Bourbon, Chapter Two
Chapter Two: Fiery Flush
A follow-up to The Comes Spock.
Byteaoli
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 )
“What the hell was that, Len?” Upenda was so angry she was shaking. Taking a deep breath didn’t help at all.
Waiting through the end of the evening had given her too much time to think about the kiss. The Spocks and M’Benga, and even Ambassador Sarek, had immediately began examining her proposal and suggesting ways in which to test its validity. Len had been an enthusiastic cheerleader, offering up ideas of his own while his eyes, their corners crinkled from the smile that had remained steadfast until the group broke up for the night, rarely left her face. The entire experience left her stomach churning.
She stepped past him into his temporary quarters, folded her arms across her chest and waited.
“What?” he asked, all false innocence. Upenda glared. His gaze dropped to his feet.
“Oh,” he said. “You mean the kiss?” She didn’t believe in the contrite pose, either. Because Leonard McCoy could lie without saying a word.
_____
Joanna McCoy begged to join the street dancers, and after her performance at Ennie’s wedding reception, Upenda didn’t even consider denying her. The girl was good and deserved a chance to show her stuff.
“You go,” she said. “I’ll hold our bags and watch.”
For a moment it looked like Joanna would protest, but then her hazel eyes lit and, shrugging her shoulders, she flashed an impish grin.
“Okay, but next song is yours, Pennie. Promise!” Then she ran off to join the fray.
Three songs later, the teen was flushed and breathless and smiling even harder as she made her way back.
“Sorry!” she gasped. “Got caught up in the moment!”
Upenda laughed down at her young friend. “That’s fine, sweetie. You looked great out there! Where’d you learn those moves?”
Joanna relieved her of half the bags before answering and the two started walking back towards the hotel she shared with her father.
“I made ‘em up, mostly,” she confided. “But Dad taught me the basics.”
That stopped Upenda in her tracks. “Are we talking about the same man who gave a pretty good imitation of an android with crossed circuits last night?”
“Pfft. That.” Joanna waved her hand airily and continued walking. “He was just funnin’ you. Keeps the women from getting the wrong idea, if you know what I mean. But back at Ole Miss he gave dancing lessons ‘cause Grandpaw wouldn’t pay after they had their falling out.”
“Come on. Your dad cannot dance.” Upenda laughed at the ridiculousness the idea.
“Yes he can! These days he just saves it up for… you know.” The young girl wiggled her eyebrows in a perfect imitation of her father.
“Gah! Shut up!” Upenda clapped her hands over her ears, bags swinging wildly. “You’re too young to be talking about… ‘you know’!”
The look Joanna gave her had been mastered by adolescent girls the universe over. “Aww, lighten up, Pen. I’m almost fifteen!”
Later that night, with Joanna happily ensconced with a host of teens cousins at the Uhura family compound, Upenda introduced Len to one Garissa Town’s more upscale nightclubs. Hips rolling and popping while his feet traced intricate patterns across the floor, he proved his daughter right.
“You old faker!” Pen exclaimed when he finally let her take a break from the dance floor. “I could barely keep up with you.”
“If you think my bachata was somethin’ special, you really gotta see my cumbia,” he murmured into her ear and pulled her back into the dance.
_____
“Yes, damn it! I mean the kiss,” she snarled now. “What the fuck, Len?”
Grinning sheepishly, he looked up again, his hazel eyes alight with the laughter that used to make her knees go weak. “Sorry, darlin’. Got caught up in the moment. You know how I get.”
“Yeah,” she said, anger warring with anguish. “I do.”
Upenda stormed out.
__________
Bones was three quarters through his third glass when the door chimed. He took a slow slip before calling out a “Come on in!” full of false enthusiasm. He glanced at the bottle - the second of the five Pen had brought from Earth just for him - and shook his head. At the rate he was going, he’d go through them all before the babies were born.
“Doctor.” The deep, flat-toned voice snapped him out of his reverie.
He was expecting the sister, but told himself he shouldn’t be surprised when he got the brother-in-law, instead. Maybe hardly anyone else had seen the way Spock was changing, but it flashed like a neon sign in McCoy’s expert opinion. It was part of the job for him to notice things like that. And he knew it wasn’t just the lovely lieutenant making it happen.
