The Vulcan steps on with the cautious, slightly desperate air of a new parent. The baby strapped to his chest isn't visible because of a powder blue cloth draped over the head, but when he turns, still stepping delicately, a chubby hand is revealed. It grips softly at his shirt with small, uncut baby nails.
"New parent?" I ask. I smile at him.
He doesn't return the gesture, of course. Instead, there is the barest dipping of his head in my direction. That blank, calculating Vulcan stare used to spook me a bit, back when I first joined Starfleet, though I find I'm more used to it now. Nothing prepares me for the sudden rapture I am presented with, though. I see his gaze click over me as if taking pictures – eyes, hair, uniform – all of them categorized in his mind in a flash.
Then it's as if nothing happened. And well, whatever, if he wants to roll that way.
"I have been a father for approximately two weeks." He says calmly. The shuttle lurches very slightly, the balancing system immediately compensating, yet his hands fly up, fluttering a bit around the small bundle like birds in a frenzy as he slowly lowers himself to the seat next to my own. I smile. It perhaps comes off as a bit forlorn, a bit rusty. Very few people my age still possess the ability to smile vibrantly, though, so I don't think much about it.
"Two weeks, huh? Man, he's so little. Or she…?"
"It is a boy. It was more probable that a child born of my partner and I would be male." He shoots me a severely odd look through his lashes, subtle and blunt at once. "My husband and I took part in a medical trial which combined both of our DNA, creating an artificial cell using - "
"There are gay Vulcans?" I exclaim.
Pretty loudly.
The poor man stares at me, face utterly blank.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that!" I add instantly, making myself feel dumber. "Seriously. I just… I mean, I have no problem with it- it just seems like something a tight-ass logical society would have an issue with… oh… um, crap, forget I…"
Well, he's really staring at me now. One eyebrow is positively vying to join his hairline, a crowded row of wrinkles interrupting his young face by standing at attention above the brow.
"You know. Forget I said anything. Just forget it. Pretend I was never here. Your baby's is adorable. Or… small, anyway. I can't really see if he's adorable, he's under a blanket. Um."
It is incredibly bizarre that I somehow manage to start off most conversations entirely normally, but my foot always ends up in my mouth by the end of it. It's something I am, unfortunately, positive I've handed down to my sons. Or Sam, anyway. I don't know how Jim acts these days…
Sharp and cold as it had been the first week Jim had been absent, I feel a kind of animalistic, sickening grief rise up in my chest. My gaze falls to the baby – that tiny hand curled around the man's collar. I try to remember what Jim had looked like when he was that small. How he had acted.
I look back up at the Vulcan, only to find that he is smiling.
Smiling.
The Vulcan is smiling. Dear god in heaven, I don't know what to hope for anymore if I'm making Vulcans grin like loons. Well, not like loons, it's far too miniscule of a thing for that. Or fairly repressed loons, if loons they must be, but still.
Either way. I had the distinct impression he was silently laughing at me. Which he had every whopping right to, and yet, "What're you smiling at?" I shoot at him.
Slick as butter, the thing falls right off his face, skin instantly smooth and flawless. The only hint anymore is this slight catch in his eyes, a small twinkle. "I find that your persona greatly resembles a close acquaintance of mine. There is no need to apologize. I can see that you quite obviously did not intend any type of offense."
"Right. Sweet. Good." I say, sighing slightly.
The eyebrow twitches again.
"So. Since you're not offended by me… what's your name? And the baby's, if I can pronounce it. If not, can you do an old lady a favor and just kind of make one up and pretend? I'd feel awful if I couldn't pronounce it. Mine's Winona, by the way. Winona Kirk."
"I am Spock." He says delicately. The name struck some familiar chord, though I couldn't place it. Who knew, though. It was probably the Vulcan version of 'Smith.' "The infant's name is… George."
The shuttle comes to a stop. Artificial gravity and balancing systems do their jobs, but I still feel it inside me, the weight of speed pulling at my gut. I laugh, though. A dull, small laugh. "George." I say, quietly. The name is poison on my tongue, and it puts down roots, growing between my teeth where I know I'll taste it for days. "Of course. One of those lovely, conveniently pronounceable Vulcan names."
He says nothing.
For a long stretch of time, neither of us speaks. The shuttle starts up again, and as it does, the small thing reaches, stretching against him, waking. In a desperate flash I remember Jim, I remember Jim in his little crib, curling himself around, the wispy little spiders of his hands reaching up and trying to get into his wide little mouth. Curling around to the side and back so much in his crib I was scared he'd hurt himself before he was half a year old.
Great, nearly vindictive relief floods because I remember him. And though I try to ignore the edge of the guilt that whispers 'Why didn't you pick the damn thing up, then, if you were so worried he'd hurt himself?' I can still see those clear blue eyes in my mind, and the gaping little gum smile as he stared at the toys Sam had arranged around him.
