Bourbon, Chapter Three
Feb. 4th, 2011 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teaoliChapter Three: Sweet Escape, Bitter Almond
A follow-up to The Comes Spock.
By![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teaoli
Summary:They had a thing going on. Until they didn't. Forced to work together in order to unravel the mystery of twins they both wish to protect, they must accept there's still something between them, in spite of all their past hurts.
( Bourbon & Amaretto )
( Dark Amber Burn )
( Fiery Flush )
“Two for two!” Len grinned and hugged Upenda to his side.
Her tiny nieces lay on her sister’s chest, exhausted from their journey into the outside world. The tangled hair clinging to Ennie’s sweat-dampened face couldn’t diminish the light of her smile. Looking as fatigued, and as serenely happy as his wife, Spock hovered over his new family.
Still overwhelmed by the experience, Penda leaned into Len’s embrace.
“It’s different,” she said, her voice a strangled whisper and yet full of wonder.
Len loosened his hold a little, looking at her in concern. “What’s different, love?”
She let the endearment pass by unchallenged, and merely stared at his craggy face. Moments ago, it had been wreathed in joy for her sister and brother-in-law. For her nieces. For life. She reached up and touched his cheek, willing the smile to find its way back and erase the lines of worry.
“When the patients already have your heart,” she explained, . “It’s… different.”
“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”
Then he did smile again. Cheeks curving out, eyes crinkling at the corners. Upenda felt her stomach tighten. She’d thought herself already overflowing with happiness, but Len’s smile proved her wrong. She realized she was grinning with him and gave in to the sudden urge hug him back.
Leonard McCoy could be dangerous, she reminded herself. Addictive. So, she released him after the briefest of embraces. But he kept one arm wrapped around her as they both turned to watch Ennie and Spock get acquainted with their daughters.
_____
She hooked her arm across his hips and squeezed back and he needed a moment to reassess his stance on Upenda Uhura.
Just looking at her joyful face was treat. Listening to her happy voice was a reminder of the good things in the universe. Holding her felt divine.
Pen rested her head on his shoulder and turned so she could snake the other arm around his waist.
“I never really imagined I’d be here to see this moment.” Her voice was softer, wistful. “Baba delivered all of us, but I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it, you know?” He didn’t know. “Now,” she went on, “I hate to think I might have missed it.”
Her words conjured up an unexpected surge of anger as memory punched him right in the gut.
Thanks to his thankless ex-wife, Bones had almost missed his own daughter’s birth.
_____
Pulling extra shifts at the hospital served a couple of purposes: it kept him out of Jocelyn’s hair while ensuring that he’d have plenty of time off once the baby was born.
He’d been lucky to get two other medics to agree to the time exchange and he was grateful, it was grueling work putting the additional hours. There’d been a time when working young doctors into the ground was standard operating procedure for American training hospitals. Now he knew first hand why the practice had been outlawed.
Two more days of this kind of madness and he’d be free. A week after that, he’d be a dad. And then maybe it wouldn’t be too long before his wife stopped looking at him like he was lower than the rocks at the bottom of the Chattahoochee.
“Wake up, son!” The voice’s thick drawl belied its owner’s genteel upbringing.
Before he could so much as grimace at the interruption to what had been shaping up to be a much needed nap, a heavy hand slammed unto his back. The force of it, pushed him forward so that he had to thrust out his hands to keep from spilling his brains all over the table.
Leonard bit his lip to keep from groaning.
“Damn it, Gupta!” he bellowed once the danger had passed. He pushed himself up from the table and turned to glare at his friend. The other doctor’s open smile almost made him feel guilty about snapping. Almost.
It wasn’t his colleague’s fault he was vid-star handsome and looking as fresh as a daisy on an early summer morning. It wasn’t Janav’s fault that he’d been blessed with a family that never expected anything from him except that he made himself happy. It wasn’t the other man’s fault that while his great-whatever grandpa had been something big in neurosurgery, he’d been free to pursue a career in obstetrics without anyone hollering that he wasn’t carrying on tradition. It wasn’t Gupta’s fault that, while Atlanta was a huge city renown for its medical facilities, practicing at their level made for a very small world.
Too damned small.
