras smiled warmly and offered the older women assurances that she was welcome and that they considered her to be family.
Smirking just a bit, Astra picked up a plate from a near-by table, sliced the sweet potato and arranged it around the blue-purple sugar cane. Upenda thrust a banana into the flames.
When everything was ready, they brought the plate to Nyota.
The new mother took a bit of each of the three foods in turn, chewing a little and then placing her lips onto her daughters’ in turn, so that their first meal showed that they, too, were Agĩkũyũ.
“Sa-mehk.” His son’s voice was quiet. “Leonard and Dr. M’Benga have not finished testing the theory Upenda posited four nights ago.”
The stately Vulcan continued watching the three African women as they completed their welcoming rite.
“You wonder if I will be less capable of accepting the humanity of your children than I was with you. You wonder if I will less able to love them because yours came from your mother whereas theirs might not.” He turned to study Spock’s not quite impassive face. “The thought did occur to me.”
Sarek angled his head so that he was once again looking out the glass doors that separated the two from the stone terrace where Nyota rested with his granddaughters on a wide Terran-style chaise longue. Upenda Uhura and Astra Boipuso knelt on either side of her.
“I once told you, sa-fu, that my esteem for you stems from more than the identity of your mother,” he said. “I have been remiss, however, if I allowed you to believe that my regard is simply further enhanced because you are my son.”
The silence stretched between them for only a moment before he turned to Spock, and in an unaccustomed gesture, placed a hand on his shoulder.
Spock faced his father.
“I loved my newly born child for those reasons,” Sarek said quietly, the expression on his face unchanging. “I continue to love you for all that you have become. I accept your children as they are because they come from you.”
Vulcan and half-Vulcan looked through the glass doors once more. Now fully awake again, and smiling, Nyota Uhura beckoned them.
“Sa-mekh,” she called softly, “come meet Saoirse Ta’an and Seren Adia.”
Finis
A/N: 1. The chapter title comes from the quote “Was der Vater schwieg, das kommt im Sohne zum Reden; und oft fand ich den Sohn als des Vaters entblößtes Geheimnis.„ which is from the “On the Tarantulas” section of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra.
I’ve usually seen it translated as “What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father’s revealed secret.” but I prefer, “What is silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son, the unveiled secret of the father.”
Ignore the fact that Zarathustra (through Nietzsche) wasn’t being warm and fuzzy when he said this. Sarek and Spock are totally bonding, here!
2. To any die-hard TOS fans, please note that in light of the inconsistencies within TOS canon (and since Spock was born before the Kelvin was destroyed, he was born in the prime!verse), I have decided to ignore Gene Roddenberry’s 1976 interview with “Sarek” found on the Inside Star Trek album. As was often the case when trying to take everything every authority considered to be canon, some things just don’t add up. So I took a fanfic writer’s prerogative and decided to pick and choose among examples. In this case, normal Vulcan gestation lasts about 13 months, while normal human gestation lasts approximately 280 days.
3. The ritual Upenda and Astra help Nyota perform is real. Wangari Maathai described in detail the way the Agĩkũyũ (Kikuyu in Swahili and English) people welcomed a child into the world in her wonderful memoir, Unbowed.
Keep an eye out for Bourbon, McCoy’s story. Coming to lj soon.
Author:
teaoliCharacters: 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 )
( Read First Comes Love )
( Read Down to the Bones )
( Read Tea and Sympathetic Natures )
( Read Basic Biology )
( Read Advanced Vulcan Physiology )
( Read Duty and Pleasure )
( Read The Medicine of Life )
( Read He Who Fails To Plan )
( Read More Mystery )
( Read Great Ellipses )
( Read Say What You Feel )
As soon as the ambassador left the two women to their preparations, Upenda reached into her closet and brought out a drawstring bag. She turned to her guest, a huge smile lighting her face.
“I was pretty certain Spock would feel uncomfortable with the slaughtering and roasting, so I brought these.” She opened the mouth of the sack to show Astra the fluffy white soft toys inside.
