Star Trek Fic: Out of Many, One (Part 2/6)
Title: Out of Many, One
Genre: Romance/Friendship fic
Word Count: ~39,000
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: McCoy/Uhura, Jim/Spock
Warnings: None
Summary: The holidays are a time for family and friends, for celebrations and showing them just how much they mean to you. For people from different walks of life and different cultures, it also means finding a common ground. McCoy, Uhura, Jim, and Spock's first holiday season together at the Academy.
Author's Note: As always, a huge thanks to phoenix_laugh for the beta. A far, far overdue Christmas present for rusting_roses. So late, in fact, that it kind of became a fusion Christmas/birthday present. As always, my dear, we've had some crazy adventures along the way. The road's usually not straight, and I'm more likely than not to take the long way around, but we got there. To be quite frank, I wouldn't trade our adventures for the world, you've become a lifelong friend, one of the best I've ever had. We'll raise a glass this fall (maybe even with a bit of real alcohol!) to celebrate the adventures yet to come.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
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McCoy found himself standing outside Uhura's dorm after he got off his shift. It was chillier tonight, colder than a normal night in San Francisco, at least. He cupped his hands together and puffed an exhalation of air onto them, absorbing the heat into his hands before burying them in the pockets of his jacket. He was standing on the sidewalk outside of Uhura's dormitory. He didn't technically have access to the building; cadets could only enter their own building unless accompanied by someone who lived in the dorm. A cursory glance at his watch suggested that it was ten past and Uhura should've been here by now. He could use his medical override to get into the building and out of the cold, but his moral compass nagged at him that to do so would be an abuse of power. So he popped the collar up on his jacket, fixed his eyes on the doors, and waited.
The cynic in him was telling him she wasn't coming, that she had decided that he was too much older or too tied up in his work. They'd been on two dates now and everything had been going so smoothly. She had commed him a few times yesterday, and when he'd checked his device after his shift and seen that he had missed her calls part of him had wanted to throw the device at the wall in frustration. He loved his job, he did. But that didn't mean he didn't want the opportunity to love other things too, or maybe even other people. Maybe he was just too much or not enough, it didn't really matter. With her absent, all he was worrying about right now was that she had decided that he wasn't the right one, that he had blown his chance before ever getting the opportunity to fully explore the depths of this beautiful woman.
There was a soft hand on his shoulder that spun him around. The figure dropped back a few feet, startled.
"Leonard, I thought were going to meet me outside my building?"
"I was. I mean, I've been waiting," he fumbled for the words. Maybe it was the cold making him clumsy. Or maybe it was the way Uhura had tied her hair back. She'd abandoned the high, pin-straight pony tail she preferred during the school day. Her hair was tied in a low, relaxed braid at the base of her neck. It wasn't something he was used to seeing, and the thought that she was revealing a new side of herself, the side she didn't reveal to her everyday classmates, well, maybe it made his breath hitch just a bit. "Where were you?"
She cocked her head to the side a bit. "I've been waiting outside. And this skirt isn't doing much for keeping me warm, so maybe we can get moving?" she inquired.
He nodded. "I guess we ended up on opposite sides of the building then."
She smirked. "You might've ended up on the wrong side of the building, I said the front!" she mockingly chastised him before starting toward the main road that led off campus.
He lengthened his stride to catch up and fall into step beside her. Having to do so was a new experience for him. Not a totally unwelcome one, Jim had a short quick step, honed through many hours of drill practice on the field. Uhura was taller though, and her longer stride was more attune to his own preferred pace. "Why didn't you wear something warmer? There's no need to leave yourself freezing."
"I suppose being a senior medical student has its perks," she mused, nodding toward his jeans and black wool jacket.
"Well, I mean, sure. I get my own room and all, that's nice."
"Oh don't you even play it down," she said, shaking her head. Private quarters, of course, were a big part of it. There was something to be said about being able to study late in one's own room the night before a final. It was a perk she wished she could enjoy. Uhura had always been of the mind that she did her best work in a familiar environment. Gaila was a person early to bed and early to rise, which meant Uhura spent many late nights in the twenty-four hour library hunched low over a desk, combing through data files and translation exercises on her PADD. "You get to wear civvies off campus if you want, and you only have curfew on the weekend. I, for one, cannot wait to be a senior and enjoy such privileges."
"Hey, what about the part where I have to clean my own bathroom, huh? I'm not seeing how that's an advantage."
She laughed. It wasn't the stilted one he'd heard her use before, the one that suggested she was keeping her voice down to be respectful for classmates around her or for the sake of maintaining formal appearances with professors who were out and about on campus where they might happen to hear her. She had this strange preoccupation with propriety, during the school day her expressions were more restrained; she walked with her shoulders back as if in preparation to defend herself like she expected someone to challenge her right to be there. She just carried this aura sometimes that separated her from the informal actions of other students who would kick their feet up on a chair or tease a story out of a friend about the weekend's escapades. Uhura seemed so formal, at first glance. It was moments like these, when she belted out a laugh from deep in her lungs that reminded him that she was capable of the entire spectrum of emotion. It just took patiently weaving a path between those fortified defenses of hers to earn the right to witness them.
"I share a bathroom with twenty other women on my floor. If I want to take a shower before class, I'm out of bed by five in the morning to avoid the rush," she reached out and flattened the collar of his jacket back down playfully. "You try surviving that madness first thing before class and maybe come back and we'll chat again about who has it tougher."
"Ok, ok. Maybe I have it pretty good-"
"You, Dr. McCoy, have an amazing time of it."
He held up his hands in mock defense. "Ok," he said, laughing, "I get it. So where are you taking me anyways?"
"You said you wanted help picking out a gift for your daughter. Well, I'm going to help."
That was all she offered him on the matter. Asking questions just got irritatingly vague answers. Uhura had an amazing ability to twist the conversation around her finger and spin it in a whole different direction before he'd even realized that she'd pulled the trick. Again. The third time had him bowing to her insistence that he just follow along and they'd get to where they were going eventually.
Their journey by foot started easily enough. They'd been stopped briefly at the gates on the way off campus. As a medical student he did have more freedom to come and go at his leisure. Uhura, on the other hand, received a stern reminder that she needed to be back on campus by eleven that evening or face demerits. She'd frowned briefly at that, this was supposed to be an escape from the fenced-in campus and its stringent regulations. She'd been looking forward to a night where maybe the Academy could just sink into the background and not occupy the forefront of her life. She wanted a night where she could just breathe easy and a stony-faced guard reminding her that those rules trailed after her even on her rare stints into the real world didn't sit too well with her.
But they'd made it past the gate and he'd taken her hand in his own and run a light finger along the sensitive spot where her wrist met her palm and her frigid expression had melted into something warmer and more relaxed. He might've imagined it, but he could've sworn that there was more of a spring in her step after that.
She led him from the outskirts of town where buildings were more spaced out with breathing room between them to deep into the thick of things where bars were crammed into every nook and cranny along the street like commuters waiting for the train on a busy morning, pressing up against one another in competition for more room. She wove a path for them that he might not have picked himself. His attention was briefly absorbed in a man walking down the other side of the street flipping a switch blade open and shut. He unwittingly felt himself stepping in even closer to Uhura at that. He'd made a mental note to scratch that previous thought about maybe taking a different route, there was no way in hell he would've picked this route. If coming this way had been necessary, he would've called a cab.
He almost lost Uhura when she ducked down an alley which he hadn't even noticed existed. Only her hand reaching out to grab the sleeve of his jacket and yanking him back prevented that from happening. She smiled, as if it were cute that he'd allowed himself to get so lost in his thoughts, and then the pair of them disappeared into the quiet little store. The only thing that gave him any hint, at first glance, as to what this store dealt in was the neon-lit music note in the window that flickered in and out every few seconds.