But Len was tired as hell and all he could see was that in spite of that sandy colored hair and the pale grey eyes, it was obvious just from looking at him that Janav Gupta carried the same genes as Jocelyn McCoy. The two were more like brother and sister than second cousins, once removed. And right about now, everything related to his wife had a sneaky habit of getting on Leonard’s last nerve.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” he gritted out.
Gupta folded his arms across his chest, the smiling going all knowing and smug.
“I just thought you’d wanna know, cuz,” he said, “we’ve had Joss downstairs for the last coupla hours or so. You better get on down there . Looks like someone’s gonna be a daddy tonight.”
Len was out the door before he even thought to be pissed.
“Don’t you worry,” Gupta called after him, “I cleared everything with your chief!”
Delirious with joy, Len turned his head to smile and almost smacked into a wall for his efforts. But the thing about joy is, it can make you forget all the bad shit. For a little while at least.
_____
“Yeah, sug’,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “You woulda kicked yourself if you’d missed this, what with you only being a couple doors away.”
Pen glanced over at him, her eyes filled with concern, but he hardly noticed.
_____
Soon as he made it to Maternity, almost, he had cause to remember about being pissed.
He skidded into Joss’s room to find she didn’t exactly need him to hold her hand. His cousin Joe had that covered.
Pieces began falling into place, but Leonard hadn’t been ready to give up, to give in.
Joss was looking at Joe like he’d hung the moon, the stars and the sun, while settin’ man on Earth in his spare time.
Joe, who also like beer more than bourbon. Joe, who had been the first one to introduce Len to dive bars.
Joe, who’d been forced to be Joan for the first six years of his life. Until Leonard’s aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to ignore the fact that their daughter really was meant to be their son.
Joseph McCoy, who wasn’t gonna be a daddy tonight — and maybe not any night — was the only thing keeping Jocelyn from screaming through her pain.
_____
Upenda’s warm body pressed against his brought him back to the present. He followed her gaze to the newly-minted family across the terrace. She was still worried about him, he knew, but a quick glance down told him he hadn’t completely spoiled her joy.
Slowly, he lifted a hand until he could tangle long fingers in her heavy mass of tiny braids. Pressing her head back to his shoulder, he felt his anger begin to drain away. A little smile crept up on him as he watched Spock bend over Ny and the babies, a look of awe practically melting the hobgoblin’s granite features.
That was the damnedest thing about joy; it could make even past shit seem a little less shitty.
__________
The ritual First Meal completed, Upenda handed the empty plate to Astra Boipuso. There were tears in the older woman’s eyes in spite of the soft smile on her lips. Without giving a thought to the morality of her actions, Pen Listened to this near-stranger who was somehow intimately connected to her family.
Elevated blood-pressure. Stress hormones flooding her. Heart rate variable but not dangerously so. Respiration within normal parameters. Muscles tense but not rigid.
In the seconds it took to Hear the functions of Astra’s body, Pen noted that the communications expert-turned-singer never once lost her smile or the kind look in her eyes. And yet, her distress was clear.
It was clear to Upenda, at least. If Astra spoke, Pen was certain, Nyota would Hear it, as well. And if their new friend was upset, Ennie was still vulnerable enough to share the other woman’s pain, whatever its cause.
Later, Pen decided, she would speak with Astra. This was Ennie’s day.
She turned back to her sister, asking, “What are my nieces’’ names?”
Nyota didn’t look up from the double bundle snuggled against her chest, but the smile on her lips grew and Pen could Hear the joy and pride flowing through her.
“Saoirse Ta’an and Seren Adia.”
A quickly stifled snort made Upenda shoot a look at Astra. She had a hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes were brighter than they’d been just moments before. Pen raised her brows, Listening to the laughter the other woman couldn’t quite keep in.
Amusement Sounded different from grief, though the two shared many of the same processes.
__________
M’Benga was just about ready to pack it in by the time McCoy made it back to the lab. The African doctor had made good use of the passing time, but his efforts hadn’t yielding any surprising results. But then neither of them were really expecting anything different.
They were both tired — him even more than J.G. Len sent his friend back to his guest quarters, anyway.
Soon as the lab doors closed behind Jabilo, Len reached into his kit and pulled out two flexi-slides. He stared at the carefully labeled transparent slips for a long time before he crossed the room to his work station.
He didn’t know why he waited until he was alone before he slipped the newest samples in the sequencer/analyzer. He couldn’t say why he figured it shouldn’t wait.