Bones had seen the way the Uhuras had welcomed the half-Vulcan into their fold. He knew Spock allowed his wife’s family far greater physical liberties than he accepted from other humans.
For all her fire, Nyota would have been safer. These days, the Uhuras were as much his as they were hers , and the doctor knew Spock believed in protecting his own.
He stood in the center of the large room, eying first Bones, then the bottle.
“I know you are not always able to control your tongue, Leonard, but it might be prudent for you to keep it away from my sister until you learn how to use it more judiciously.”
Bones shook his head. Humor was another thing Spock had caught from the Uhuras. And he seemed to enjoy trotting it out at Len’s expense. “You sound like Pen,” he muttered.
Spock kept staring. “It is not unusual for family members to hold similar opinions.”
“I already apologized,” McCoy snapped before the hobgoblin got back on his high horse.
Spock didn’t say a word. Just raised that damnable eyebrow like he could see inside your head and suss out the lie for what it was. Bones snatched up his glass and swallowed.
“Whatever. I explained myself. Can’t undo what’s been done, can I?”
“No.” Just like a poorly-made android, the overgrown elf didn’t even blink. Instead, he snagged a chair and sat - uninvited - across the table. “Changing history is beyond even your inimitable skills, Leonard.”
Bones frowned into his glass, certain Spock was just waiting to pounce like a cat on a rat. Six fingers (and counting) of bourbon made him an easy target. May as well get it over with while he was still alert enough to bite back.
“You may as well get on with it,” he said sourly. “Tell me how I need to be careful of your baby sister’s precious little heart and that if I my intentions aren’t honorable I need to keep my lips the hell away from hers. Go on and spit it out. Tell me what a shit I am.”
Spock cocked his head and just stared for half a lifetime before saying, “It would be redundant for me to expound upon what you have already stated so eloquently, Doctor.” He eased his skinny self up with all the grace of the cat Bones had compared him to and walked over to the door. McCoy took another slug.
“Leonard,” Spock said as the door whooshed open. “Anesthetizing yourself against the force of an Uhura woman is a futile effort. Kaiidth. You would do better to accept what is.”
“You’re gonna be pretty good at being a dad, you know that?” Len muttered.
“Indeed,” said Spock, inclining his head.
__________
She was waiting for him when he returned to his father’s house. He was barely through the door before her arms were around him. She smiled when he hugged her back after only the slightest hesitation. Tension eased out of the half-Vulcan and his sister-in-law relaxed into his embrace.
“I warned you, kaka,” she said, chuckling softly into his shirt. “You knew what you were getting yourself into.”
“Indeed, you did,” Spock agreed. “And I did. The Uhura propensity for physical contact has induced me to increase the efficacy of my mental shielding by nearly twenty-percent.”
Smiling, Upenda pushed out of his embrace and stared up at him.
“You know. I never wanted a big brother, always trying to beat up the boys who made me cry.” She beamed at him. “I was proud to be the one watching out for the younger kids. But it’s is kind of nice being on the other side.”
His face remained characteristically austere, but she could see the minute crinkling at the corners of his eyes - crinkling that had been missing when, an hour earlier, he’d apprised the Uhura sisters of his intentions - that said he was amused. The look was almost as soothing as the hug.
“I hope it will not be a disappointment for you to learn that, this time, physical violence was not required,” he teased. “It seems your visit left Leonard suitably chastened. He continued his self-flagellation in my presence.”
She laughed at the image, loud and hard, before she recalled that her sister was sleeping in the next room. Upenda cut herself off, settling for smiling at her brother-in-law. This was the happiest she’d felt in over a year.
Not since Len…
Her momentary good humor faded under the weight of memory and confusion. Embarrassed by the abrupt emotional change, she whispered a raspy “Thank you,” and tried to turn away.
Warm hands touched either side of her jaw and gently lifted. “You are no longer the oldest sibling in our family. It is my duty to protect you, dada,” Spock told her. “Nyota does not reward dereliction of duty.”
“Damn right!” the woman in question declared from their bedroom doorway. “Now, take your hands off my dada! It’s my turn to hug her!”