The inside of the place didn't reflect the outside at all. Whereas the building's facade had presented chipped paint and a door that Uhura had had to give a hard jerk to open, the inside was clean and well organized. A soft music floated through the room. He cocked an ear for a moment and nodded in approval, Linus and Lucy. Now if that wasn't a song that could bring back memories, he didn't know what was. He'd seen the movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas, more times than he could count. He'd sit with Joanna cradled in his lap, legs falling asleep as she giggled at the screen and the cartoon character's antics at least three times each year, and always on Christmas Eve. Her frame would be wracked with giggles and it wasn't unusual to receive an odd foot in the gut at the scuffle. But he'd smooth her hair and position his arms just right to make sure she didn't roll off onto the ground in her squirming. And as much as Joanna would focus her attention on the screen, much of his attention was spent watching his daughter's facial expressions and reactions to the movie and seeing the pure joy it brought to her face.
"You know this song," Uhura commented. It was more of an observation than a question.
McCoy nodded, "You could say that."
"Nyota! You finally found the time to come in to see me," a voice rang out from behind a counter. An elderly gentleman abandoned his magazine to the counter and rose from the stool he'd been perched on. He had a slightly unkempt beard, more hair on his face than on his head. He wore a pair of faded jeans and a red wool sweater; it was the appearance of a man who didn't anticipate a public appearance or coming face-to-face with too many people. He dressed just neat enough to get by, and the rest of the world could keep to judging one another while he sat out on the sidelines and observed the bickering. McCoy didn't miss the man's grimace as he straightened his back; the clinical side of him instantly started categorizing symptoms of arthritis that the man was exhibiting. He shook his head, he was off the job right now, unless the man breached the subject, it was probably best to let it be.
Uhura glided over toward the counter, and leaned up against it. "I told you I was heading into the end of the term. We get less leave time; the administration has this misconceived notion that if they restrict students to campus they might actually study more."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Well, now I have to ask. Does the policy work? There best be something to show for the fact that I haven't seen you in weeks!"
She shook her head, her braid swinging back and forth with the motion. "It doesn't take a bar for a cadet to get in trouble. Contraband alcohol is notoriously easy to get a hold of and smuggle on campus."
"Well then, what you're telling me is that there is no good reason for you having been absent around here for so long?"
"I said I was sorry! And look," Uhura added, gesturing for McCoy to move up next to her, "I even brought you more business. Don't you ever say that I didn't show how much I love this little place of yours."
He nodded, his gaze sliding over to meet McCoy's. The man waved him forward. "Forgive me, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Roy, and this here is my little piece of the world that Nyota continues to assert is a legitimate business operation." The man's expression warmed even further, not something that McCoy would've thought possible. "I'll let you in on a little secret, this place is really just a pet project of a bored old retired man-"
"Don't listen to his nonsense, Roy stocks some of the best music merchandise in all of San Francisco."
McCoy stepped up, drawn in by the familiar banter passing between the two. "I'm Leonard McCoy. I also attend the Starfleet Academy."
"Ah, another cadet! I'm always telling Nyota I want to meet her friends; she's always coming in here by herself. I've been waiting for her to bring a gentleman down here with her; it's about time she found someone," the man finished with a wink.
Uhura cocked her head in such a way that left no ambiguity as to what that gaze was saying. Even though the admonishing glare wasn't directed at him, McCoy could certainly sympathize. With that one look they both instantly knew that his and her relationship status wasn't a topic for discussion. Which didn't really surprise him, per se. Uhura wasn't the type to flaunt their relationship; she rolled her eyes at love-smitten couples who would make out with one another pressed up against the side of a building, their clothing in various states of disarray.
Roy cleared his throat. "Anyways, what brings you down here?"
"Leonard is looking for a gift for his daughter. I was hoping to show him some of your stock. Could you bring some of it up for us?" Uhura asked.
Roy nodded and shuffled toward an entrance behind the counter, disappearing into an adjacent storage closet.
"So, you ready to tell me what we're here to look at?" McCoy inquired.
"Patience is indeed a virtue, in case you haven't heard that overused saying," she finished with a smirk.
She stepped away from the counter, then, and began weaving her way between several shelving units. She stopped at one display and pulled a book of sheet music down off the shelf and began flipping through it. McCoy shadowed her, not entirely sure what to do with himself in the interim. "You come here often, then?"
"Whenever I can," she replied without looking up. "Though not nearly as often as I'd like," she lamented. With one finger, she brushed a path along the page, following the musical score. To him, it was a series of black bubbles and other foreign notations. To Uhura, it was obviously something more. Her face was smooth, almost expressionless but her eyes burned with an intensity that suggested a torrent of thoughts and emotions racing through her mind. He stepped in just a bit closer, still not invading her personal space, but close enough to get a better look at the page. It was also near enough to just make out the soft hum that Uhura made as she bobbed her head to the music as she envisioned it in her mind.
"What song is it?"
Uhura looked up, allowing herself to be distracted from her immersion in a world she spent far too little time in. She brushed a finger across the page once more before closing the delicate book and setting it back on the shelf. "The book is a compilation of several of musical pieces produced by the Trans Siberian Orchestra for their album 'Beethoven's Last Night.'"
He cocked his head, wracking his brain for any knowledge of the group. "I've not heard of them."
She smiled. "Probably not. They were a very famous orchestra back in the early twenty-first century. You can still find some of their stuff, much lauded antiques at this point, in small shops like this one."
"What piece was that?" he asked, nodding at the book.
"The one I was looking at? 'A Mad Russian's Christmas.' Not my absolute favorite by them, but it's one of the better songs they've produced. Roy has all of his holiday stuff out right now."
Uhura turned to move back toward the counter. From their current position, McCoy could see that several items had been laid out on the counter. Roy had disappeared once again, leaving them alone in the shop. As she began walking in that direction once more, she commented one last time on the matter. "If you ever get the chance to see a video recording of one of their performances, check out that song, though. It really shows what they're all about. They take the staunchly conservative orchestral tradition and really add something to it. Sure, flashy lights and a bit of head banging is just the half of it, but they instill that music with a unique sort of vibrancy you don't get in a traditional performance." She finished with a sigh, eyes closed for just the briefest of moments as she again disappeared into that other world, into the music, imagining the video reel she'd seen enough times to call it to her mind in crystalline detail. She opened her eyes, then, and ran her hand along one of the items laid out on a silk cloth there. She handled it carefully, holding it up for McCoy to see.
"It's a violin," McCoy observed.
She smiled, rubbing the smoothed wood grain under her fingers. "You have an amazing ability to state the obvious, Leonard." She relinquished her grip on the instrument's neck and passed it over to him. He took it slowly, not quite sure what she wanted him to get out of this experience. Maybe a bit of it was not trusting himself with such a precious item. It was overworked paranoia, probably, that made him fear that his hand would slip and it would go shattering to the unforgiving ground. He did tighten his grip around the neck of the instrument, and supported the body of it in his arm. He'd learned how to hold something precious. Joanna had been a small child in his arms once.
She watched him examine it for a moment with that calculating eye of his. "I think Joanna would like it."
"She doesn't play, though."
Uhura shrugged. "Does that mean she couldn't learn?"
"I mean, I suppose. But why this? Why an instrument?" he asked in earnest. In truth, when he'd still been married and Joanna had slept just a door down the hall, part of him had looked forward to when she'd enter sixth grade, the time when students traditionally chose an instrument to play. The band and orchestra directors always worked heavily to recruit students. He had looked forward to the evenings where the house would echo with the slightly out of tune notes of a still-learning child. That dream had disintegrated with much of the life he'd planned out for all of them when the divorce had happened and he'd seen Joanna less and less. Sixth grade had come and gone and his wife, ex-wife now he supposed, had never encouraged her to pick up an instrument, and so she hadn't.