Astra laughed and pulled out one of the stuffed lambs. “This is perfect! Though, I have to say I’m a little surprised your very logical brother-in-law didn’t dismiss the ritual as illogical.”
“It was his idea, actually,” Upenda told her. “A bunch of Baba’s aunties cornered him before the wedding. They wanted to talk about babies. Even though back then there was still a question of whether Spock and Ennie could have babies, he told me he found the idea of the first meal ‘fascinating.’
“It’s not logical, of course — you got that part right — but I guess he liked the idea of the girls being brought into the cultural fold so quickly. I’m sure your Spock has told you what it was like for him. Our Spock wants his children to feel as if they belong.”
“Yes,” Astra murmured thoughtfully. “That part, I can believe. Who knows better than Spock how it feels not to belong?”
The women finished preparing what little more they could before settling into chairs near Upenda’s balcony entrance. There was nothing to do but wait now.
They chatted about nothing important until a familiar voice, calling out in pain, prompted Upenda to close the tall glass doors.
“You didn’t want to be the one to deliver your nieces?” Astra asked as her hostess resumed her seat.
Upenda grinned at her. “Can you imagine how that would have played out?” she asked, laughing a little. “You’ve got an older sister. What do you think you would do if you were in pain and she was ordering you around, telling you not to push when you wanted to push or to push when you just wanted to give up?
“Ennie and I are close, but I’m not sure I’d be the best choice as her obstetrician.”
“Are you sure it’s not that you’d lose your Uhura cool if you had to see your dada in pain?” Astra’s grin was mischievous, but her curiosity was real.
The fierce frown and stiffened posture that every Uhura-born woman could adopt at the drop of a hat didn’t fail Upenda.
“I’m a doctor,” she declared loftily. “I don’t lose my cool while doing my job.”
There was a moment of silence before Astra threw her head back, peals of sob-like laughter sending her body into tremors that were nearly alarming in their intensity.
“What?” Upenda demanded.
Trying to gain control of herself, Astra sat forward and leaned over her knees. “I’m sorry, Pennie,” she gasped through chuckles that continued to escape. “It’s just… it’s just, you sounded just like my own dada just then!”
Bones ended the communication and walked swiftly over to the desk he’d claimed as his own nearly two months before. With an efficiency borne of long experience, he opened the med-kit he’d packed weeks earlier and began checking several pieces of portable equipment.
“It’s time?” M’Benga asked, looking up from his own work.
“Looks like.” McCoy examined the last item and slung the bag over his shoulder.
M’Benga stopped him before he reached the door.
“I’ll finish up Sarek’s sample,” he said. “But you call me if you need assistance. I know they don’t want to bring the healers in.”
Bones gripped the other doctor’s hand and squeezed. Hard. “Thank you,” he said. Then he walked out.
Spock’s voice was calm and firm.
“This is the way of neither your father’s people, nor mine, adun’a,” he said. “I fail to understand the reason for your insistence.”
Nyota’s voice was firm and on the verge of angry.
“This is my way, adun,” she argued. “We don’t have to follow the path of our fathers’ peoples in everything that we do.”
“Your sister traveled to T’Khasi Vokaya from Earth to ensure we do just that in this matter.”
Uhura’s answering growl was clearly audible through entry to the balcony and across the bedroom. Bones decided to make his presence known before the woman started throwing things at the oversized elf.
He sprinted to the folded-back glass doors to find his patient sitting in her husband’s lap and glaring up into his eyes.
“Trouble in Paradise?” the doctor asked with a teasing grin.
Spock shifted his wife closer to his torso and they both tensed for a moment as, apparently, another contraction hit.
Bones took advantage of the moment of silence to pull out his medical tricorder and run it over Uhura and her protruding belly.
“Nyota has decided she would prefer to give birth on the terrace,” Spock explained once the wave of pain had passed.
