A/N: This is an accompaniment to " Emotional ", my first fanfiction. It would be wise to read that first before reading this though it could stand alone by itself.
At the end of this story there's a more detailed authors note to flesh out this story. Just a forewarning, everyone in this story is quite broken.
" I'm pregnant."
Who would have thought that four syllables could change one's life so tremendously? He looks at his girlfriend, who sat across from on her bed, impassively but unable to say anything. What could he say?
" Spock? Spock, did you hear me?" She wraps her arms around herself and looks down at her boots. " Say something. Anything."
" I do not know what to say…" He says softly. Spock honestly does not know what to say – the proper thing to say. Of course, he has questions: How did this happen? Why did this happen? Yet, they were insensitive, cruel… accusing questions. Irrational. Illogical.
She looks up at him, shifts on her small bed, and brings her hands to her stomach. She presses down slightly as if she's trying to feel the child within her. It's an illogical display; he mentally notes to himself, it is impossible to feel the child at this current gestation period. Yet, no matter how illogical it may have been, the mere action makes him feel all the more apprehensive.
It makes his heart skip a beat.
" How long?" He's standing only two feet from her but he feels as if he's a world away. " How far along are you?" A pause, then softly, " … Nyota."
" Four months."
Four months, two weeks, ten days… he lost count. They had spent that weekend in each others arms; trying to reach, hold on, to something that had been lost only days before. He was drowning; she was trying to save him… There was no logic… there was no room for logic…
… And the pain she felt once he melded with her that night had nearly consumed her. It choked her, clouded her mind; it consumed every inch of her being. So much regret and pain… Uhura felt as if she would never surface from it, that she would eventually be lost with him. The emotional transference lasted for two days. Two days of emptiness, three nights of nightmares of a dying planet and a woman falling to her death.
She never dared to tell him.
" I thought… I was sure that we had…" He's stumbling around for the right words. " I…"
There was a lapse a judgment. He should have been stronger… mentally.
" I want it. I want the baby."
A moment a silence, he shifts, " You want the child." Nyota nods her head slowly. " … This can impede on your career. You won't be able to successfully perform your duties—"
" There are no regulations against female officers having children and becoming mothers. There facilities on board the ships that are adequate enough for young families in Starfleet." She sighs. " I know what I am doing. I weighed my options, I thought this out completely."
She looks up at him. He's standing rigidly, his hands are folded behind his back, and he's looking off somewhere – anywhere but her. He's put up his wall; he's defending himself from succumbing to his emotions. That confliction, the never-ending fight inside of his mind and soul. It's the one battle she wished he'd allow her to fight with him.
" We don't have to do this," She speaks quietly. " … I can do this on my own. I do not want to hinder your career as much as you do not, did not, want to impede on mine."
Nyota tries to sound strong, certain, and well rounded but her voice falters. She doesn't want to do this on her own. She doesn't want him to leave her and their child. She wants him in her life, she wants to be his anchor, and she wants him to be her guide. She wants them to finally be happy, like they were before Nero, before the destruction of Vulcan, before they were forced to grow up and be adults.
Back to the days where all it took was a pout to get him to smile or a push to get him to playfully push her back before they tumbled into his bed fighting to get their clothes off to be skin against skin, mind against mind, soul against soul. She wants those days back again. The days where the man she loved wasn't a ghost of himself, waking up constantly every night to go over what he could have done differently to save his mother's life… to save his people lives.
" No, I will be there." He approaches her slowly until he is towering over her, blocking the recess lighting above, obscuring his face. She can't see his face or how he feels. Spock brings his hand to her cheek, runs his fingertips gently down her chin, down to her neck, and she leans into his touch. " I… will be there."
He takes her hand gently into his and brushes his fingertips over her own.
She feels his apprehensive fear, and yet, underneath it all she feels his love. He is so much more human than he was willing to admit that it hurt her to watch him be otherwise.
oo
Nyota had always pictured her future with him in it, with a child or two, living happily together as a family within the ranks of Starfleet but she had never pictured it to happen like this. Not alone, light-years away from home, away from her family, away from her support system… She had always thought her mother would be by her side, sharing this experience with her; she imagined that she would help her pick out baby clothes, give her advice on how to take care of the baby once it was born, and just be there for her as her grandmother did for her mother.