Uhura had picked up another instrument, a slightly larger one. She cradled it gently in her arms. "What are you most proud of in life, McCoy? Your work, your daughter, maybe joining Starfleet?"
He answered without a moment's hesitation. "Joanna. It's always been Joanna."
She nodded, as if expecting the answer. "And why is that, Leonard?"
"She's my daughter...I mean," he paused for a long breath. "I love her. That question only has one answer. It's hard to verbalize..."
"Let me try then, perhaps. I do have a way with words," she suggested, smirking. "Joanna is your flesh and blood. She's something that you helped create and bring into this world. And when she was born, you took this child, this blank slate, and began raising her and teaching her all the things that you thought she should know. You did this Leonard, and of all of the things you've done in your life, perhaps that is why she is your greatest achievement."
"Yeah..." McCoy found himself at a loss for words, right then. Surprising, but his mind was racing too fast down too many avenues for his mouth to keep up. And realizing the futility in that, he let his silence speak for him in that moment.
Uhura picked up on that, and continued speaking. "I grew up in the United States of Africa. I had four sisters and one brother. We weren't poor by any means, but we weren't rich either. My mom used to call what we had just enough to be comfortable, but just enough to keep us humble. My mother put us up in our finest dresses one night. It was hot, I remember that, hotter than most nights even in Africa. My father was uncomfortably warm in his tuxedo; he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his jacket while we rode in the glidecar. Not our own vehicle, of course, I walked most places as a kid. But my dad had done a rush repair job on the ambassador's mansion after a storm did damage to the facade. The invitation to his gala and the car he sent for us was a gift for my father having completed the repairs before the party. There were many long nights during that month for him.
"We got there and it just felt funny, being dressed up all nice like that. During dinner all I wanted to do was tug at my hair, my mom had tied it into braids so tight that I thought they'd never come out. But then the orchestra came on, the entertainment before the meal. And my hands stopped their fiddling and I sat there transfixed for an entire hour. I'd never heard anything so beautiful, so harmonic. I knew I wanted that for myself, the ability to create something so beautiful in the world and share it with other people. We couldn't afford string instruments, let alone the private instructors I would've needed for such an undertaking. But I had my voice, and I had a determination that wouldn't be bent. And I sing now just as I did then, to create something in the world wholly my own. Just as you did for Joanna when you brought her into this world and fostered her into the young woman she's become. Now take that feeling, that pride that swells in your chest when you think of these things. Take that raw emotion and roll it up into a tiny ball and imagine placing it in your daughter's hand so that she too may experience it. Giving your daughter, Joanna, the ability to create something entirely her own...there is no gift more precious than this."
McCoy nodded. In the short time he'd know Uhura this was the most of her past that she'd shared with him at one time. The rest had come in snippets here and there, but nothing like the part of herself she'd just exposed to him. He set that thought aside for the moment; he'd ponder what this meant for their relationship and where they were going when he found a moment or two alone. In this moment, he set the instrument he'd been holding down gently on the counter and brushed his fingers along her arm until they found her fingers. He gently pried her grip loose of the instrument until he could close his hand around her fingers. "Thank you, Uhura, it's perfect. What you said, everything you said...it's the perfect gift for Joanna."
She smiled; setting her own violin down on the counter, then, and pulling him close into an embrace until their bodies were pressed flesh to flesh. She bent in close, her breath tickling his ear. "Nyota. The people who know me best call me Nyota."
He didn't count the time they stood there like that, heaven can't be measured. Their bodies parted eventually, and Uhura called Roy back up to the front. There was discussion of what instrument size would be best and what music he should send to start her off. In the end, Leonard left with one hand in his pocket, tightly clutching the notice of purchase for a cello that would be delivered to his apartment on campus, Nyota's hand in his other. They walked all the way back like that, arriving at ten fifty-five in the evening, with five minutes to spare until curfew.
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"Mother?" Spock inquired.
He readjusted his position in his chair as to make it more comfortable if at all possible. Although he didn't put much faith in the gesture, it was more habit than anything else. He sometimes swore they made these booths a bit uncomfortable simply to discourage cadets from loitering too long and clogging up the lines. The booths were padded with far too thin a foam that made his spine protest at the discomfort.
He'd bear it, though. Some things were worth the sacrifice. The times when they were able to converse were far too rare.
The mounted wall display continued to remain a blank screen. He scowled. Living such a long way from home was a nuisance in times like these. As an instructor, he had access to Starfleet's official communication channels. The connection would be quicker and more stable, but part of him was strongly drawn to the cadet conversational booths equipped for interplanetary communications. Where the staff communication facilities were large and open with large windows and natural lighting, the cadet facilities were cramped. Fluorescent lighting served in place of any illumination the sun or moon might provide to a homesick cadet. Starfleet abided by their own prime directive: to minimize their expenses. Cadets slept, lived, and learned in cramped quarters. It became common place after a time; there was no need to dress up the facilities. As long as everything functioned, adornments and comfort could be discarded or avoided altogether.
It was quieter here, he was able to close himself off in a booth and converse with his mother in private. A reserved facade came naturally to him, the Vulcan part of him demanded as much. His mother, though, she was a human. She also had a way of making that facade collapse in on itself. She was able to draw out a side of him few had seen. To display such emotion in front of other students or instructors, his professional peers, would be inappropriate. This was what made him overlook the large discrepancy observed between the staff and student communication facilities. A closed door between himself and the world allowed him to relax into a skin that came uneasily to him. His mother drew that out of him. He dared not suppress it and deny her that small pleasure. They'd been apart far too long, these past few years, and he reveled in even the smallest of joys he saw in her face in these shared moments together.
There was a hiss of static and the screen flickered to life. He got a series of blinking lines across the screen. "Sp....You-"
He thought it was his mother's voice. The interference made it difficult to discern, though. He balled his hand into a fist and brought it down on the side of the monitor. There was a loud buzzing and then the image cleared and his mother finally appeared. He owed Jim for that piece of advice. As much as he loathed physical violence, on the rare occasion it was warranted. Upon hearing Spock complain about the deficiencies of the cadet facilities, Jim had finally clued him in on the secret of getting it to function at least passably.
A good smack, Spock! You got some rust in there and some loose wires and god knows what else, sometimes you just have to start hitting things until they sort themselves out.
He didn't buy that as a successful general life philosophy, but in this one rare instance, it was sound advice. Not that he hadn't been tempted to swat the back of Jim's head on occasion, too. Sometimes the man made a crude enough comment that the response was well warranted. He wasn't afraid to let his partner know it, either.
"Spock!" his mother greeted him. "You've not called me in ages. Humor an old woman and tell me what endeavors have occupied your time. Saving the Federation I hope?"
His lip curved up a bit. His facade maybe just barely started to melt. "Perhaps not saving the Federation, but certainly straightening out the latest batch of wayward recruits to the Academy."
She nodded, setting her face into a stern wall, a mocking parody of Spock's own expression. "Well if that's not a hero's job I don't know what is. Lord knows lesser men have turned and retreated from the task."
"They are...insufferable at times," he replied.
"Do tell. I hear of far too few scandals out here on Vulcan. I love your father and his people, but sometimes I wish they would do something a bit more exciting once in awhile. I used to loathe gossip, you know? Now I relish the bits I manage to pry loose from you," she said, laughing as she leaned forward, eager for a response.
Spock cocked his head just a bit as he wracked his brain for the latest disturbances at the Academy. "A student spray painted floral patterns on the glidecar assigned to the visiting Romulan ambassador."
"Glad to hear it! It's about time someone stood up to those scum. I know they are supposedly our allies, but I've-"
"Mother, the Romulans are bound into treaty with the Federation. Officially, we've been at peace with them for several years now," Spock reiterated.