Satisfied with the tricorder readings, Bones quickly scanned the over-sized balcony. The stone floors and railings were immaculate. There were several comfortable-looking chairs and small tables scattered around, but the large space was uncluttered.
“Okay, darlin’. This is your party,” he said, earning an almost-glare from the supposedly oh-so-stoic Vulcan. “I brought sterile sheeting and portable monitors. If you give us something a little higher to work on, I don’t see why this should be a problem.”
“Doctor,” Spock said slowly, and Bones knew the half-Vulcan was spoiling for a fight. “We are outside. My mate is about to give birth to children whose genetic make-up spawned an as-yet-unsolved medical and scientific mystery. Which part of that scenario do you not see as being a problem?”
Bones sighed. Spock may have been spoiling for a fight, but he’d wasted his time on the wrong opponent. Well, it wasn’t his place to interfere. If the overgrown jackrabbit liked sleeping on sofas…
“Your very healthy wife is about to give birth your two very healthy little medical miracles,” he pointed out instead of warning the hobgoblin that his wife was fixin’ to deck him or do something equally painful. Hell, contact telepath that he was, Spock probably already knew, and just didn’t care. “There’s no danger in pleasing her in this. Now, I’m just gonna go hunt down your daddy and see if we can shift a higher bed or table or something out here. You two — you four — sit tight.”
_____
It didn’t take long for Bones to commandeer a long, broad padded bench with high legs — Sarek explained that many Vulcan women gave birth on such pieces of furniture — and get his equipment set up.
He managed to calm Uhura down when she suddenly got his arm in a death grip and looked at him with wild, terrified eyes.
“It’s not too soon is it, Len?” she asked. “Can you do anything to stop it?”
“Darlin’, I’d think after more than ten and a half months you’d be tired of carrying this load around,” he told her with a soft smile. “It’s not too soon, sweetheart. Your girls are fine, and ready to come meet their mama.”
“But they’re Vulcan,” she protested. “They need thirteen months.”
“They’re half human,” he countered. “You’ve pretty much split the difference. We’re almost dead even between the two.”
Everything was going fine.
Until she started screaming.
__________
Even before her sister’s anguished cries penetrated the thick glass doors to her balcony, Upenda’s bedroom door chimed.
The elder Spock entered without waiting to be admitted.
“Your assistance is required,” he told her.
That’s when she heard Nyota screaming, “I want my dada. Get. Me. My. DADA!”
Upenda pushed past him in her rush to get to her little sister.
_____
“Push, now, dada. We need you to push.”
“You push,” Nyota snarled. “Or make Spock push. I’m tired and this is all his fault, anyway.”
Upenda’s face, as she exchanged glances with Leonard, seemed to be torn between amusement and frustration. Spock was uncertain whether she would chastise his wife or resume the gentle coaxing and teasing she had utilized for the last two point seven hours of Nyota’s labor. He was certain he did not wish to find out which behavior she would choose. Neither would be a good choice.
“Beloved,” he said, before Upenda could make up her mind, “if you push now, I will help carry your pain.”
He was astounded — as well as relieved — to see his wife turn her tear-stained face up to him and smile weakly.
She pushed.
_____
“Oh! Oh, she’s beautiful,” Upenda murmured. She quickly wrapped the mewling infant in a birthing cloth and placed her in Spock’s free arm. “Just look at how beautiful my niece is.”
Spock glanced down at his daughter, and had to admit he agreed. But he could not lose himself in her beauty because her sister was already making her appearance.
_____
“Two for two!” Bones announced happily. He hugged Upenda to his side.
Both girls lay on their mother’s chest. Their father was hovering over all three.
For a moment, just before they’d delivered the first baby, Bones had been afraid Spock was going to pass out and fulfill Nyota’s long ago prophesy, but the pointy-eared bastard had held his ground. Even shared the pain with her, as illogical as that was.
They lit the fire in on the terrace. The burner looked like a giant version of a meditation firepot — far from what they would have used at home — but it suited their purpose and their location.
“Of course,” Astra began to say as she roasted the first sweet potato, “my father was also Kiguyu — Agĩkũyũ.”
