A/N: Thank you to Anarion at AO3 for letting me remix her Sherlock fic "Day 28 - The Cat Is Out Of The Bag".
When he was three years old, Spock desperately wanted a pet.
Little Spock was characteristically calm about the whole affair, of course, but Amanda saw how animated he became when he talked about his friend's pet sehlat. One night, after evening meal and after placing his dish in the sonic washing unit, Spock asked for an animal of his own. Sarek and Amanda agreed to consider it.
They argued for weeks. Amanda insisted that a pet would help Spock gain confidence and emotional stability, while Sarek declared Spock too immature to care for an animal. ("Don't you mean too human?" Amanda finally snapped.)
Summer in ShiKahr this year brought a trip to visit Amanda's sister and her family in Seattle. Spock looked forward to these visits with his aunt and uncle and Spock's cousins Chris, Anna, and Rachel, who treated Spock as a sibling.
The night before Thanksgiving, the Seattle sky swelled with rain clouds so dark that sunset came two hours early. Amanda awoke around two in the morning to thunder that seemed to split the air. Knowing Spock's dislike for storms, she went to check on him and was shocked to find him not in bed but in the front yard - holding a butterfly net.
"Spock, what are you doing?" she sputtered.
"Rachel predicted that tonight's precipitation would consist largely of felines and canines." Spock was soaked to the bone and looked uncomfortable but determined. "If I can capture a kitten, may I have permission to bring it home?"
Amanda quelled the sudden urge to hug her son. Instead she kneeled down and explained the idiom before convincing him to go back to bed.
A week later, Amanda dropped something tiny, growling, and brown into Spock's lap. The baby sehlat quieted immediately when Spock stroked its soft, furry ears. Never before had Amanda seen him smile so brightly.
A/N: Chris, Rachel, and Anna are the names of Spock's cousins in several stories by NotesFromAClassroom, one of my favorite writers in the fandom.