She scoffed and waved him off with her hand. "Your father and I were assigned as hosts to the Romulan delegation when they visited here. Suffice to say, their behavior left much to be desired. Personally, I don't mind at all hearing that someone's jerking their chain a bit. They catch the guy?"
Spock shook his head slowly. "There was an official investigation, of course. The Romulans levied a formal complaint and the ambassador questioned the level of discipline we maintain at the Academy."
"You're ear's twitching, Spock. Gave you away as a child and still provides the truth even when you're claiming something else. You know something you're not telling," his mother replied with a light laugh.
He sighed. While his rare deceptions, or perhaps omissions of knowledge, passed all but the most vigorous scrutiny, his mother had always been able to see through such expressions and the barriers he so carefully erected as if they were glass. Part of him marveled at her ability to do so. It had landed him into trouble more than once as a child. "The investigation failed to reveal the perpetrator," he grimaced just barely there. "I picked up Jim's dry cleaning the following week. There were permanent paint stains that they had failed to successfully remove from one of his uniforms."
"Ah, I always did have a fondness for your partner. How is he these days? You know he sent us a crate of California oranges for the holidays, along with a beautiful young sapling."
Spock's mouth opened just a bit. He always felt he was on the cusp of having his significant other figured out and then Jim would do something to spin him around and make him reconsider that assumption. "He didn't say anything about such an endeavor."
She shrugged. "The tree was a bit withered from the trip spent in a cargo hold, but I've planted it in one of our greenhouses and it's recovered beautifully. Although your father complains that it takes too much water, I, for one, appreciate a little touch of home," she finished with a small smile.
He knew the feeling. He yearned for Vulcan and its familiarly just as she felt for Earth.
"On a related matter, I seek your advisement on an issue," Spock said.
His mother's expression warmed and she leaned back a bit, reclining on the balcony she'd chosen for their exchange. "I am your mother, Spock. That's what I'm here for. What's on your mind?"
He sighed. It was another gesture he'd picked up in all of his time with Jim. "Jim desires to commemorate the holiday season with a celebration."
She nodded. "That's a normal behavior for humans."
"I logically understand the cultural significance of these events. I've read the Bible entries that serve as inspiration for Christmas and conducted research, but I have failed to ascertain the widespread allure of such festivities to such a large contingent of the human population."
His mother smiled, running a hand through her hair as she looked away for a moment across the desert landscape and setting sun beyond. "It's not always about a logical reason. Your Vulcan education taught you that this was the case. For Vulcans, perhaps, it's true that every action is rooted in a rational basis. You're half human too, even if you don't bare that side of your heritage often. And humans don't share Vulcan logic." She sighed, running her hand through her hair again.
"Perhaps you can enlighten me as to their purpose, these holidays?" Spock said, prompting her to continue.
She shook her head. "The holidays started as something religious, true. These days, though, that's only a sliver of what the holidays mean. It's spending time with your family and friends," she paused there again, biting her lip a bit and looking away from the screen and the camera as she searched for the words to explain this to Spock in a way that he would understand. "Look, you care about Jim, don't you?"
He gave a curt nod. "Of course. I have chosen to enter into a relationship with him on that basis. I care for him deeply."
"The word's 'love,' Spock. When you care for someone as deeply as you do for Jim, it's called love. That's what the holidays are about. I mean, how often do you take the time just to say that you do care for him?"
"Jim is aware of my feelings for him," Spock responded, still failing to foresee where his mother was steering this conversation. As for the word 'love,' that was another Human conception. It described Human feelings and emotions, ones he wasn't entirely sure he was experiencing. The Vulcan equivalent, yes, that was what he felt for Jim. It was trusting one another deeply enough to consent to a mind meld, the highest form of unification two individuals could experience. It was the sensation of no longer seeing the boundary between where one individual began and the other ended. If 'love' could encompass all of that, then yes, perhaps it was an appropriate word.
She rolled her eyes and leaned forward toward the camera. Her voice gained in volume a bit as she became a bit more emotional in her response. Spock knew she was getting excited by the hand motions that accompanied her statement. "You see each other day to day, sure. But eventually, at least for most couples, things settle into a comfortable rhythm. It's an unspoken understanding that one cares for the other deeply. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of it once in awhile though. It's good to take the time out of your busy schedules once a year to just open yourself up to those emotions again, to remember and celebrate that passion that first enveloped the two of you when you first started into a relationship with one another."
He cocked his head. "Jim and I spend much time together. How are the holidays different from these occasions?"
She sighed, a breathless smile passing over her face. "It's about being more aware of those feelings. It's about making gestures that demonstrate the depth of your love and devotion to the people you care about. It's not just Jim either; it's anyone and everyone you care for."
Spock reflected on his experiences, he recalled the shift in the campus he observed every year at this time. "People smile more. Strangers, too. Why is that?"
"It's about people feeling that they are loved. People are reminded of that in the holiday season. The joy they get from that knowledge, well, sometimes it manifests itself in totally unexpected ways, even with people they don't know," she responded.
"You celebrate Chanukah each year, do you not, even on Vulcan?"
She nodded. "I do."
"But father does not. How do you share this, this holiday ceremony with him, when he does not share your beliefs?" he inquired in earnest. "Jim and I...our opinions vary greatly on this matter. How did you reach a reconciliation on this matter?" His mother had attempted to teach him an appreciation for her Jewish faith. His father, however, had always been absent for these exchanges. His father didn't disapprove of her lessons in Jewish instruction, but he did not share her beliefs. He couldn't help but see strong correlations between the large culture gap that his mother and father had somehow overcome and what Jim and he were currently grappling with.
"Sarek does not share my faith. That doesn't mean he does not respect my beliefs, though. We do celebrate in our own way, I suppose. I do the religious rites on my own each year, but we always take a week or so to ourselves. We go off planet, usually," she laughed a bit, shaking her head. "It's the only way I can drag your father away from work for any length of time. I've just got to put a light year or two between Vulcan politics and him. This special time, though, it's about us. We don't have to share the same faith. What's important is that we share the same love for one another and we take the time out each year to commemorate it."
Spock furrowed his brow, deep in thought. "Perhaps I can understand this sentiment. I believe you have helped me gain some insight into this matter. Thank you, mother."
Her eyes shone with approval. "Just give him a chance, Spock. The two of you will find a common ground, here. Promise me you'll at least try?"
He nodded. "I will try."
"Good. I'm going to send you something myself, too. I think it will help you in this matter. Watch for it, ok?"
"Of course, mother."
There was a sound off-camera that caught his mother's attention. She turned her gaze away again. Spock waited patiently for her to return to their conversation. A moment later a second figure entered the frame. His father placed his hand on his mother's shoulder. "Amanda, are you coming for lunch? I had them prepare that chicken recipe you love so much."
His mother leaned her head against Sarek's arm, resting her cheek against it. "I was just talking to our son. He says it's hectic, now that the term is ending."
Sarek glanced up from his wife and into the camera. His facial muscles didn't shift his expression into a smile as a human might respond, but there was a warm greeting in the Vulcan's eyes. A human might say that Vulcans didn't express their emotions. You just had to know how to read it, sometimes. His father's expression spoke of familiarity and an inviting welcome. "My son, it's good to hear from you. It's been far too many cycles since we've spoken. All passes well on Earth?"
Spock nodded. "It does."
Sarek raised his hand to brush against his wife's cheek. "I wish to speak to you of many matters, I have heard very little of your endeavors recently. Perhaps we may reconvene this conversation at another time? I wish to steal your mother away before our food grows cold."
"This would be acceptable," Spock responded.
He watched as his mother took Sarek's hand and rose to her feet. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him close until they were touching from hip to shoulder. "We love you, son. Remember this always. And even though I may not be there myself to help you through this matter with Jim, I know you will persevere. You two love each other. As long as you have that, the two of you will find a way to do this."