Upenda rolled her eyes and Nyota smirked.
“You don’t say,” they chorused.
Astra tested her sweet potatoes to see if they were ready, while Upenda cut off a manageable piece of raw kīgwa raw kīa nyamūirū. The unripened bananas didn’t take long to cook and would be roasted after everything else was ready.
“Unfortunately, where I grew up, we were unable hold on to the traditions of our ancestors, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t proud of our heritage,” she continued, ignoring the sisters’ teasing. “But during my travels, I was able to find some of what had been lost and learn more about the things that were only the vaguest of concepts for my family.
“So, I wanted to thank you two for allowing me to be a part of this.”
Chagrined, the Uhuras smiled warmly and offered the older women assurances that she was welcome and that they considered her to be family.
Smirking just a bit, Astra picked up a plate from a near-by table, sliced the sweet potato and arranged it around the blue-purple sugar cane. Upenda thrust a banana into the flames.
When everything was ready, they brought the plate to Nyota.
The new mother took a bit of each of the three foods in turn, chewing a little and then placing her lips onto her daughters’ in turn, so that their first meal showed that they, too, were Agĩkũyũ.
“Sa-mehk.” His son’s voice was quiet. “Leonard and Dr. M’Benga have not finished testing the theory Upenda posited four nights ago.”
The stately Vulcan continued watching the three African women as they completed their welcoming rite.
“You wonder if I will be less capable of accepting the humanity of your children than I was with you. You wonder if I will less able to love them because yours came from your mother whereas theirs might not.” He turned to study Spock’s not quite impassive face. “The thought did occur to me.”
Sarek angled his head so that he was once again looking out the glass doors that separated the two from the stone terrace where Nyota rested with his granddaughters on a wide Terran-style chaise longue. Upenda Uhura and Astra Boipuso knelt on either side of her.
“I once told you, sa-fu, that my esteem for you stems from more than the identity of your mother,” he said. “I have been remiss, however, if I allowed you to believe that my regard is simply further enhanced because you are my son.”
The silence stretched between them for only a moment before he turned to Spock, and in an unaccustomed gesture, placed a hand on his shoulder.
Spock faced his father.
“I loved my newly born child for those reasons,” Sarek said quietly, the expression on his face unchanging. “I continue to love you for all that you have become. I accept your children as they are because they come from you.”
Vulcan and half-Vulcan looked through the glass doors once more. Now fully awake again, and smiling, Nyota Uhura beckoned them.
“Sa-mekh,” she called softly, “come meet Saoirse Ta’an and Seren Adia.”
A/N: 1. The chapter title comes from the quote “Was der Vater schwieg, das kommt im Sohne zum Reden; und oft fand ich den Sohn als des Vaters entblößtes Geheimnis.„ which is from the “On the Tarantulas” section of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra.
I’ve usually seen it translated as “What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father’s revealed secret.” but I prefer, “What is silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son, the unveiled secret of the father.”
Ignore the fact that Zarathustra (through Nietzsche) wasn’t being warm and fuzzy when he said this. Sarek and Spock are totally bonding, here!
2. To any die-hard TOS fans, please note that in light of the inconsistencies within TOS canon (and since Spock was born before the Kelvin was destroyed, he was born in the prime!verse), I have decided to ignore Gene Roddenberry’s 1976 interview with “Sarek” found on the Inside Star Trek album. As was often the case when trying to take everything every authority considered to be canon, some things just don’t add up. So I took a fanfic writer’s prerogative and decided to pick and choose among examples. In this case, normal Vulcan gestation lasts about 13 months, while normal human gestation lasts approximately 280 days.
3. The ritual Upenda and Astra help Nyota perform is real. Wangari Maathai described in detail the way the Agĩkũyũ (Kikuyu in Swahili and English) people welcomed a child into the world in her wonderful memoir, Unbowed.
Keep an eye out for Bourbon, McCoy’s story. Coming to lj soon.
