fic | star trek xi | the second child

[mekosuchinae]

For sunday_luncheon, who requested nervous baby daddy.

Title: The Second Child
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: Cool for kids, I think.
Excerpt: Like most children, Amanda entertained a certain fondness for stories about herself.



1.

Like most children, Amanda entertained a certain fondness for stories about herself. Late one summer evening, as she sat with Mother at the table and sucked idly at her fingers, sticky and sweet with melon juice, she said, "Tell me about the day I was born, please."

The setting sun caught on Mother's earrings, which dangled huge and red at her jaw. Mother pressed a finger to her mouth and opened her eyes very wide. She said, "Oh, that was so long ago. I'm not sure I remember."

"I am only four!" Amanda said. "You cannot have forgotten."

Father brushed his hand across Amanda's head and said, gently, "Do not consider absolutes when you lack sufficient evidence." He passed Mother a wet cloth and set about gathering up the soiled dishes.

Amanda frowned and corrected herself: "It is unlikely you would have forgotten."

"Fingers," Mother said. Amanda held out her hands and Mother ran the wet cloth over her palms.

Mother said, "It was very sudden." She used her storytelling voice, which was soft and low, and rolled like a song. Amanda curled her toes and her fingers, too, but Mother straightened those out to wipe away the juice between them.

"The pregnancy was hard," Mother said, "for all of us: me, and your father, and Grandfather Sarek, and you. The doctors did not know if you would survive to term." Mother held Amanda's hands cupped in her palm, her long fingers framing Amanda's wrist. "I was seven months along," she said to Amanda's hands, "when the bleeding began. We were so scared, your father and I, that we would lose you."

Amanda knew it was rude to interrupt, but she could not help doing so: "That is a lie," she said. "Father is never scared."

Watching them both from the sink, Father said, "To make such an assumption in opposition of evidence to the contrary is ill-advised. Do you not remember breaking your leg last October?"

"Oh," Amanda said. She remembered how tight Father's hand had been on her shoulder, how he had berated her for climbing the sprawling jjuins tree without the necessary adult supervision. "Yes," she said. "I remember."

Father nodded gravely, then gave Mother a look of unknown significance. He said, "Additionally, your mother is not given to deception. You would be wise to listen to her."

Mother pursed her lips at Father and said, "Damn straight." The note of huskiness had left her voice. To Amanda she said, "Close your mouth." Amanda closed her mouth and her eyes as well, and Mother scrubbed her face clean with the wet cloth.

2.

He woke to Nyota's touch: a hand knotted tight in his nightshirt, fingernails biting through the cloth into his shoulder. She said, "Spock," and her voice did not tremble or break.

He touched her wrist and received a sudden and intense fragment of memory, of a hospital ward in San Francisco and a grief so intense it lingered still. The effect was dizzying: her memory called up his own.

She said, "We need to go to the hospital right now."

He did not hesitate, but rose promptly to prepare the small personal vehicle and alert her doctor. When he returned, he found Nyota ready for him in the wheelchair, her emergency overnight bag placed carefully on her knees, displaced from her lap by the heavy curve of her belly. The scene was intensely and immediately familiar. He went to her.

Nyota said, "Is the car ready?"

He said, "Yes. I have also alerted the clinic; they will contact Doctor T'Rel."

Nyota nodded. Her grip on the bag was tight, her knuckles sharp points, but her gaze was steady, her mouth a firm line. She said, "Then let's go."

3.

Amanda tucked her toothbrush into her cheek and said, "You were concerned?"

"Yes," said Father. He passed her the cup of water. "Spit, then rinse."

Amanda spat and rinsed. She dried her face and hands in the small towel by the sink and wrinkled her nose as Father examined her teeth.

"Did Mother experience great pain?" she said. "Sunak has told me that is common."

Father did not speak. Amanda found it difficult to ascertain the direction of his thoughts with only the positioning of the muscles in his face to guide her. He said, "My observations indicated your mother did experience significant pain prior to the anesthetic."

Amanda frowned, considering this.

In the corridor Mother's quiet and exact tread sounded out a count of one two three four, then stopped at the door. Mother knocked once on the frame and leaned into the small auxiliary water closet, her earrings swinging against her throat. "Your bath is ready," she told Amanda.