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Continue to Part 3
Genre: Romance/Friendship fic
Word Count: ~39,000
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: McCoy/Uhura, Jim/Spock
Warnings: None
Summary: The holidays are a time for family and friends, for celebrations and showing them just how much they mean to you. For people from different walks of life and different cultures, it also means finding a common ground. McCoy, Uhura, Jim, and Spock's first holiday season together at the Academy.
Author's Note: As always, a huge thanks to phoenix_laugh for the beta. A far, far overdue Christmas present for rusting_roses. So late, in fact, that it kind of became a fusion Christmas/birthday present. As always, my dear, we've had some crazy adventures along the way. The road's usually not straight, and I'm more likely than not to take the long way around, but we got there. To be quite frank, I wouldn't trade our adventures for the world, you've become a lifelong friend, one of the best I've ever had. We'll raise a glass this fall (maybe even with a bit of real alcohol!) to celebrate the adventures yet to come.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
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McCoy found himself standing outside Uhura's dorm after he got off his shift. It was chillier tonight, colder than a normal night in San Francisco, at least. He cupped his hands together and puffed an exhalation of air onto them, absorbing the heat into his hands before burying them in the pockets of his jacket. He was standing on the sidewalk outside of Uhura's dormitory. He didn't technically have access to the building; cadets could only enter their own building unless accompanied by someone who lived in the dorm. A cursory glance at his watch suggested that it was ten past and Uhura should've been here by now. He could use his medical override to get into the building and out of the cold, but his moral compass nagged at him that to do so would be an abuse of power. So he popped the collar up on his jacket, fixed his eyes on the doors, and waited.
The cynic in him was telling him she wasn't coming, that she had decided that he was too much older or too tied up in his work. They'd been on two dates now and everything had been going so smoothly. She had commed him a few times yesterday, and when he'd checked his device after his shift and seen that he had missed her calls part of him had wanted to throw the device at the wall in frustration. He loved his job, he did. But that didn't mean he didn't want the opportunity to love other things too, or maybe even other people. Maybe he was just too much or not enough, it didn't really matter. With her absent, all he was worrying about right now was that she had decided that he wasn't the right one, that he had blown his chance before ever getting the opportunity to fully explore the depths of this beautiful woman.
There was a soft hand on his shoulder that spun him around. The figure dropped back a few feet, startled.
"Leonard, I thought were going to meet me outside my building?"
"I was. I mean, I've been waiting," he fumbled for the words. Maybe it was the cold making him clumsy. Or maybe it was the way Uhura had tied her hair back. She'd abandoned the high, pin-straight pony tail she preferred during the school day. Her hair was tied in a low, relaxed braid at the base of her neck. It wasn't something he was used to seeing, and the thought that she was revealing a new side of herself, the side she didn't reveal to her everyday classmates, well, maybe it made his breath hitch just a bit. "Where were you?"
She cocked her head to the side a bit. "I've been waiting outside. And this skirt isn't doing much for keeping me warm, so maybe we can get moving?" she inquired.
He nodded. "I guess we ended up on opposite sides of the building then."
She smirked. "You might've ended up on the wrong side of the building, I said the front!" she mockingly chastised him before starting toward the main road that led off campus.
He lengthened his stride to catch up and fall into step beside her. Having to do so was a new experience for him. Not a totally unwelcome one, Jim had a short quick step, honed through many hours of drill practice on the field. Uhura was taller though, and her longer stride was more attune to his own preferred pace. "Why didn't you wear something warmer? There's no need to leave yourself freezing."
"I suppose being a senior medical student has its perks," she mused, nodding toward his jeans and black wool jacket.
"Well, I mean, sure. I get my own room and all, that's nice."
"Oh don't you even play it down," she said, shaking her head. Private quarters, of course, were a big part of it. There was something to be said about being able to study late in one's own room the night before a final. It was a perk she wished she could enjoy. Uhura had always been of the mind that she did her best work in a familiar environment. Gaila was a person early to bed and early to rise, which meant Uhura spent many late nights in the twenty-four hour library hunched low over a desk, combing through data files and translation exercises on her PADD. "You get to wear civvies off campus if you want, and you only have curfew on the weekend. I, for one, cannot wait to be a senior and enjoy such privileges."
"Hey, what about the part where I have to clean my own bathroom, huh? I'm not seeing how that's an advantage."
She laughed. It wasn't the stilted one he'd heard her use before, the one that suggested she was keeping her voice down to be respectful for classmates around her or for the sake of maintaining formal appearances with professors who were out and about on campus where they might happen to hear her. She had this strange preoccupation with propriety, during the school day her expressions were more restrained; she walked with her shoulders back as if in preparation to defend herself like she expected someone to challenge her right to be there. She just carried this aura sometimes that separated her from the informal actions of other students who would kick their feet up on a chair or tease a story out of a friend about the weekend's escapades. Uhura seemed so formal, at first glance. It was moments like these, when she belted out a laugh from deep in her lungs that reminded him that she was capable of the entire spectrum of emotion. It just took patiently weaving a path between those fortified defenses of hers to earn the right to witness them.
"I share a bathroom with twenty other women on my floor. If I want to take a shower before class, I'm out of bed by five in the morning to avoid the rush," she reached out and flattened the collar of his jacket back down playfully. "You try surviving that madness first thing before class and maybe come back and we'll chat again about who has it tougher."
"Ok, ok. Maybe I have it pretty good-"
"You, Dr. McCoy, have an amazing time of it."
He held up his hands in mock defense. "Ok," he said, laughing, "I get it. So where are you taking me anyways?"
"You said you wanted help picking out a gift for your daughter. Well, I'm going to help."
That was all she offered him on the matter. Asking questions just got irritatingly vague answers. Uhura had an amazing ability to twist the conversation around her finger and spin it in a whole different direction before he'd even realized that she'd pulled the trick. Again. The third time had him bowing to her insistence that he just follow along and they'd get to where they were going eventually.
Their journey by foot started easily enough. They'd been stopped briefly at the gates on the way off campus. As a medical student he did have more freedom to come and go at his leisure. Uhura, on the other hand, received a stern reminder that she needed to be back on campus by eleven that evening or face demerits. She'd frowned briefly at that, this was supposed to be an escape from the fenced-in campus and its stringent regulations. She'd been looking forward to a night where maybe the Academy could just sink into the background and not occupy the forefront of her life. She wanted a night where she could just breathe easy and a stony-faced guard reminding her that those rules trailed after her even on her rare stints into the real world didn't sit too well with her.
But they'd made it past the gate and he'd taken her hand in his own and run a light finger along the sensitive spot where her wrist met her palm and her frigid expression had melted into something warmer and more relaxed. He might've imagined it, but he could've sworn that there was more of a spring in her step after that.
She led him from the outskirts of town where buildings were more spaced out with breathing room between them to deep into the thick of things where bars were crammed into every nook and cranny along the street like commuters waiting for the train on a busy morning, pressing up against one another in competition for more room. She wove a path for them that he might not have picked himself. His attention was briefly absorbed in a man walking down the other side of the street flipping a switch blade open and shut. He unwittingly felt himself stepping in even closer to Uhura at that. He'd made a mental note to scratch that previous thought about maybe taking a different route, there was no way in hell he would've picked this route. If coming this way had been necessary, he would've called a cab.
He almost lost Uhura when she ducked down an alley which he hadn't even noticed existed. Only her hand reaching out to grab the sleeve of his jacket and yanking him back prevented that from happening. She smiled, as if it were cute that he'd allowed himself to get so lost in his thoughts, and then the pair of them disappeared into the quiet little store. The only thing that gave him any hint, at first glance, as to what this store dealt in was the neon-lit music note in the window that flickered in and out every few seconds.
