AN: This story already exists on the ks archive under my other username and has been written for quite some time. I am hoping putting it up here will remind me to keep updating it as this is where most of my stories are. As it is, this hasn't been updated in far too long and I can almost feel the glares my reviewers have been giving me for leaving it go this long. As this is AU and contains the element of a Vulcan!Kirk, please note that some slight OOC may occur. This piece also contains Protective,Possessive!Spock and an Alive!GeorgeKirk (though he does not feature as a main character). Thank you and enjoy
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Trek nor do I make any profit from the production of this story. The star trek series belongs to Gene Roddenberry and J.J. Abrams (reboot) and this piece is written purely for entertainment purposes.
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Chapter One: T'Pur's Choice
"The infant is deceased."
A nurse, her black hair cropped short and her eyes, though the pristine dark of their kind, held a glimmer of apology. "You understood that the infant had only a ninety two point six per cent chance of survival born as it was seven weeks prematurely. With the unexpected difficulties of your child being born of the fertile and volatile breed, its chances were truly, never really there. There is no logic in you suffering, T'Pur, as there is no logic in keeping the deceased infant."
T'Pur held out steady arms, her face a perfect mask as she gestured once more for the child she had just birthed to be placed back into her arms. "Logical or not, I ask that the infant be returned to me. Should you find my need distasteful, take your leave. I am well and I will do what must be done as soon as my son is returned to me."
The midwife merely tilted her head, before placing the tiny body back into the outstretched arms she had taken it from only minutes ago. "I see no logic in your persistence to hold onto that which you have already lost, but as you are suffering, I deem it necessary. I will take my leave, T'Pur, know that I am merely three point eight minutes away should you need me. You will rest, should you attempt to walk, your injuries will become fresh and infection will set in. Live long, T'Pur."
The woman known as T'Pur watched the midwife lift her hand in the ta'al before gathering her supplies and leaving the small house T'Pur now called her own, all the while her hand absently stroking the bare back of the infant cradled in her arms. T'Pur's gaze became unsteady, her dark hair cool where it lay against her back as she quickened the motion of her hand against the child's back. He lay unresponsive in her arms, warm still and flushed the faintest green as though sleeping. His ears held only the softest point and his hair, sparse as it was, was fair as the sun bleached wheat she had once seen in pictures.
A son born far too early to a woman denounced by her family for the shame she had caused them by creating a child with a man not bonded to her. Love had been a lost plea to the ears of the elders she had stood before, her logical argument to keep the sire of her child falling on deaf ears. He had been bonded to another of worthier blood and she had been stripped of her titles, of her family, sent to live out the remainder of her days in a village far from the capital with a child who would never know his father.
A child now dead.
Her constant rubbing drew warmth against her palm, her eyes blank as she brought them down to stare once again at that fair hair.
Perhaps a death was best for him. His fair hair marked him as something even before his eyes could open to be the warm blue or tranquil green of every Breeder. A Vulcan born with features fair were known to be the most aesthetically pleasing of creatures. Cherished for their beauty, admired for their wild throwback streak of being more emotional than most rather than disgraced for it. A wonderful life, had it not been for one disastrous detail. A Breeder was born to do exactly that, to breed. Once registered, they were given to the highest of ranks to produce child after child, never living life merely existing for a purpose to a man cold and calculating and eager to bond their children against the Breeder's will. They were taken young, trained and coveted in a temple until barely of age to mate. They knew nothing of family, of the mother's they left behind.
"Perhaps it is better that you are..."
T'Pur froze, her hand halting in the illogical motion of rubbing against the infant's back. She had been certain... Perhaps she had lost more blood than first calculated. Her dark eyes pinned on the child in her arms as his mouth parted in the smallest of gasps and his eyes sprung open to the palest and brightest of blues she had ever seen. They studied her, those eyes, so alert for something so young. His lips parted once more, his eyes scrunching closed as a wail left that rosebud mouth, shrill and alive and... beautiful.