Nyota waddled across the room and angled her protruding belly until she could fold herself into Upenda’s arms. One or both of the twins - usually lulled to sleep through their father’s mind touch by now - shifted, startling both sisters into excited giggles and rapid speculation.
“Already, my daughters show the influence of their Uhura ancestry,” Spock concluded after a brief hand-to-belly consultation. “They did not wish to be left out of the exchange of affection.”
The next day, Leonard McCoy called a truce, saying, “Meddler or not, doesn’t make sense for you not work on proving your own damned hypothesis.”
Luckily, Uhura women were as known for their forgiving natures as they were for keeping their menfolk in check.
“Apology accepted,” she said, sticking out her hand. Bones only just managed not to kiss her again.
He set up a spot in a lab for her, and she made a simulation of how her theory might work in practice, and came up with the quickest way for them to start testing it:
“Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid is always maternally-inherited in humans and in Vulcans. Check Spock’s mtDNA; if it’s human, we won’t have ruled anything out, but if it appears to be Vulcan, we’ll know I’m at least on the right track. Any further tests will just back up what we already know.”
Bones ignored the smugness written all over that little speech because he knew she was right, damn it. M’Benga knew it, too.
“It makes sense for Spock’s mitochondrial DNA to have been mutated - I should have thought of it myself.” Excitement just oozed out from the African doctor as he rushed around the lab looking for the reports on McCoy’s earlier analyses. “With the higher metabolism inherent to his predominantly Vulcanoid physiology, we should have suspected an alteration in cellular metabolism. And human mitochondria couldn’t achieve that in an efficient manner!” J.G. grinned at Pen and only his promise to behave kept Bones from acting on the urge to slap him upside the head.
But mostly she left him and J.G. alone to iron out the details. Her “little dada” needed her, she said. Len didn’t protest.
It would have all worked out real nice, too.
If the universe hadn’t been conspiring to ruin both the doctors’ lives.
Jabilo Geoffrey M’Benga’s eyes stared so hard, McCoy half-thought they might climb out of his head and follow Pen straight back to Ambassador Sarek’s house. J.G. glanced up to meet Len’s glare and flashed a grin before bending over his micro-viewer again.
“Dr. Uhura is a beautiful woman.” He might’ve come off casual if he’d been taking to anyone else.
Bones tensed, pretty sure what was coming next, but J.G. didn’t even look up from the device he was calibrating. “Yup,” he replied as if it didn’t make any difference to him.
“And highly intelligent,” M’Benga murmured.
“That, too.” And the best armful you’ll never hold.
“Len….” M’Benga waited until Bones looked up before continuing. “Three weeks ago you were screaming at her.”
“You heard that, huh?” He pretended to sort through the rest of the slides.
“Four nights ago you were kissing her,” the undeterred African went on. “If there’s something go-.”
“Far as I know,” he interrupted, “Pen’s single. You interested?” I’ll rip your balls off if you so much as look at her again.
“Len, if something that is going on between you two makes this assignment… if you need to step back, get some breathing room,” J.G. told him, “Look, I’ve got your back with Command. You covered my ass often enough back in the day.”
Damn straight! Bones looked up again. “There’s nothing going on, J.G.”
The look in M’Benga’s eyes called “bullshit.” “You kissed her,” he insisted aloud.
“Caught up in the moment,” Bones replied.
“She didn’t protest. Didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. And she didn’t look very surprised after you managed to pry yourself away from her mouth.”
Bones sighed heavily and put down the slide he’d just selected. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I met Pen about a year ago, just before Spock and Ny’s wedding. We got along pretty well. Spent a little time together before and a lot of time after. My kid really liked her. But you know I don’t do serious relationships. You know why. And so does Pen.”
J.G. set his fists on his hips like a momma fixin’ to holler. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth yet, Len. And I’ve heard you say some pretty stupid shit.”
He acted like he was immune to McCoy’s best stink-eye. ‘Cause he was. “You know I’m right.”
“There’s nothing going on with Pen and me,” Bones told him. “That’s just how it is.”
He bent over his work again. J.G. said some even stupider shit, like he was set on trying Bones’s last damned nerve.
Then all that nonsense got pushed to the back burner ‘cause Nyota went into labor.
A/N: Kaiidth is the Vulcan concept of “what is is.” Kaka is a term meaning brother in Swahili; dada means sister.