The inside of the place didn't reflect the outside at all. Whereas the building's facade had presented chipped paint and a door that Uhura had had to give a hard jerk to open, the inside was clean and well organized. A soft music floated through the room. He cocked an ear for a moment and nodded in approval, Linus and Lucy. Now if that wasn't a song that could bring back memories, he didn't know what was. He'd seen the movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas, more times than he could count. He'd sit with Joanna cradled in his lap, legs falling asleep as she giggled at the screen and the cartoon character's antics at least three times each year, and always on Christmas Eve. Her frame would be wracked with giggles and it wasn't unusual to receive an odd foot in the gut at the scuffle. But he'd smooth her hair and position his arms just right to make sure she didn't roll off onto the ground in her squirming. And as much as Joanna would focus her attention on the screen, much of his attention was spent watching his daughter's facial expressions and reactions to the movie and seeing the pure joy it brought to her face.
"You know this song," Uhura commented. It was more of an observation than a question.
McCoy nodded, "You could say that."
"Nyota! You finally found the time to come in to see me," a voice rang out from behind a counter. An elderly gentleman abandoned his magazine to the counter and rose from the stool he'd been perched on. He had a slightly unkempt beard, more hair on his face than on his head. He wore a pair of faded jeans and a red wool sweater; it was the appearance of a man who didn't anticipate a public appearance or coming face-to-face with too many people. He dressed just neat enough to get by, and the rest of the world could keep to judging one another while he sat out on the sidelines and observed the bickering. McCoy didn't miss the man's grimace as he straightened his back; the clinical side of him instantly started categorizing symptoms of arthritis that the man was exhibiting. He shook his head, he was off the job right now, unless the man breached the subject, it was probably best to let it be.
Uhura glided over toward the counter, and leaned up against it. "I told you I was heading into the end of the term. We get less leave time; the administration has this misconceived notion that if they restrict students to campus they might actually study more."
The man raised an eyebrow. "Well, now I have to ask. Does the policy work? There best be something to show for the fact that I haven't seen you in weeks!"
She shook her head, her braid swinging back and forth with the motion. "It doesn't take a bar for a cadet to get in trouble. Contraband alcohol is notoriously easy to get a hold of and smuggle on campus."
"Well then, what you're telling me is that there is no good reason for you having been absent around here for so long?"
"I said I was sorry! And look," Uhura added, gesturing for McCoy to move up next to her, "I even brought you more business. Don't you ever say that I didn't show how much I love this little place of yours."
He nodded, his gaze sliding over to meet McCoy's. The man waved him forward. "Forgive me, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Roy, and this here is my little piece of the world that Nyota continues to assert is a legitimate business operation." The man's expression warmed even further, not something that McCoy would've thought possible. "I'll let you in on a little secret, this place is really just a pet project of a bored old retired man-"
"Don't listen to his nonsense, Roy stocks some of the best music merchandise in all of San Francisco."
McCoy stepped up, drawn in by the familiar banter passing between the two. "I'm Leonard McCoy. I also attend the Starfleet Academy."
"Ah, another cadet! I'm always telling Nyota I want to meet her friends; she's always coming in here by herself. I've been waiting for her to bring a gentleman down here with her; it's about time she found someone," the man finished with a wink.
Uhura cocked her head in such a way that left no ambiguity as to what that gaze was saying. Even though the admonishing glare wasn't directed at him, McCoy could certainly sympathize. With that one look they both instantly knew that his and her relationship status wasn't a topic for discussion. Which didn't really surprise him, per se. Uhura wasn't the type to flaunt their relationship; she rolled her eyes at love-smitten couples who would make out with one another pressed up against the side of a building, their clothing in various states of disarray.
Roy cleared his throat. "Anyways, what brings you down here?"
"Leonard is looking for a gift for his daughter. I was hoping to show him some of your stock. Could you bring some of it up for us?" Uhura asked.
Roy nodded and shuffled toward an entrance behind the counter, disappearing into an adjacent storage closet.
"So, you ready to tell me what we're here to look at?" McCoy inquired.
"Patience is indeed a virtue, in case you haven't heard that overused saying," she finished with a smirk.
She stepped away from the counter, then, and began weaving her way between several shelving units. She stopped at one display and pulled a book of sheet music down off the shelf and began flipping through it. McCoy shadowed her, not entirely sure what to do with himself in the interim. "You come here often, then?"
"Whenever I can," she replied without looking up. "Though not nearly as often as I'd like," she lamented. With one finger, she brushed a path along the page, following the musical score. To him, it was a series of black bubbles and other foreign notations. To Uhura, it was obviously something more. Her face was smooth, almost expressionless but her eyes burned with an intensity that suggested a torrent of thoughts and emotions racing through her mind. He stepped in just a bit closer, still not invading her personal space, but close enough to get a better look at the page. It was also near enough to just make out the soft hum that Uhura made as she bobbed her head to the music as she envisioned it in her mind.
"What song is it?"
Uhura looked up, allowing herself to be distracted from her immersion in a world she spent far too little time in. She brushed a finger across the page once more before closing the delicate book and setting it back on the shelf. "The book is a compilation of several of musical pieces produced by the Trans Siberian Orchestra for their album 'Beethoven's Last Night.'"
He cocked his head, wracking his brain for any knowledge of the group. "I've not heard of them."
She smiled. "Probably not. They were a very famous orchestra back in the early twenty-first century. You can still find some of their stuff, much lauded antiques at this point, in small shops like this one."
"What piece was that?" he asked, nodding at the book.
"The one I was looking at? 'A Mad Russian's Christmas.' Not my absolute favorite by them, but it's one of the better songs they've produced. Roy has all of his holiday stuff out right now."
Uhura turned to move back toward the counter. From their current position, McCoy could see that several items had been laid out on the counter. Roy had disappeared once again, leaving them alone in the shop. As she began walking in that direction once more, she commented one last time on the matter. "If you ever get the chance to see a video recording of one of their performances, check out that song, though. It really shows what they're all about. They take the staunchly conservative orchestral tradition and really add something to it. Sure, flashy lights and a bit of head banging is just the half of it, but they instill that music with a unique sort of vibrancy you don't get in a traditional performance." She finished with a sigh, eyes closed for just the briefest of moments as she again disappeared into that other world, into the music, imagining the video reel she'd seen enough times to call it to her mind in crystalline detail. She opened her eyes, then, and ran her hand along one of the items laid out on a silk cloth there. She handled it carefully, holding it up for McCoy to see.
"It's a violin," McCoy observed.
She smiled, rubbing the smoothed wood grain under her fingers. "You have an amazing ability to state the obvious, Leonard." She relinquished her grip on the instrument's neck and passed it over to him. He took it slowly, not quite sure what she wanted him to get out of this experience. Maybe a bit of it was not trusting himself with such a precious item. It was overworked paranoia, probably, that made him fear that his hand would slip and it would go shattering to the unforgiving ground. He did tighten his grip around the neck of the instrument, and supported the body of it in his arm. He'd learned how to hold something precious. Joanna had been a small child in his arms once.
She watched him examine it for a moment with that calculating eye of his. "I think Joanna would like it."
"She doesn't play, though."
Uhura shrugged. "Does that mean she couldn't learn?"
"I mean, I suppose. But why this? Why an instrument?" he asked in earnest. In truth, when he'd still been married and Joanna had slept just a door down the hall, part of him had looked forward to when she'd enter sixth grade, the time when students traditionally chose an instrument to play. The band and orchestra directors always worked heavily to recruit students. He had looked forward to the evenings where the house would echo with the slightly out of tune notes of a still-learning child. That dream had disintegrated with much of the life he'd planned out for all of them when the divorce had happened and he'd seen Joanna less and less. Sixth grade had come and gone and his wife, ex-wife now he supposed, had never encouraged her to pick up an instrument, and so she hadn't.