__________
“You were Reading me.” It was a statement. An observation rather than an accusation. “Out there with Ennie and the babies. You were trying to See if I was going to lose it.”
“Reading?” She was stalling for time, but told herself she just wanted to be sure. But she was already past uncertainty. And Astra knew it.
“I don’t know what you call it here…”
“Yes,” Upenda admitted guiltily. “I mean, yes, I was Listening. That’s what we call it. Hearing and Listening. But I wasn’t worried that you would…”
Astra laughed aloud at the expression on the painfully familiar face. “I thought perhaps it was taboo,” she said, placing a hand on the taller woman’s arm.
“We never had to hide our Talents where I am from. My sister used it to become one of the best medics in— one of the best physicians where we lived. They valued us for out skills, used us for them. We existed for the hope of them.”
Upenda caught the swell of grief again — she was certain the mysterious feeling that Astra tried in vain to subdue was grief — and wished she had a Vulcan’s talent for broadcasting emotion. Without entirely understanding why, she knew she would do almost anything to ease the other woman’s pain.
The best she could do was distract her friend.
“We don’t talk about it here,” she explained. “We… can’t. Not really.”
Astra watched her without curiosity. As she knew what was about to be said and was just waiting for confirmation.
“Mama always chastised us whenever she caught any of us Listening,” Penda continue. “It’s stronger in her, of course. Not as specialized.”
Astra nodded as if she understood completely. “One of the first things I did when I came here was learn your history. It always is.”
Pen knew Astra’s here wasn’t T’Khasi Vokaya, and the knowledge left her confident enough to chase a hunch without Listening first to see if Astra truly had processed the implications.
“I guess you Hear meaning in spoken language, like Ennie,” she hazarded. “I Hear the body working. I could explain better if I had your Gift, but Ennie knows what I mean.”
Dark eyes met dark eyes, and this time Upenda did Listen. What she Heard elicited a nervous laugh.
“You were… Reading me during my half-cocked explanation,” she declared. Her stomach contracted painfully at the idea that her guess had been correct.
Nodding, Astra squeezed her arm. She turned away and hunched up a shoulder to wipe away sudden tears.
“I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t expect—” Astra paused to breathed deeply through her nose before expelling a long, slow stream of air through her mouth. “I am truly happy to be able to spend time with you and Ennie and… and I’m so happy about the babies. I really am. I just didn’t expect it all to come back so clearly. I—”
Her shoulders started to heave. Sobs pushed out between lips Astra tried to hold firm. Pen found herself reaching over and enfolding the other woman in a tight embrace.
“It’s okay, dada,” she murmured, knowing the term was right, even if it wasn’t completely accurate. “I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe, here, little dada. You’re safe.”
After, Upenda couldn’t say how long she held her, murmuring soothing promises and calling the older woman “little sister.” She couldn’t remember when they had stumbled over to her bed and slumped down on the soft sheets. But they were both stiff and exhausted by the time Astra lifted her head from Pen’s shoulder, pulled out of her arms and sat up.
Upenda watched Astra, hunched over at the edge of the bed, clutch her elbows and shudder.
“What happened to your dada?” she whispered, afraid she already knew the answer.
Astra didn’t answer for a long time. Pen began to hope she wouldn’t try.
“She died.” Her eyes were bleak with loss when she turned to meet Pen’s anguished gaze. “They killed her because she saved me.”
Upenda’s breath caught in her throat and she began to struggle up, move towards Astra, perhaps to hold her again, maybe to just hold her hand. She wasn’t sure which she intended, but Astra was on her feet and across the room before Pen had even swung her long legs over the bed.
“They killed her because she mitigated my sentence without their permission.” Astra’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion, but Pen was Listening and knew way lay beneath. “Their greatest physician, from one of their greatest families, and she is dead because she refused to let her little sister die.
“Now, decades later, I try to pretend I didn’t lose everything. Except, I did.”
A/N: Among Kikuyu traditionalists, a baby's first meal consists of unripened bananas, sweet potatoes, blue-green sugarcane and lamb. The women of an area prepare the food for the new mother, who transfers the food from her own mouth to the newborn's. In this way, babies are welcomed into their society very soon after birth.
Out of respect for Spock's Vulcan heritage, Astra and Upenda did not cook any lamb; Astra brought lamb-shaped soft toys from Earth, instead. See chapter 15 of Then Comes Spock if you'd like more details.