Subspace transmissions were not enough. Not when she laid in maternity ward in sickbay, exhausted, waiting to hold her son. Not when her bond mate was on the bridge and not by her side. Not when she finally felt alone, the first time of her pregnancy, in which she finally felt confused on what to do next.
It was a difficult pregnancy. The last few weeks of her last trimester was spent in bed rest. No one knew what to expect, a child born from a hybrid had never happened before within Starfleet. There was interest in her pregnancy, that was certain, but Spock tried within all his granted power to protect her and the child. Despite his callous approach to alien life forms and other scientific unknowns, anything personally relating to him was a private matter. His protective behavior with her and their child was assuring.
" I'm pleased to say that you and that green blooded hobgoblin managed to produce a healthy baby boy."
Nurse Chapel helps her up in the bed and her heart feels as if it's going to bust from her chest the moment she sees Doctor McCoy walk into the ward with a bundle of white cotton sheets in his arms. The smile he has on his face could freeze hell over; the Southern doctor is completely smitten with the babe. It is so different from his usual stern face and stressed demeanor it even takes his head nurse for surprise. He looks at new mother and gives her the same smile as she extends her arms out to her child.
" Now, you hold the baby like that – yep, exactly like that. You must have held quite a few babies, haven't you?"
" My cousins, nieces, nephews…" Nyota whispers as she looks at her baby boy. She pushes the white sheets aside to get a better look at his face. So small, so delicate… She was afraid to touch him, afraid that the slightest touch would make him crumble in her arms. " … You're so beautiful."
" He looks like his father," Nurse Chapel observed with a smile. " But he has your eyes."
" You think?" Uhura slowly brings a finger to her son's face. She lightly trails his nose, lips, and then his small little ears. Up, over, and back down… he sleeps soundly, not even moving at the slightly touch. " Perhaps."
Her son yawns and she laughs. It's so much to take in, that at this very moment she was now the mother to a healthy baby boy. Despite all the pain and tragedies the galaxy had presented her with within the past year, something out there decided to give her mercy and the gift of a child. Her throat feels tight, her heart is so overwhelmed, and then she's crying.
She's crying out of happiness. She's crying tears left unshed. She's crying because she feels complete.
" Mr. Spock said he'll be down in, and I quote, ten point four seconds." McCoy says lightly with smirk. Uhura nods as she wipes the tears from her eyes.
Just on point, Spock comes through the doors of the maternity ward without a second to spare. Uhura looks at him and their eyes lock. She can't read his face, it's so impassive, but she can feel his emotions – perhaps through a lack of control on his half of the bond – and all can sense is the uncertainty, apprehension, curiosity, and love.
Spock looks at the doctor, " Doctor."
" Commander." McCoy nods his head at his nurse and she comes to his side. " Since I figured you'd be the type of person who'd concern yourself over the… statistics of this delivery such as weight and all of that—"
" Not quite the case, Doctor, as I am capable of figuring that out by holding my child."
McCoy rolls his eyes, " I see. Well, in either case, you have a very healthy boy and an exhausted mother. Treat them as if they're prized china."
" I fail to understand why I would treat them like china considering they are not ceramic."
The chief medical officer opens his mouth, tries to say something, but then decides to forego the attempt. He shakes his head and leaves the maternity ward, Nurse Chapel behind him chuckling and patting him on the back.
The doors slide behind him and with it came a slight tension between the new family members. Spock walks over his bond mate at her bed site and pulls up a chair next to the bed. He looks at her and then at the bundle of sheets in her arm. There's a moment of hesitation between the young parents, neither sure on what to do next. Uhura, then slowly, hands their son to him. He lifts his hands to meet her own and suddenly feels the weight of the child in his arms.
He doesn't know what to do next.
" Here, Spock," Uhura says softly, her voice dry and hoarse from the intensive labor, as she takes his left hand and positions it underneath the baby's head. " You have to support him from here. Then from here."
Nyota lies back down and watches Spock with heavy lidded eyes. She can see the confusion on his face, the vulnerability. He doesn't know what to do; it scares him, frustrates him, and it confuses him. She faintly feels all of this in their weak formed bond, but underneath the initial emotions is a love – a hope – that she has not felt before.