Uhura had picked up another instrument, a slightly larger one. She cradled it gently in her arms. "What are you most proud of in life, McCoy? Your work, your daughter, maybe joining Starfleet?"
He answered without a moment's hesitation. "Joanna. It's always been Joanna."
She nodded, as if expecting the answer. "And why is that, Leonard?"
"She's my daughter...I mean," he paused for a long breath. "I love her. That question only has one answer. It's hard to verbalize..."
"Let me try then, perhaps. I do have a way with words," she suggested, smirking. "Joanna is your flesh and blood. She's something that you helped create and bring into this world. And when she was born, you took this child, this blank slate, and began raising her and teaching her all the things that you thought she should know. You did this Leonard, and of all of the things you've done in your life, perhaps that is why she is your greatest achievement."
"Yeah..." McCoy found himself at a loss for words, right then. Surprising, but his mind was racing too fast down too many avenues for his mouth to keep up. And realizing the futility in that, he let his silence speak for him in that moment.
Uhura picked up on that, and continued speaking. "I grew up in the United States of Africa. I had four sisters and one brother. We weren't poor by any means, but we weren't rich either. My mom used to call what we had just enough to be comfortable, but just enough to keep us humble. My mother put us up in our finest dresses one night. It was hot, I remember that, hotter than most nights even in Africa. My father was uncomfortably warm in his tuxedo; he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his jacket while we rode in the glidecar. Not our own vehicle, of course, I walked most places as a kid. But my dad had done a rush repair job on the ambassador's mansion after a storm did damage to the facade. The invitation to his gala and the car he sent for us was a gift for my father having completed the repairs before the party. There were many long nights during that month for him.
"We got there and it just felt funny, being dressed up all nice like that. During dinner all I wanted to do was tug at my hair, my mom had tied it into braids so tight that I thought they'd never come out. But then the orchestra came on, the entertainment before the meal. And my hands stopped their fiddling and I sat there transfixed for an entire hour. I'd never heard anything so beautiful, so harmonic. I knew I wanted that for myself, the ability to create something so beautiful in the world and share it with other people. We couldn't afford string instruments, let alone the private instructors I would've needed for such an undertaking. But I had my voice, and I had a determination that wouldn't be bent. And I sing now just as I did then, to create something in the world wholly my own. Just as you did for Joanna when you brought her into this world and fostered her into the young woman she's become. Now take that feeling, that pride that swells in your chest when you think of these things. Take that raw emotion and roll it up into a tiny ball and imagine placing it in your daughter's hand so that she too may experience it. Giving your daughter, Joanna, the ability to create something entirely her own...there is no gift more precious than this."
McCoy nodded. In the short time he'd know Uhura this was the most of her past that she'd shared with him at one time. The rest had come in snippets here and there, but nothing like the part of herself she'd just exposed to him. He set that thought aside for the moment; he'd ponder what this meant for their relationship and where they were going when he found a moment or two alone. In this moment, he set the instrument he'd been holding down gently on the counter and brushed his fingers along her arm until they found her fingers. He gently pried her grip loose of the instrument until he could close his hand around her fingers. "Thank you, Uhura, it's perfect. What you said, everything you said...it's the perfect gift for Joanna."
She smiled; setting her own violin down on the counter, then, and pulling him close into an embrace until their bodies were pressed flesh to flesh. She bent in close, her breath tickling his ear. "Nyota. The people who know me best call me Nyota."
He didn't count the time they stood there like that, heaven can't be measured. Their bodies parted eventually, and Uhura called Roy back up to the front. There was discussion of what instrument size would be best and what music he should send to start her off. In the end, Leonard left with one hand in his pocket, tightly clutching the notice of purchase for a cello that would be delivered to his apartment on campus, Nyota's hand in his other. They walked all the way back like that, arriving at ten fifty-five in the evening, with five minutes to spare until curfew.
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"Mother?" Spock inquired.
He readjusted his position in his chair as to make it more comfortable if at all possible. Although he didn't put much faith in the gesture, it was more habit than anything else. He sometimes swore they made these booths a bit uncomfortable simply to discourage cadets from loitering too long and clogging up the lines. The booths were padded with far too thin a foam that made his spine protest at the discomfort.
He'd bear it, though. Some things were worth the sacrifice. The times when they were able to converse were far too rare.
The mounted wall display continued to remain a blank screen. He scowled. Living such a long way from home was a nuisance in times like these. As an instructor, he had access to Starfleet's official communication channels. The connection would be quicker and more stable, but part of him was strongly drawn to the cadet conversational booths equipped for interplanetary communications. Where the staff communication facilities were large and open with large windows and natural lighting, the cadet facilities were cramped. Fluorescent lighting served in place of any illumination the sun or moon might provide to a homesick cadet. Starfleet abided by their own prime directive: to minimize their expenses. Cadets slept, lived, and learned in cramped quarters. It became common place after a time; there was no need to dress up the facilities. As long as everything functioned, adornments and comfort could be discarded or avoided altogether.
It was quieter here, he was able to close himself off in a booth and converse with his mother in private. A reserved facade came naturally to him, the Vulcan part of him demanded as much. His mother, though, she was a human. She also had a way of making that facade collapse in on itself. She was able to draw out a side of him few had seen. To display such emotion in front of other students or instructors, his professional peers, would be inappropriate. This was what made him overlook the large discrepancy observed between the staff and student communication facilities. A closed door between himself and the world allowed him to relax into a skin that came uneasily to him. His mother drew that out of him. He dared not suppress it and deny her that small pleasure. They'd been apart far too long, these past few years, and he reveled in even the smallest of joys he saw in her face in these shared moments together.
There was a hiss of static and the screen flickered to life. He got a series of blinking lines across the screen. "Sp....You-"
He thought it was his mother's voice. The interference made it difficult to discern, though. He balled his hand into a fist and brought it down on the side of the monitor. There was a loud buzzing and then the image cleared and his mother finally appeared. He owed Jim for that piece of advice. As much as he loathed physical violence, on the rare occasion it was warranted. Upon hearing Spock complain about the deficiencies of the cadet facilities, Jim had finally clued him in on the secret of getting it to function at least passably.
A good smack, Spock! You got some rust in there and some loose wires and god knows what else, sometimes you just have to start hitting things until they sort themselves out.
He didn't buy that as a successful general life philosophy, but in this one rare instance, it was sound advice. Not that he hadn't been tempted to swat the back of Jim's head on occasion, too. Sometimes the man made a crude enough comment that the response was well warranted. He wasn't afraid to let his partner know it, either.
"Spock!" his mother greeted him. "You've not called me in ages. Humor an old woman and tell me what endeavors have occupied your time. Saving the Federation I hope?"
His lip curved up a bit. His facade maybe just barely started to melt. "Perhaps not saving the Federation, but certainly straightening out the latest batch of wayward recruits to the Academy."
She nodded, setting her face into a stern wall, a mocking parody of Spock's own expression. "Well if that's not a hero's job I don't know what is. Lord knows lesser men have turned and retreated from the task."
"They are...insufferable at times," he replied.
"Do tell. I hear of far too few scandals out here on Vulcan. I love your father and his people, but sometimes I wish they would do something a bit more exciting once in awhile. I used to loathe gossip, you know? Now I relish the bits I manage to pry loose from you," she said, laughing as she leaned forward, eager for a response.
Spock cocked his head just a bit as he wracked his brain for the latest disturbances at the Academy. "A student spray painted floral patterns on the glidecar assigned to the visiting Romulan ambassador."
"Glad to hear it! It's about time someone stood up to those scum. I know they are supposedly our allies, but I've-"
"Mother, the Romulans are bound into treaty with the Federation. Officially, we've been at peace with them for several years now," Spock reiterated.