"Would you like to hold him?" Spock says. I turn, staring at him, taken aback by his eyes. Because they're wider than any Vulcan's I'd ever seen, and there is something so inherently desperate in them, even if the rest of his face remains immovable.
"What?" I ask, dumbly.
"George. Would you like to hold George? I believe he would benefit." He'd removed the blanket, and 'George' was leaning back against his headrest. I couldn't see his eyes, but I saw two little pointed ears, curled up against his head like blooming flower petals. He has scruffy hair just on the top of his head, in the same way both my kids had had when they were real young. His was dark, though, of course.
"You think – wait, how would your kid benefit from being held by some strange woman who just accidentally insulted his dads?"
Spock stares. He appears to think for a moment. When he answers, though, his voice is sure and steady. "We are attempting to assist him in becoming accustomed to others at a young age so he is not adverse to the idea of staying with adults outside his immediate family for prolonged periods of time. We both are employed in positions that require frequent – and dangerous – trips that would be unsuitable for an infant or child's safety. Therefore, yes, George would benefit from being held and admired by one he is not accustomed to."
I frown. "You sure?" I ask.
He looks a trifle taken aback. "I have not lied to you. Vulcans do not lie." He says.
I pause. Something in me thinks back to the past of me and babies and knows that it must be a bad idea, because I'm incapable, really, of being anything good to anything so small and innocent.
And something in me wants; yearns with every cell and fiber to have a tiny hand cling to my clothes, to have a little heartbeat humming away at my breast and a lolling little head supported by my hand and shoulder, hungry eyes taking in the world around. I think of how that ever-present flush of red that pervades over an infants fat cheeks would be green for this tiny little thing.
"Ok." I say. Selfishly.
The man doesn't even hesitate as he quickly but gently begins to undo the many small safety connections that hold the baby in place. I wonder what kind of job he has. I wonder if perhaps he expects someone else to care for the little one eventually on a permanent basis. He did say 'dangerous.'
And then he turns the little guy around, sleepy, large eyes blinking blearily up at me, and I find myself stopping wondering immediately.
My hands react as if running off of some delayed instinct. I hold the boy. I support his small head, running a thumb up over the curled-in pointed ear, watching it unfurl beneath my finger, the green veins beneath the skin like the threads running through a leaf.
The eyes. The shape of the head. The way the hair falls, even if it's dark hair. The chub on his wrist and around his sharp little jaw.
And suddenly, I know that I was fooling myself. That Sam had been the one who used to twist himself up in the crib trying to get comfortable. And that I would always reach in past the toys that George would arrange around him. I would always try to adjust him and help the little guy out. I know this because the baby in that memory looks nothing like this one, and this one is Jim, through and through.
And I can't remember a speck of Jim's childhood. But those eyes – those vivid, electric blue eyes stare up at me out of this baby's face, forcing my mind back, forcing my limbs back to clutching around a small, little thing while George is dying, while George is speaking, while George is screaming "I love you, I love you so much," and my body bleeds out an afterbirth and I am empty, empty everywhere, and death is all I can feel in my arms, and this little one really is named George, isn't he?
My body may have rejected these eyes in a baby the first time, but it seems all of me is crowding at the surface of my skin, my lungs and heart and eyes all waking up without me ever really knowing they were asleep, screaming at me 'here he is, this is what you lost, you stupid woman!'
You stupid woman.
This isn't what I say, though. I pull the baby – I pull George to me without being able to help myself, watching the way one of his little hands reaches up and catches hold of a wrinkle in my shirt. I say "He's a beautiful baby boy."
"Yes." Spock agrees. He doesn't thank me, as most parents do when others compliment their children, and I feel an undeserved swell of pride at my son's ability to find this straight-forward oddball of a Vulcan. But if Jim has done anything good, and he has, god knows he has, and now I remember where I saw this man… if he has done anything good, it's not because of me.
"His eyes." I say. My voice falters. Spock doesn't question me on my meaning, though. I only feel him shift when the dynamic changes, because we both know who we are.
"He'll probably be allergic to some crazy things. Is he allergic to some crazy things?"
"We were able to manipulate his tolerances towards most medicines before his birth using recently developed technology, though we have been told that his allergy to certain foods and fabrics will be omnipresent."
"And depression. Manic-depression sort of runs in our family."
I'm not looking at him. I'm looking at this little boy's eyes, and praying that the train will come to a slow and perfectly safe halt, and reside there for a while, making us all late and letting me hold this baby an hour longer.
Spock bows his head, slightly. If I know Jim at all, (and god knows, after it was too late already, I'd tried to know him) he hasn't told this man this detail about his family. And from what I've seen of this man, he knows already. As he knew who I was.