Chapter Three
A follow-up to The Comes Spock.
Byteaoli
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 )
“What the hell was that, Len?” Upenda was so angry she was shaking. Taking a deep breath didn’t help at all.
Waiting through the end of the evening had given her too much time to think about the kiss. The Spocks and M’Benga, and even Ambassador Sarek, had immediately began examining her proposal and suggesting ways in which to test its validity. Len had been an enthusiastic cheerleader, offering up ideas of his own while his eyes, their corners crinkled from the smile that had remained steadfast until the group broke up for the night, rarely left her face. The entire experience left her stomach churning.
She stepped past him into his temporary quarters, folded her arms across her chest and waited.
“What?” he asked, all false innocence. Upenda glared. His gaze dropped to his feet.
“Oh,” he said. “You mean the kiss?” She didn’t believe in the contrite pose, either. Because Leonard McCoy could lie without saying a word.
_____
Joanna McCoy begged to join the street dancers, and after her performance at Ennie’s wedding reception, Upenda didn’t even consider denying her. The girl was good and deserved a chance to show her stuff.
“You go,” she said. “I’ll hold our bags and watch.”
For a moment it looked like Joanna would protest, but then her hazel eyes lit and, shrugging her shoulders, she flashed an impish grin.
“Okay, but next song is yours, Pennie. Promise!” Then she ran off to join the fray.
Three songs later, the teen was flushed and breathless and smiling even harder as she made her way back.
“Sorry!” she gasped. “Got caught up in the moment!”
Upenda laughed down at her young friend. “That’s fine, sweetie. You looked great out there! Where’d you learn those moves?”
Joanna relieved her of half the bags before answering and the two started walking back towards the hotel she shared with her father.
“I made ‘em up, mostly,” she confided. “But Dad taught me the basics.”
That stopped Upenda in her tracks. “Are we talking about the same man who gave a pretty good imitation of an android with crossed circuits last night?”
“Pfft. That.” Joanna waved her hand airily and continued walking. “He was just funnin’ you. Keeps the women from getting the wrong idea, if you know what I mean. But back at Ole Miss he gave dancing lessons ‘cause Grandpaw wouldn’t pay after they had their falling out.”
“Come on. Your dad cannot dance.” Upenda laughed at the ridiculousness the idea.
“Yes he can! These days he just saves it up for… you know.” The young girl wiggled her eyebrows in a perfect imitation of her father.
“Gah! Shut up!” Upenda clapped her hands over her ears, bags swinging wildly. “You’re too young to be talking about… ‘you know’!”
The look Joanna gave her had been mastered by adolescent girls the universe over. “Aww, lighten up, Pen. I’m almost fifteen!”
Later that night, with Joanna happily ensconced with a host of teens cousins at the Uhura family compound, Upenda introduced Len to one Garissa Town’s more upscale nightclubs. Hips rolling and popping while his feet traced intricate patterns across the floor, he proved his daughter right.
“You old faker!” Pen exclaimed when he finally let her take a break from the dance floor. “I could barely keep up with you.”
“If you think my bachata was somethin’ special, you really gotta see my cumbia,” he murmured into her ear and pulled her back into the dance.
_____
“Yes, damn it! I mean the kiss,” she snarled now. “What the fuck, Len?”
Grinning sheepishly, he looked up again, his hazel eyes alight with the laughter that used to make her knees go weak. “Sorry, darlin’. Got caught up in the moment. You know how I get.”
“Yeah,” she said, anger warring with anguish. “I do.”
Upenda stormed out.
__________
Bones was three quarters through his third glass when the door chimed. He took a slow slip before calling out a “Come on in!” full of false enthusiasm. He glanced at the bottle - the second of the five Pen had brought from Earth just for him - and shook his head. At the rate he was going, he’d go through them all before the babies were born.
“Doctor.” The deep, flat-toned voice snapped him out of his reverie.
He was expecting the sister, but told himself he shouldn’t be surprised when he got the brother-in-law, instead. Maybe hardly anyone else had seen the way Spock was changing, but it flashed like a neon sign in McCoy’s expert opinion. It was part of the job for him to notice things like that. And he knew it wasn’t just the lovely lieutenant making it happen.