She scoffed and waved him off with her hand. "Your father and I were assigned as hosts to the Romulan delegation when they visited here. Suffice to say, their behavior left much to be desired. Personally, I don't mind at all hearing that someone's jerking their chain a bit. They catch the guy?"
Spock shook his head slowly. "There was an official investigation, of course. The Romulans levied a formal complaint and the ambassador questioned the level of discipline we maintain at the Academy."
"You're ear's twitching, Spock. Gave you away as a child and still provides the truth even when you're claiming something else. You know something you're not telling," his mother replied with a light laugh.
He sighed. While his rare deceptions, or perhaps omissions of knowledge, passed all but the most vigorous scrutiny, his mother had always been able to see through such expressions and the barriers he so carefully erected as if they were glass. Part of him marveled at her ability to do so. It had landed him into trouble more than once as a child. "The investigation failed to reveal the perpetrator," he grimaced just barely there. "I picked up Jim's dry cleaning the following week. There were permanent paint stains that they had failed to successfully remove from one of his uniforms."
"Ah, I always did have a fondness for your partner. How is he these days? You know he sent us a crate of California oranges for the holidays, along with a beautiful young sapling."
Spock's mouth opened just a bit. He always felt he was on the cusp of having his significant other figured out and then Jim would do something to spin him around and make him reconsider that assumption. "He didn't say anything about such an endeavor."
She shrugged. "The tree was a bit withered from the trip spent in a cargo hold, but I've planted it in one of our greenhouses and it's recovered beautifully. Although your father complains that it takes too much water, I, for one, appreciate a little touch of home," she finished with a small smile.
He knew the feeling. He yearned for Vulcan and its familiarly just as she felt for Earth.
"On a related matter, I seek your advisement on an issue," Spock said.
His mother's expression warmed and she leaned back a bit, reclining on the balcony she'd chosen for their exchange. "I am your mother, Spock. That's what I'm here for. What's on your mind?"
He sighed. It was another gesture he'd picked up in all of his time with Jim. "Jim desires to commemorate the holiday season with a celebration."
She nodded. "That's a normal behavior for humans."
"I logically understand the cultural significance of these events. I've read the Bible entries that serve as inspiration for Christmas and conducted research, but I have failed to ascertain the widespread allure of such festivities to such a large contingent of the human population."
His mother smiled, running a hand through her hair as she looked away for a moment across the desert landscape and setting sun beyond. "It's not always about a logical reason. Your Vulcan education taught you that this was the case. For Vulcans, perhaps, it's true that every action is rooted in a rational basis. You're half human too, even if you don't bare that side of your heritage often. And humans don't share Vulcan logic." She sighed, running her hand through her hair again.
"Perhaps you can enlighten me as to their purpose, these holidays?" Spock said, prompting her to continue.
She shook her head. "The holidays started as something religious, true. These days, though, that's only a sliver of what the holidays mean. It's spending time with your family and friends," she paused there again, biting her lip a bit and looking away from the screen and the camera as she searched for the words to explain this to Spock in a way that he would understand. "Look, you care about Jim, don't you?"
He gave a curt nod. "Of course. I have chosen to enter into a relationship with him on that basis. I care for him deeply."
"The word's 'love,' Spock. When you care for someone as deeply as you do for Jim, it's called love. That's what the holidays are about. I mean, how often do you take the time just to say that you do care for him?"
"Jim is aware of my feelings for him," Spock responded, still failing to foresee where his mother was steering this conversation. As for the word 'love,' that was another Human conception. It described Human feelings and emotions, ones he wasn't entirely sure he was experiencing. The Vulcan equivalent, yes, that was what he felt for Jim. It was trusting one another deeply enough to consent to a mind meld, the highest form of unification two individuals could experience. It was the sensation of no longer seeing the boundary between where one individual began and the other ended. If 'love' could encompass all of that, then yes, perhaps it was an appropriate word.
She rolled her eyes and leaned forward toward the camera. Her voice gained in volume a bit as she became a bit more emotional in her response. Spock knew she was getting excited by the hand motions that accompanied her statement. "You see each other day to day, sure. But eventually, at least for most couples, things settle into a comfortable rhythm. It's an unspoken understanding that one cares for the other deeply. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of it once in awhile though. It's good to take the time out of your busy schedules once a year to just open yourself up to those emotions again, to remember and celebrate that passion that first enveloped the two of you when you first started into a relationship with one another."
He cocked his head. "Jim and I spend much time together. How are the holidays different from these occasions?"
She sighed, a breathless smile passing over her face. "It's about being more aware of those feelings. It's about making gestures that demonstrate the depth of your love and devotion to the people you care about. It's not just Jim either; it's anyone and everyone you care for."
Spock reflected on his experiences, he recalled the shift in the campus he observed every year at this time. "People smile more. Strangers, too. Why is that?"
"It's about people feeling that they are loved. People are reminded of that in the holiday season. The joy they get from that knowledge, well, sometimes it manifests itself in totally unexpected ways, even with people they don't know," she responded.
"You celebrate Chanukah each year, do you not, even on Vulcan?"
She nodded. "I do."
"But father does not. How do you share this, this holiday ceremony with him, when he does not share your beliefs?" he inquired in earnest. "Jim and I...our opinions vary greatly on this matter. How did you reach a reconciliation on this matter?" His mother had attempted to teach him an appreciation for her Jewish faith. His father, however, had always been absent for these exchanges. His father didn't disapprove of her lessons in Jewish instruction, but he did not share her beliefs. He couldn't help but see strong correlations between the large culture gap that his mother and father had somehow overcome and what Jim and he were currently grappling with.
"Sarek does not share my faith. That doesn't mean he does not respect my beliefs, though. We do celebrate in our own way, I suppose. I do the religious rites on my own each year, but we always take a week or so to ourselves. We go off planet, usually," she laughed a bit, shaking her head. "It's the only way I can drag your father away from work for any length of time. I've just got to put a light year or two between Vulcan politics and him. This special time, though, it's about us. We don't have to share the same faith. What's important is that we share the same love for one another and we take the time out each year to commemorate it."
Spock furrowed his brow, deep in thought. "Perhaps I can understand this sentiment. I believe you have helped me gain some insight into this matter. Thank you, mother."
Her eyes shone with approval. "Just give him a chance, Spock. The two of you will find a common ground, here. Promise me you'll at least try?"
He nodded. "I will try."
"Good. I'm going to send you something myself, too. I think it will help you in this matter. Watch for it, ok?"
"Of course, mother."
There was a sound off-camera that caught his mother's attention. She turned her gaze away again. Spock waited patiently for her to return to their conversation. A moment later a second figure entered the frame. His father placed his hand on his mother's shoulder. "Amanda, are you coming for lunch? I had them prepare that chicken recipe you love so much."
His mother leaned her head against Sarek's arm, resting her cheek against it. "I was just talking to our son. He says it's hectic, now that the term is ending."
Sarek glanced up from his wife and into the camera. His facial muscles didn't shift his expression into a smile as a human might respond, but there was a warm greeting in the Vulcan's eyes. A human might say that Vulcans didn't express their emotions. You just had to know how to read it, sometimes. His father's expression spoke of familiarity and an inviting welcome. "My son, it's good to hear from you. It's been far too many cycles since we've spoken. All passes well on Earth?"
Spock nodded. "It does."
Sarek raised his hand to brush against his wife's cheek. "I wish to speak to you of many matters, I have heard very little of your endeavors recently. Perhaps we may reconvene this conversation at another time? I wish to steal your mother away before our food grows cold."
"This would be acceptable," Spock responded.
He watched as his mother took Sarek's hand and rose to her feet. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him close until they were touching from hip to shoulder. "We love you, son. Remember this always. And even though I may not be there myself to help you through this matter with Jim, I know you will persevere. You two love each other. As long as you have that, the two of you will find a way to do this."
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Continue to Part 3