She recoiled. "No! I am clean."

Mother's mouth curved: amusement. "Let me see behind your ears," she said.

Amanda turned to Father, who set her toothbrush in its proper place and folded the towel into neat thirds and said, "Perhaps if you did not wish to bathe you should not have instigated a mud fight with Sunak."

Amanda said, "You are a traitor," and Mother laughed. Father's face softened.

"If you take your bath now," Mother said, "we'll each read you a story before bed."

This was clearly a disgraceful manipulative tactic. Amanda said, "That is acceptable."

"Ah," said Father, quirking his brow as he cast a critical eye upon Mother. "Bribery."

"The most efficient of all parenting tools," Mother agreed.

Father did not smile like Mother smiled, the long, white row of upper teeth flashing as she pulled her lip back. The corners of his mouth twitched and the line of his brow lightened, the tension in his face shifting slightly.

Mother slapped Amanda's backside and said, "Your bathwater's going to cool if you don't hurry up."

4.

The clinic was very bright and very sterile and quiet, too; nothing at all like the Starfleet medical facility in San Francisco, which throbbed with noise at all hours and always seemed a mess regardless of how clean the rooms and how efficient the staff. Nyota reclined on the examining table and held his hand tightly within her own, her fear pulsing through him, but her calmness as well.

Doctor T'Rel gazed impassively at them both, but when she spoke, she spoke to Spock. "If we perform surgery within the next two hours there is a eighty-five-point-nine percent chance both mother and child will survive."

Nyota's hand tightened around his fingers; her thumb dug into his palm, the nail a sharp crescent pressing into the pad at the base of his index finger.

"And if you do not?" Spock said.

"To delay the procedure is inadvisable," she said. "After three hours the likelihood that the operation would be a success drops to precisely seventy-six-point-three percent. After four hours it will be sixty-two-point-seven percent."

Nyota's resolve flooded him. "Do it," she said.

"You are aware of the risks entailed," said Dr T'rel, and Nyota did not hesitate; Nyota did not waver. She said, "Yes."

5.

Tucked neatly into her trundle bed with Mother curled at her back and Father in the chair beside her, Amanda watched the constellations slowly wandering the dark expanse of her ceiling. The rotating star globe had been a birthday gift from Uncle Jim; it was her favorite possession, more beloved even than the collection of Kikuyu folktales Grandma Samara had sent her. Mother stroked her hair, which curled violently around the sweeping points of her ears, and said in her rolling, lilting storytelling voice,

"When you were born, you were so tiny and so weak that we weren't allowed to take you home. Dr T'Rel placed you inside an incubator which they kept in another room in the clinic, and every day your Father would walk down to that room to see you, and every few hours I would hold you in my arms and I would look at you and think how wonderful you are."

Amanda followed the stately progress of Ophiochus, the snake-holder, and the two halves of Serpens, Caput and Cauda, as they advanced in unison across the ceiling. She said, "Was I truly so small?"

"You were precisely thirty-five-point-six centimeters in length," said Father, and Mother tucked a curl behind Amanda's ear and said, "You weighed exactly seven hundred fifty-one grams."

"Impossible," Amanda said. "I was never that small."

Father said, "Amanda."

"Well," she said, "I am not so small now."

"That's for certain," Mother said, wrapping her arm around Amanda and holding her tight. "My goodness, you weigh so much! When did you get so big?"

"I had a growth spurt three months ago," Amanda reminded her. "You said I did not fit into any of my clothing."

"Oh, yes," said Mother. "Now I remember. You were very angry with me, weren't you?"

"Yes," said Amanda, and shamed by the memory of her outburst, she said, "I am sorry."

Mother placed her palm square upon Amanda's forehead and said in tones of benediction, "You are forgiven."

Amanda pressed close to Mother, whose heart beat so slowly within her breast, slower than Amanda's heart, which hummed like a bird low in her chest. She said, "Were you satisfied with me?"

"You exceeded expectations in every way," Mother whispered into her ear, and where their skin touched, Mother's hand upon her cheek, Amanda's nose against her collar, Mother's love swept like a flame through Amanda.

Seated yet to the side, his hands folded neatly before him, Father said, "We are glad of you."

6.

Amanda slept.