She watches as he pushes the sheets away from his son's body to get a better look of the sleeping child. Spock slowly brings his hand to his son's curled right ear and uncurls the small little point.
" He… has your eyes." He speaks softly.
A light yawn and Uhura smiles sleepily, " But he has your ears."
oo
They are married on board the Enterprise when their son is six months old. When he is a year old, their bond is completed on New Vulcan through a Vulcan priest. It was the first time Spock had visited the planet. The first time he had faced his people since the destruction of Vulcan.
She could feel him slipping through their bond. After a year of rebuilding their lives, she watched as it all came crumbling around them as he came in contact with his people. The guilt, the second-guessing, all of the demons that plagued him in the months after the fall of his home world slowly crept in to his life again. The dreams returned and with that came his midnight meditations and subsequently trying to figure out what he had did wrong.
" Ambassador, how do you coupe?" Nyota asks her father-in-law as they sat on the veranda of his home. The older Vulcan looks up at her, his grandson in his arms, and raises an eyebrow.
" Explain." Simple. He always managed to express himself in the simplest of words.
" How do you coupe with the loss of your planet, your people, and your family. How do you live everyday without succumbing yourself to the pain?"
" To deny that we have not succumbed to the loss would be a lie, but," His grandson grabs a hold of the point of Sarek's right ear and tugs. He blinks at the young child's behavior and releases the small fingers from his ear gently. Uhura chuckles at the scene; it's the most human moment she's ever seen her father-in-law in.
" But… those who are strong enough manage to continue with their lives unaffected. The few who… go into madness… We attempt to rehabilitate. Develop… alternatives. "
A slight wind blows across the veranda. It's cooler than the winds of Vulcan, a bitter remaindered that their planet was gone. Uhura licks her lips and leans into her chair.
" What about you? How do you coupe?"
Sarek looks at his daughter-in-law for a moment and then at his grandson. He looks at the child's bright eyes, at the smile on his small little round face, the high arch of his eyebrows and slight point of his ears. He could see his late wife in this child. He tried to suppress the regret that dared to creep into his mind.
" It is difficult but I am strong enough to… coupe with it." He holds up his index finger and the little boy grabs a hold of it. " I have a race of people I am obligated to, my daughter. There is no time for me to grieve."
He had danced around her question like a professional. He gave her enough to work with but not the whole truth. She felt her husband teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown, she knew the pain that he felt. Uhura could only imagine what the rest of his Vulcan people were going through.
When they're back on the Enterprise, light years away from New Vulcan, their child asleep in his crib – she takes her husband into her arms and tries to take his pain away. When they fall into the sheets of their bed, skin to skin and mind to mind, she wants to feel his pain… To carry it on her shoulders and relieve his own. Yet, he keeps his distance and keeps her away.
" Stop hiding from me," She whispers against the crook of his neck, her fingers buried in the nape of his neck, her legs wrapped around his body pulling him closer. " Let me in."
He let's her in that night. Into his mind, into his heart, into his soul and she's drowning, oh she's drowning… sinking deeper and deeper… When he tries to pull away from her – afraid and disgusted at himself for allowing his emotions to affect her in that way – she pulls him closer to his body, closer to her mind.
They were suffering that night. They were drowning together. Falling together. Slipping away…. Together.
Like the red rocks of Mount Seleya falling into the abyss moments before Vulcan was destroyed.
oo
" Why is my father afraid to hold my hand?"
Uhura looks at her son confusingly from the living area of their quarters. He's six years old, intelligent, witty, and very human. Symal looks at his mother from the other side of the room with his eyebrows furrowed together in concern and confusion.
" Where did you get that idea from?" She asks lightly after recovering from the question. Symal bites his lower lip.
" We were walking down the corridor together and I accidentally brushed my fingertips against his. I felt something from him… He was afraid. Afraid of me."
" Afraid?" A gentle laugh. " He's not afraid of you, baby. Come here."
She pats the empty cushion next to her on the coach she sat on. He walks over, sits down on the coach, and she caresses his thick brown, wavy, hair. Uhura feels her son relax against her touch and she sighs in relief to herself. The older their son got, the more complex the relationship between her husband and her son became. She didn't understand it.