Bones had seen the way the Uhuras had welcomed the half-Vulcan into their fold. He knew Spock allowed his wife’s family far greater physical liberties than he accepted from other humans.
For all her fire, Nyota would have been safer. These days, the Uhuras were as much his as they were hers , and the doctor knew Spock believed in protecting his own.
He stood in the center of the large room, eying first Bones, then the bottle.
“I know you are not always able to control your tongue, Leonard, but it might be prudent for you to keep it away from my sister until you learn how to use it more judiciously.”
Bones shook his head. Humor was another thing Spock had caught from the Uhuras. And he seemed to enjoy trotting it out at Len’s expense. “You sound like Pen,” he muttered.
Spock kept staring. “It is not unusual for family members to hold similar opinions.”
“I already apologized,” McCoy snapped before the hobgoblin got back on his high horse.
Spock didn’t say a word. Just raised that damnable eyebrow like he could see inside your head and suss out the lie for what it was. Bones snatched up his glass and swallowed.
“Whatever. I explained myself. Can’t undo what’s been done, can I?”
“No.” Just like a poorly-made android, the overgrown elf didn’t even blink. Instead, he snagged a chair and sat - uninvited - across the table. “Changing history is beyond even your inimitable skills, Leonard.”
Bones frowned into his glass, certain Spock was just waiting to pounce like a cat on a rat. Six fingers (and counting) of bourbon made him an easy target. May as well get it over with while he was still alert enough to bite back.
“You may as well get on with it,” he said sourly. “Tell me how I need to be careful of your baby sister’s precious little heart and that if I my intentions aren’t honorable I need to keep my lips the hell away from hers. Go on and spit it out. Tell me what a shit I am.”
Spock cocked his head and just stared for half a lifetime before saying, “It would be redundant for me to expound upon what you have already stated so eloquently, Doctor.” He eased his skinny self up with all the grace of the cat Bones had compared him to and walked over to the door. McCoy took another slug.
“Leonard,” Spock said as the door whooshed open. “Anesthetizing yourself against the force of an Uhura woman is a futile effort. Kaiidth. You would do better to accept what is.”
“You’re gonna be pretty good at being a dad, you know that?” Len muttered.
“Indeed,” said Spock, inclining his head.
__________
She was waiting for him when he returned to his father’s house. He was barely through the door before her arms were around him. She smiled when he hugged her back after only the slightest hesitation. Tension eased out of the half-Vulcan and his sister-in-law relaxed into his embrace.
“I warned you, kaka,” she said, chuckling softly into his shirt. “You knew what you were getting yourself into.”
“Indeed, you did,” Spock agreed. “And I did. The Uhura propensity for physical contact has induced me to increase the efficacy of my mental shielding by nearly twenty-percent.”
Smiling, Upenda pushed out of his embrace and stared up at him.
“You know. I never wanted a big brother, always trying to beat up the boys who made me cry.” She beamed at him. “I was proud to be the one watching out for the younger kids. But it’s is kind of nice being on the other side.”
His face remained characteristically austere, but she could see the minute crinkling at the corners of his eyes - crinkling that had been missing when, an hour earlier, he’d apprised the Uhura sisters of his intentions - that said he was amused. The look was almost as soothing as the hug.
“I hope it will not be a disappointment for you to learn that, this time, physical violence was not required,” he teased. “It seems your visit left Leonard suitably chastened. He continued his self-flagellation in my presence.”
She laughed at the image, loud and hard, before she recalled that her sister was sleeping in the next room. Upenda cut herself off, settling for smiling at her brother-in-law. This was the happiest she’d felt in over a year.
Not since Len…
Her momentary good humor faded under the weight of memory and confusion. Embarrassed by the abrupt emotional change, she whispered a raspy “Thank you,” and tried to turn away.
Warm hands touched either side of her jaw and gently lifted. “You are no longer the oldest sibling in our family. It is my duty to protect you, dada,” Spock told her. “Nyota does not reward dereliction of duty.”
“Damn right!” the woman in question declared from their bedroom doorway. “Now, take your hands off my dada! It’s my turn to hug her!”
Nyota waddled across the room and angled her protruding belly until she could fold herself into Upenda’s arms. One or both of the twins - usually lulled to sleep through their father’s mind touch by now - shifted, startling both sisters into excited giggles and rapid speculation.