Chapter Four
A follow-up to The Comes Spock.
By
teaoliSummary:They had a thing going on. Until they didn't. Forced to work together in order to unravel the mystery of twins they both wish to protect, they must accept there's still something between them, in spite of all their past hurts.
( Bourbon & Amaretto )
( Dark Amber Burn )
( Fiery Flush )
“Two for two!” Len grinned and hugged Upenda to his side.
Her tiny nieces lay on her sister’s chest, exhausted from their journey into the outside world. The tangled hair clinging to Ennie’s sweat-dampened face couldn’t diminish the light of her smile. Looking as fatigued, and as serenely happy as his wife, Spock hovered over his new family.
Still overwhelmed by the experience, Penda leaned into Len’s embrace.
“It’s different,” she said, her voice a strangled whisper and yet full of wonder.
Len loosened his hold a little, looking at her in concern. “What’s different, love?”
She let the endearment pass by unchallenged, and merely stared at his craggy face. Moments ago, it had been wreathed in joy for her sister and brother-in-law. For her nieces. For life. She reached up and touched his cheek, willing the smile to find its way back and erase the lines of worry.
“When the patients already have your heart,” she explained, . “It’s… different.”
“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”
Then he did smile again. Cheeks curving out, eyes crinkling at the corners. Upenda felt her stomach tighten. She’d thought herself already overflowing with happiness, but Len’s smile proved her wrong. She realized she was grinning with him and gave in to the sudden urge hug him back.
Leonard McCoy could be dangerous, she reminded herself. Addictive. So, she released him after the briefest of embraces. But he kept one arm wrapped around her as they both turned to watch Ennie and Spock get acquainted with their daughters.
_____
She hooked her arm across his hips and squeezed back and he needed a moment to reassess his stance on Upenda Uhura.
Just looking at her joyful face was treat. Listening to her happy voice was a reminder of the good things in the universe. Holding her felt divine.
Pen rested her head on his shoulder and turned so she could snake the other arm around his waist.
“I never really imagined I’d be here to see this moment.” Her voice was softer, wistful. “Baba delivered all of us, but I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it, you know?” He didn’t know. “Now,” she went on, “I hate to think I might have missed it.”
Her words conjured up an unexpected surge of anger as memory punched him right in the gut.
Thanks to his thankless ex-wife, Bones had almost missed his own daughter’s birth.
_____
Pulling extra shifts at the hospital served a couple of purposes: it kept him out of Jocelyn’s hair while ensuring that he’d have plenty of time off once the baby was born.
He’d been lucky to get two other medics to agree to the time exchange and he was grateful, it was grueling work putting the additional hours. There’d been a time when working young doctors into the ground was standard operating procedure for American training hospitals. Now he knew first hand why the practice had been outlawed.
Two more days of this kind of madness and he’d be free. A week after that, he’d be a dad. And then maybe it wouldn’t be too long before his wife stopped looking at him like he was lower than the rocks at the bottom of the Chattahoochee.
“Wake up, son!” The voice’s thick drawl belied its owner’s genteel upbringing.
Before he could so much as grimace at the interruption to what had been shaping up to be a much needed nap, a heavy hand slammed unto his back. The force of it, pushed him forward so that he had to thrust out his hands to keep from spilling his brains all over the table.
Leonard bit his lip to keep from groaning.
“Damn it, Gupta!” he bellowed once the danger had passed. He pushed himself up from the table and turned to glare at his friend. The other doctor’s open smile almost made him feel guilty about snapping. Almost.
It wasn’t his colleague’s fault he was vid-star handsome and looking as fresh as a daisy on an early summer morning. It wasn’t Janav’s fault that he’d been blessed with a family that never expected anything from him except that he made himself happy. It wasn’t the other man’s fault that while his great-whatever grandpa had been something big in neurosurgery, he’d been free to pursue a career in obstetrics without anyone hollering that he wasn’t carrying on tradition. It wasn’t Gupta’s fault that, while Atlanta was a huge city renown for its medical facilities, practicing at their level made for a very small world.
Too damned small.
But Len was tired as hell and all he could see was that in spite of that sandy colored hair and the pale grey eyes, it was obvious just from looking at him that Janav Gupta carried the same genes as Jocelyn McCoy. The two were more like brother and sister than second cousins, once removed. And right about now, everything related to his wife had a sneaky habit of getting on Leonard’s last nerve.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” he gritted out.