" Your father loves you just like I do. It is just hard for him to express it because he is Vulcan." She kisses him on his temple and smooths his hair once more. " He is a Vulcan; it is hard for him to show that he loves you." She caresses his right ear, Human yet Vulcan. " Please, understand, baby. He loves you very much but… it is hard."
" Maybe it's because I'm not dedicated to my Vulcan studies as much as he would like."
" No, baby, that's not it—"
" If I focused on the Vulcan way of life, maybe he'll finally show that he loves me?"
She looks at her son. Her six-year-old boy and her heart breaks. She takes him into her arms and holds him close, combing her fingers through his thick wavy hair, as she closes her eyes and tries to transmit whatever positive emotions to him, to comfort him in whatever way she knew how.
" No, baby, that's not it. That's not it at all…" She whispers into his hair.
" You're sad, mother."
Her hand freezes against his nape and she pulls away. Her son looks up at her and brings a small hand up to her face. He wipes a stray tear away and she slowly brings her hand to her cheek and feels the wet trail against her skin.
" Why are you sad?"
She doesn't tell him.
oo
Nyota doesn't understand where it began. She can't remember what was the first sign that triggered the problems in her life. It bothers her, like an itch she can't scratch, that she is literally loosing the two men in her life and she can't do anything to stop it because she doesn't know how. She watches her husband speak to their son, from down the empty hall of the Vulcan school, anxiously.
Today was his first day at the prestigious academy. It would also be the last day he'd be in her life for the next seven years. It tears her up inside but she did not dare show that emotion to her son. She needed to be strong for him.
" I don't understand why we're doing this." Uhura whispers harshly to her husband as he approaches her. He arches an eyebrow at her reaction and it's the most she can get out of him. " Why? Why here?"
" It is the logical choice of action, Nyota. I fail to see why you are upset about this decision." Uhura looks over his shoulder at Symal and watches as one of the Vulcan instructors takes her son away.
" Logical? I don't care about your logic. I care about my son."
" Our son," Spock corrects. " And if you noticed, Symal is has not acclimated with the children on board the Enterprise."
" And you think that casting him here would be better?"
He holds his hands behind his back, " Of course."
" He is not fully Vulcan," Uhura stresses. " It will be just as hard here as it was aboard the Enterprise. Perhaps harder…" A sigh. " ... Maybe even worst."
" Symal is intelligent for his age. He is also telepathic which means he must learn the teachings of Surak to control them. He must have discipline and an education that will satisfy his needs. All of these factors justify why he is here." Uhura sighed in frustration. " I fail to understand why we're having this conversation again."
" And I fail to understand why you are so insistent on casting our son away at every opportunity."
She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. The debate is going nowhere, it always did. It was why they were here on Vulcan. It was why their son was being sent into the care of her father-in-law. It was why she felt as if she was losing a battle that was never intended for her to win. She clapped her hands together to calm her nerves.
" It would not hurt to show a little emotion. Just a little, you know, to act like this is bothering you."
" Nyota," Spock doesn't move, his facial expression doesn't change. The heavy black robes that he is wearing makes him look more emotionless and stoic. Far away and unreachable. " I am a Vulcan… you know that is not possible."
" Well, you know what? I'm human and it is possible."
She looks at her husband and in the first time of her life with him she's beginning to feel frustration and… disgust. Uhura had never conceived the notion that one day she would be in this situation with the man she loved. Of course, what she had dreamed of as a naïve cadet during her days at the Academy never foresaw any of the events that would end up taking place in her life up till that very moment.
Uhura looks at her husband and can feel all of her emotions through their bond. What words could not spoken was clearly said through their bond. He falters, his Vulcan defense crumbles, and he reaches out for her. He doesn't want to loose her, yet he can feel that slowly he is loosing her to the madness of his conflicted self. Spock brings his hand to her delicate face, just to touch her… to make sure she's still there with him and she turns away from him.
" No, not this time, Spock." She whispers shakily.