“Already, my daughters show the influence of their Uhura ancestry,” Spock concluded after a brief hand-to-belly consultation. “They did not wish to be left out of the exchange of affection.”
The next day, Leonard McCoy called a truce, saying, “Meddler or not, doesn’t make sense for you not work on proving your own damned hypothesis.”
Luckily, Uhura women were as known for their forgiving natures as they were for keeping their menfolk in check.
“Apology accepted,” she said, sticking out her hand. Bones only just managed not to kiss her again.
He set up a spot in a lab for her, and she made a simulation of how her theory might work in practice, and came up with the quickest way for them to start testing it:
“Mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid is always maternally-inherited in humans and in Vulcans. Check Spock’s mtDNA; if it’s human, we won’t have ruled anything out, but if it appears to be Vulcan, we’ll know I’m at least on the right track. Any further tests will just back up what we already know.”
Bones ignored the smugness written all over that little speech because he knew she was right, damn it. M’Benga knew it, too.
“It makes sense for Spock’s mitochondrial DNA to have been mutated - I should have thought of it myself.” Excitement just oozed out from the African doctor as he rushed around the lab looking for the reports on McCoy’s earlier analyses. “With the higher metabolism inherent to his predominantly Vulcanoid physiology, we should have suspected an alteration in cellular metabolism. And human mitochondria couldn’t achieve that in an efficient manner!” J.G. grinned at Pen and only his promise to behave kept Bones from acting on the urge to slap him upside the head.
But mostly she left him and J.G. alone to iron out the details. Her “little dada” needed her, she said. Len didn’t protest.
It would have all worked out real nice, too.
If the universe hadn’t been conspiring to ruin both the doctors’ lives.
Jabilo Geoffrey M’Benga’s eyes stared so hard, McCoy half-thought they might climb out of his head and follow Pen straight back to Ambassador Sarek’s house. J.G. glanced up to meet Len’s glare and flashed a grin before bending over his micro-viewer again.
“Dr. Uhura is a beautiful woman.” He might’ve come off casual if he’d been taking to anyone else.
Bones tensed, pretty sure what was coming next, but J.G. didn’t even look up from the device he was calibrating. “Yup,” he replied as if it didn’t make any difference to him.
“And highly intelligent,” M’Benga murmured.
“That, too.” And the best armful you’ll never hold.
“Len….” M’Benga waited until Bones looked up before continuing. “Three weeks ago you were screaming at her.”
“You heard that, huh?” He pretended to sort through the rest of the slides.
“Four nights ago you were kissing her,” the undeterred African went on. “If there’s something go-.”
“Far as I know,” he interrupted, “Pen’s single. You interested?” I’ll rip your balls off if you so much as look at her again.
“Len, if something that is going on between you two makes this assignment… if you need to step back, get some breathing room,” J.G. told him, “Look, I’ve got your back with Command. You covered my ass often enough back in the day.”
Damn straight! Bones looked up again. “There’s nothing going on, J.G.”
The look in M’Benga’s eyes called “bullshit.” “You kissed her,” he insisted aloud.
“Caught up in the moment,” Bones replied.
“She didn’t protest. Didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. And she didn’t look very surprised after you managed to pry yourself away from her mouth.”
Bones sighed heavily and put down the slide he’d just selected. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I met Pen about a year ago, just before Spock and Ny’s wedding. We got along pretty well. Spent a little time together before and a lot of time after. My kid really liked her. But you know I don’t do serious relationships. You know why. And so does Pen.”
J.G. set his fists on his hips like a momma fixin’ to holler. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth yet, Len. And I’ve heard you say some pretty stupid shit.”
He acted like he was immune to McCoy’s best stink-eye. ‘Cause he was. “You know I’m right.”
“There’s nothing going on with Pen and me,” Bones told him. “That’s just how it is.”
He bent over his work again. J.G. said some even stupider shit, like he was set on trying Bones’s last damned nerve.
Then all that nonsense got pushed to the back burner ‘cause Nyota went into labor.
A/N: Kaiidth is the Vulcan concept of “what is is.” Kaka is a term meaning brother in Swahili; dada means sister.
Chapter Three