Gupta folded his arms across his chest, the smiling going all knowing and smug.
“I just thought you’d wanna know, cuz,” he said, “we’ve had Joss downstairs for the last coupla hours or so. You better get on down there . Looks like someone’s gonna be a daddy tonight.”
Len was out the door before he even thought to be pissed.
“Don’t you worry,” Gupta called after him, “I cleared everything with your chief!”
Delirious with joy, Len turned his head to smile and almost smacked into a wall for his efforts. But the thing about joy is, it can make you forget all the bad shit. For a little while at least.
_____
“Yeah, sug’,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “You woulda kicked yourself if you’d missed this, what with you only being a couple doors away.”
Pen glanced over at him, her eyes filled with concern, but he hardly noticed.
_____
Soon as he made it to Maternity, almost, he had cause to remember about being pissed.
He skidded into Joss’s room to find she didn’t exactly need him to hold her hand. His cousin Joe had that covered.
Pieces began falling into place, but Leonard hadn’t been ready to give up, to give in.
Joss was looking at Joe like he’d hung the moon, the stars and the sun, while settin’ man on Earth in his spare time.
Joe, who also like beer more than bourbon. Joe, who had been the first one to introduce Len to dive bars.
Joe, who’d been forced to be Joan for the first six years of his life. Until Leonard’s aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to ignore the fact that their daughter really was meant to be their son.
Joseph McCoy, who wasn’t gonna be a daddy tonight — and maybe not any night — was the only thing keeping Jocelyn from screaming through her pain.
_____
Upenda’s warm body pressed against his brought him back to the present. He followed her gaze to the newly-minted family across the terrace. She was still worried about him, he knew, but a quick glance down told him he hadn’t completely spoiled her joy.
Slowly, he lifted a hand until he could tangle long fingers in her heavy mass of tiny braids. Pressing her head back to his shoulder, he felt his anger begin to drain away. A little smile crept up on him as he watched Spock bend over Ny and the babies, a look of awe practically melting the hobgoblin’s granite features.
That was the damnedest thing about joy; it could make even past shit seem a little less shitty.
__________
The ritual First Meal completed, Upenda handed the empty plate to Astra Boipuso. There were tears in the older woman’s eyes in spite of the soft smile on her lips. Without giving a thought to the morality of her actions, Pen Listened to this near-stranger who was somehow intimately connected to her family.
Elevated blood-pressure. Stress hormones flooding her. Heart rate variable but not dangerously so. Respiration within normal parameters. Muscles tense but not rigid.
In the seconds it took to Hear the functions of Astra’s body, Pen noted that the communications expert-turned-singer never once lost her smile or the kind look in her eyes. And yet, her distress was clear.
It was clear to Upenda, at least. If Astra spoke, Pen was certain, Nyota would Hear it, as well. And if their new friend was upset, Ennie was still vulnerable enough to share the other woman’s pain, whatever its cause.
Later, Pen decided, she would speak with Astra. This was Ennie’s day.
She turned back to her sister, asking, “What are my nieces’’ names?”
Nyota didn’t look up from the double bundle snuggled against her chest, but the smile on her lips grew and Pen could Hear the joy and pride flowing through her.
“Saoirse Ta’an and Seren Adia.”
A quickly stifled snort made Upenda shoot a look at Astra. She had a hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes were brighter than they’d been just moments before. Pen raised her brows, Listening to the laughter the other woman couldn’t quite keep in.
Amusement Sounded different from grief, though the two shared many of the same processes.
__________
M’Benga was just about ready to pack it in by the time McCoy made it back to the lab. The African doctor had made good use of the passing time, but his efforts hadn’t yielding any surprising results. But then neither of them were really expecting anything different.
They were both tired — him even more than J.G. Len sent his friend back to his guest quarters, anyway.
Soon as the lab doors closed behind Jabilo, Len reached into his kit and pulled out two flexi-slides. He stared at the carefully labeled transparent slips for a long time before he crossed the room to his work station.
He didn’t know why he waited until he was alone before he slipped the newest samples in the sequencer/analyzer. He couldn’t say why he figured it shouldn’t wait.
__________
“You were Reading me.” It was a statement. An observation rather than an accusation. “Out there with Ennie and the babies. You were trying to See if I was going to lose it.”