Nyota leaves him in the hall. He watches her retreating form, at how robes of her Vulcan dress spread out behind her with each quicken step. It reminds him of something long ago. Something that, like then, leaves him feeling empty…
... Alone.
He doesn't know what to do and it frustrates him that he doesn't have the solutions to rectify it.
oo
" You've gotten so big!" She moves to hug her son but stands back. He's different now. Taller, fuller, matured… Not the little boy she remembers.
" Of course, mother, as I am maturing into adulthood. This is the twenty-fourth time that you've reminded me of this fact. I fail to understand why you are always surprised to see me taller." His voice is flat, unemotional, as if he is stating facts. Not like her little boy. He would be vibrant, excitedly explaining his latest discovery. He would laugh with her and joke.
When did it all end? Where did it all go?
She pats him on his chest, smooths the wrinkles out of his red cadet jacket, and looks up at him with a small smile. Uhura could remember the times that he would hide behind her legs from Captain James Kirk in the mess hall, afraid of the vibrant Captain (mostly due to McCoy's meddling), and now she's looking up at him feeling like a child herself. An old child with laugh-lines and fatigue from the stress of her job – from her marriage – but nonetheless a child.
" Just call it a silly human emotion." She says lightly. Her hands still rest on her son's chest. " We get this way, especially with our own children."
She feels him relax against her hands and watches as his much larger hand takes her own into his hand. Then, she can feel it – the son that she remembers hidden beneath the red Starfleet cadet uniform, beneath the Vulcan discipline, so deep but there. Uhura looks up at her son, into his eyes, and she sees a small smile creep up on his features.
" I know, mother. I know." He whispers gently and then places a gentle kiss atop of her knuckles before letter her hands go.
" You look so handsome in that uniform. Just like your father when he your age." She smooths his stubborn waves that tried so hard to escape their traditional Vulcan cut prison. " He was a great man in the Academy. " Her hand travels down to his right ear, trailing it to its small point, and then caressing his cheek. "Achieved so much… well respected…" She feels her son tense up against her hands. " I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."
" I know, mother." He moves her hand away from his face gently and it falls back to her side. " I contemplated performing the Kolinahr when I was on New Vulcan. I tried to be like them…. I still do." He closes his eyes for a moment to collect himself. He was slipping from his control. He couldn't loose his control. " If that makes him happy then I will continue trying. I do not wish for it to reflect judgment upon you as it is not my intention."
Uhura looks at her son for a brief moment, into his eyes that are much like her own, searching for something but she doesn't find it. Instead she brings her hand up again, hesitates for a brief moment, and places her hand on his right cheek. She holds it there for a moment and pulls it away as she tries to conceal her emotions from him. But from the way he looked at her she knew that she was unsuccessful in the attempt.
" Just be yourself." She says.
" Lieutenant Commander."
The two turn around to the sound of the voice and see Spock standing in the doorway assembly hall. Uhura smiles at her husband while Symal gives his father a curt nod. Spock acknowledges them with his own nod before approaching the two. He glances at his son for a brief second, silently, and then to his wife.
" Commander?" She doesn't like the formalities. Not like this, in a family setting. He can feel her dissatisfaction through their bond and he ignores it. He knows she doesn't appreciate this demeanor whenever their son is around; it is always a topic of conversation every time they meet with their child.
" We are due to return to the Enterprise in one hour. The shuttles are due to depart in fifteen. We must hurry."
" Aye, sir." She turns around to face her son, gets on the tip of her toes, and places a kiss on his forehead. " I love you, Symal, and I am proud of you."
He doesn't react, Symal refuses in the presence of his father, " Thank you, mother."
" Cadet," Spock addresses his son. " You should be with your class. You are late for your matriculation."
" My mistake, Commander."
" Nobody is perfect." Spock says in Vulcan. Uhura looks up at her husband in confusion while Symal raises an eyebrow.
" Indeed." He replies back in the same tongue. " Excuse me."
When their son leaves, she looks at the man she's spent the last twenty years of her life with, and tries to analyze what she had just witnessed. She tries to understand it from all angles and perspectives and she can't bring herself to come to a logical conclusion.
" Why?"
She asks instead.
" What?"
" Why do you do this?" She points to the door that their son exited from. " Why do you do that to him?"