Tears she had not believed herself capable of filled her eyes, her arms gripping the new life that existed in her arms. Happy. She was happy. So happy... Her son was alive. He was alive, not dead as the midwife had wrongly believed and not lying limp in her arms but breathing! Screaming and wailing as all infants do.
"My beautiful child..."
Oh but no...
He would never be hers. He would be taken from her, trained to be nothing more than a carrier, loved by no one on this loveless planet. He would never know the touch of her hand against his cheek, never know the joy of having his children grow up around him. He would be nothing but a doll to be admired and drowned in gifts that meant nothing.
No, no she couldn't let that happen. She couldn't let her precious son be that, of all things. He was strong, so strong, he deserved so much more.
A thought flittered across her mind, brief and illogical and yet; she grasped it. Not far, on the edge of this village there existed a research centre built decades ago for the occasional human who sought to learn more about Vulcan from the very planet of Vulcan. Rarely was it inhabited, but if T'Pur recalled correctly, at this very moment there existed in that centre two men seeking to build a ship of both Vulcan and human design and a woman heavily pregnant.
A disguise.
If she could not save her son then T'Pur would hide him. Give him a home far from Vulcan, a home on Earth as a human. She touched the infant's pale face gently, dwelling for a moment in the simple dependence of a newborn child. She would write a note... A note begging them to take her child, a note pleading with them to alter his beautifully slanted brows, to hide his pointed ears in a mould. A note pleading for forgiveness for having abandoned her child.
She stood, the tears within her splitting with the sudden movement and spilling blood across the pale carpet of her front room. It mattered not. Wrapped in cloth, she huddled the infant close to her chest, casting barely a glance at her outer cloak before stepping outside into the gentle stillness of night.
The road before her was not a long one, though each step brought new pain and the blood of her body had begun to soak through the hem of her birthing dress, a fine trail that would be covered come dawn with new sand, as thought the planet was protecting her son. The centre was large, looming in the semi-darkness and a sanctuary to her swaying sight. She placed the child atop the front step, her note tucked between the folds of his blanket and with a swift knock, she fled, her last moments of strength pounding to her feet and carrying her as far away from her beloved son as she could until she reached the steps of her own house and lay upon the stone there, her lips tilting in a new smile and her eyes sliding shut forever.
Winona struggled from her seat at the sound of someone knocking desperately against the front door.
"Alright, alright, I hear you," she groaned as she heaved her weight up, one hand placed over the babe nestled safely in her bump. She cast a curious glance at the clock. Late to have someone unknown knock on their door but not unheard of. The distinct sounds of her husband, George, were heard as he made his way from the study towards her, his jaw opening in a cracking yawn.
"Who is it, dear?"
"Well if I knew that, George, I wouldn't be getting up to answer it," Winona responded with a grin, her hand twisting the handle until the door swung open and she was faced with... nobody.
"Well," she said, put out, "I can say that's the first time I've ever heard of a Vulcan playing ding dong ditch, why I..."
She broke off, her gaze sliding downwards as she was about to shut the door again. "George."
George Kirk moved around his wife, his blue eyes landing on the bundle of cloth wriggling on the doorstep. His wife's fingers were pale against the door frame, her eyes blown wide and her hand automatically sliding over the bump he had grown so used to seeing. A bump due any day now.
He sighed, it seemed even on Vulcan woman had unwanted babies. His fingers moved to pluck the bundle from the cold stone, unwrapping the cloth as his wife shut the door behind him. A letter fell from the bindings and Winona was swift to pick it up, her eyes wide with dismay as she read. When she had finished, a sheen of tears lay against her sight and she blinked to look into the tiny, pale face of the first blonde Vulcan she had ever laid eyes on.
"I didn't know you could get Vulcans in this colour." George supplied with a smile, though it was strained and full of confusion. Who would throw away a child? How could a blonde come to exist in a gene pool of only dark and darker? "Never heard of a blonde before."
"He's special," Winona's voice was soft, her fingers crumpling the letter in her grip as she reached out to take the tiny boy into her arms. "And he looks like a James to me."