“Reading?” She was stalling for time, but told herself she just wanted to be sure. But she was already past uncertainty. And Astra knew it.
“I don’t know what you call it here…”
“Yes,” Upenda admitted guiltily. “I mean, yes, I was Listening. That’s what we call it. Hearing and Listening. But I wasn’t worried that you would…”
Astra laughed aloud at the expression on the painfully familiar face. “I thought perhaps it was taboo,” she said, placing a hand on the taller woman’s arm.
“We never had to hide our Talents where I am from. My sister used it to become one of the best medics in— one of the best physicians where we lived. They valued us for out skills, used us for them. We existed for the hope of them.”
Upenda caught the swell of grief again — she was certain the mysterious feeling that Astra tried in vain to subdue was grief — and wished she had a Vulcan’s talent for broadcasting emotion. Without entirely understanding why, she knew she would do almost anything to ease the other woman’s pain.
The best she could do was distract her friend.
“We don’t talk about it here,” she explained. “We… can’t. Not really.”
Astra watched her without curiosity. As she knew what was about to be said and was just waiting for confirmation.
“Mama always chastised us whenever she caught any of us Listening,” Penda continue. “It’s stronger in her, of course. Not as specialized.”
Astra nodded as if she understood completely. “One of the first things I did when I came here was learn your history. It always is.”
Pen knew Astra’s here wasn’t T’Khasi Vokaya, and the knowledge left her confident enough to chase a hunch without Listening first to see if Astra truly had processed the implications.
“I guess you Hear meaning in spoken language, like Ennie,” she hazarded. “I Hear the body working. I could explain better if I had your Gift, but Ennie knows what I mean.”
Dark eyes met dark eyes, and this time Upenda did Listen. What she Heard elicited a nervous laugh.
“You were… Reading me during my half-cocked explanation,” she declared. Her stomach contracted painfully at the idea that her guess had been correct.
Nodding, Astra squeezed her arm. She turned away and hunched up a shoulder to wipe away sudden tears.
“I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t expect—” Astra paused to breathed deeply through her nose before expelling a long, slow stream of air through her mouth. “I am truly happy to be able to spend time with you and Ennie and… and I’m so happy about the babies. I really am. I just didn’t expect it all to come back so clearly. I—”
Her shoulders started to heave. Sobs pushed out between lips Astra tried to hold firm. Pen found herself reaching over and enfolding the other woman in a tight embrace.
“It’s okay, dada,” she murmured, knowing the term was right, even if it wasn’t completely accurate. “I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe, here, little dada. You’re safe.”
After, Upenda couldn’t say how long she held her, murmuring soothing promises and calling the older woman “little sister.” She couldn’t remember when they had stumbled over to her bed and slumped down on the soft sheets. But they were both stiff and exhausted by the time Astra lifted her head from Pen’s shoulder, pulled out of her arms and sat up.
Upenda watched Astra, hunched over at the edge of the bed, clutch her elbows and shudder.
“What happened to your dada?” she whispered, afraid she already knew the answer.
Astra didn’t answer for a long time. Pen began to hope she wouldn’t try.
“She died.” Her eyes were bleak with loss when she turned to meet Pen’s anguished gaze. “They killed her because she saved me.”
Upenda’s breath caught in her throat and she began to struggle up, move towards Astra, perhaps to hold her again, maybe to just hold her hand. She wasn’t sure which she intended, but Astra was on her feet and across the room before Pen had even swung her long legs over the bed.
“They killed her because she mitigated my sentence without their permission.” Astra’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion, but Pen was Listening and knew way lay beneath. “Their greatest physician, from one of their greatest families, and she is dead because she refused to let her little sister die.
“Now, decades later, I try to pretend I didn’t lose everything. Except, I did.”
A/N: Among Kikuyu traditionalists, a baby's first meal consists of unripened bananas, sweet potatoes, blue-green sugarcane and lamb. The women of an area prepare the food for the new mother, who transfers the food from her own mouth to the newborn's. In this way, babies are welcomed into their society very soon after birth.
Out of respect for Spock's Vulcan heritage, Astra and Upenda did not cook any lamb; Astra brought lamb-shaped soft toys from Earth, instead. See chapter 15 of Then Comes Spock if you'd like more details.
Chapter Four