" You are exaggerating the situation, Nyota."
She glares at her husband, " Don't you dare use my name when you refuse to use it when he's around."
" We are running late."
" I don't care!" She yells.
Spock is taken aback. Never once has his wife yelled at him. She has raised her voice, she has walked away from him, she has even kicked him out of their living quarters on the Enterprise, but never once has she ever yelled at him. He is perplexed and she refuses to open the bond between them so he could understand.
" Have you ever once considered to become his father rather than a person in his life that he has to please?"
" I am his father, Nyota, I fail to under—"
" You are his father, that is fact," She cuts him off. " But you are not his father. You are punishing him for something he has never done and I do not even know why."
" We have went over this time and time again. Vulcans raise their children differently and as my wife you must understand this."
" You are half human, Spock."
" And my mother understood this." He pauses. " Why can't you?"
" I am not your mother, Spock! I am your wife!" She takes a step back from him. " Stop trying to make me be her! I… I can't do this anymore. I have dedicated my life to you, I have felt your pain, your sadness; I have seen your dreams and your nightmares… and I am tired." She clasps her hands together and closes her eyes. " I am tired of having to pick you over our son."
" Nyota…"
" I do not know how your mother did it but I can't. Not when you're like this. Not when you continue to wallow in your own misery. Not when you're not there during the times when I'm in pain… crying for our son, wondering if he's going to be okay, if the children at the academy have hurt him for being who he is."
" I've told him that he can not aspire to be something that he is not."
" But you do not understand, Spock, he is Vulcan and he is Human. Didn't your father give you a choice? Why did you take that away from him?"
" … I was trying to protect him." Spock closes his eyes and uncharacteristically sighs softly. " I am trying to."
Uhura watches her husband and noticed that no longer was the stoic Vulcan but only the timid one… the vulnerable one… the one that died twenty years ago. She slowly approaches him and pulls him into an embrace. He buries his face into the crook of her neck, and she brings a hand over his shoulder and clutches onto his nape.
" It's okay, baby." She whispers against his ear. " It's okay."
It wasn't. She would never understand it.
She was human.
A/N: Now how do I explain this to quell the entire S/U fanbase at my portrayal of this couple?
In my original note for " Emotional ", I had wrote Spock in this universe of mine as a " self destructive, depressed, Vulcan unable to recover from the loss of his planet and mother due to his human emotions. ". When the reviews came in for that story, no one was pleased that I dragged Uhura down with him so I wrote this piece to flesh her out as well as Spock. This story ended up becoming more of Uhura's story and less of Spock. It seems I can only be in the mind of one character at a time.
I wrote this Uhura to be how Zachary Quinto described her, " a canvas for Spock's emotions ". A blank canvas eventually becomes what you paint of it. Uhura, in some way, becomes a depressed train wreck like her husband and through her husband unknowingly affects her son despite the fact that she tries so hard to protect him. I don't think she understands how deep her husband's scars run and I believe that eventually Uhura becomes weak with trying to hold her husband together and her son. She doesn't have time to breathe because she is constantly falling with Spock through their bond.
Spock Prime also mentions in the movie that emotional transference is an effect of the mind meld and in Voyager, one of the Vulcans initiates a bonding with B'Elanna and she ends up suffering from the same effects of the pon farr as her bonded mate. Taking this all into consideration I found it completely conceivable for Uhura to be extremely effected by her husband.
I believe Spock is afraid of his son because he's afraid of himself. If he pushes himself away from him then he won't hurt him like he's hurting Uhura. I also believe that the way Sarek raised him (not bonding with him, constantly making him battle his human side, constantly making him seek his approval, etc) ended up happening again through him and his son without realizing it. Especially since he's trying so hard to cling to beliefs that are now dying in the aftermath. Which is why a lot of the events parallel Spock's life when he was young.
With Vulcans being private, I doubt they're getting therapy which makes it even worst.
All and all, its an emotional rollercoaster that could put a Lifetime movie to shame.
The line, " Nobody's perfect " comes from Star Trek II TWOK when Saavik and Spock discuss Kirk's "humanism". I thought it would be interesting to use that line here, especially since this new Spock seems a lot more cockier than Prime.
Thanks for reading!