"You know," I speak, and I don't know why I do, because it hurts like hell right now, but I can't seem to stop, "Sam used to joke. Used to say that none of us actually had it. Depression, I mean. He'd say that together, we were all one crazy head. Because I was the depressive stage. He was the stages that were normal and a little lazy. Jim was manic. Jim was always manic. And George…"
I know it can't possibly be true, but I swear the baby seems to look up at me with more intensity when I say his name.
"George was the mood regulator. He was medication and therapy and… confidence…"
The announcements come on. The attendant says we will be arriving early at our destination due to the cancelation of another shuttle.
George sighs a whistling, toothless baby sigh, resting his heavy head against the soft spot between my breast and shoulder, almost on my arm, giving up on his struggling, in-vain attempts to hold his little head up. Those great big blue eyes close, and I can't for the life of me remember anything past shutting my eyes and holding Jim close in the hospital bed, in a different, higher-flying shuttle. Anything before years later, when I finally woke up only to find him damaged inside and out, through and through, staring at me through the wall that had built up between us since I'd held him so close, last time I'd blinked, or something.
I hadn't been able to look in his eyes on that day. Now, too late, much too late, years later, I feel starved and trying desperately to feed off of the sight of these huge blue things in a baby's head. And we will be arriving shortly, lucky us, due to a cancelation. And this man will take this little thing, and he will go and meet Jim, who will doubtlessly kiss him, kiss the little baby, perhaps never find out who held him today.
"Something tells me it'll be you that's the level headed one in your family." I snap. It's in my own sharp, sarcastic voice, a grin like a warning already sliding over my face without my control. Ordinarily, people flinch. He doesn't. "So you'll have your work cut out for you, eh? I wonder who will be the depressive one. I wonder who will be crazy, and if it's still Jim. I wouldn't know, you see. I mean, I tried. I tried to talk to him again. I would forgive him for being a little shithead." I stare directly into this man's eyes, grin sharp, eyes sharp, arms soft around the baby. "I survived it too, you know! I didn't come out of the Kelvin trying to hate him. I didn't step into life with him and think 'hey, I'll get me an abusive husband!' And I forgive Jim, a thousand times over, for walking out on me. I know I walked out on him, a thousand times over. But it would be nice. It would be nice to know whether or not he's crazy. Whether or not he's tried to kill himself again. If he's alive. If he gets married, or if he has a fucking child."
I wait for him to take the baby back. He doesn't even reach for him. I see salty tears on the top of this baby's head, matting down the soft tuft of hair. He already has a soft bald spot on the back of his head where he lies down. Though I know the tears are mine, some quintessential thought process is forbidding me to think of them as something from my eyes. Some part of me that is now running down over my grandson's head, dampening and darkening his hair. Dipping down fast over that soft bald spot.
As if it is the last, most beautifully important thing on Earth, I concentrate all my energy into remembering if Jim had a soft bald spot. Sam did. I know Sam did.
We come to our stop. People are trying not to look at us as they step off the shuttle, and Spock sits still beside me, waiting as I hold this baby. Try to breath George in through the scent of my own tears, my own blood and skin and scent of age that seems to overpower such a small, precious bit of life. I watch his eyes blink sleepily up at me. Such a serious little thing, even at so young an age. Perhaps he'll inherit Spock's temperament after all. Perhaps he will be forgiving; even to those who do not deserve it.
I hand him back gentle as I can manage, holding his head up, catching his little feet and pulling them gently through the holes for the little pouch strapped to Spock's chest. He secures George, putting a little cushion around his head to catch it if it lulls and zipping him up. He rises. He pauses. He turns to me and stops.
"Jim is happy. He is exceedingly happy. He is still 'crazy,' though he has assured me many times that he couldn't possibly die if… if I were the one to find him. If George were the one to find him. He jumps off of buildings and out of shuttles regularly, with the assistance of a parachute. He buys houses on a whim and agrees to missions that will span many years on a whim. He proposed to me and married me on the same day. He agreed to a medical procedure that was only in its trial period because of his desire to have a child with me. So I assure you, he is most definitely 'crazy'… if this is indeed what you meant by such a pronouncement."
He walks out the door. I hear a shout of glee from outside, and for one glorious moment, there is Jim, rising up from behind a group of tourists where I couldn't see him sitting: proud, gleeful, and so very much a father and husband as he kisses Spock for a moment longer than appropriate in front of people. As he leans down and kisses the baby on the top of his head, touching a fat little baby cheek, running his finger up over the ear as I had, not two minutes ago.
And then the doors swish shut, and that is between us, separating us. Through the window, I see Spock speaking, and I see Jim's shock. I cannot read his expression beyond that. He turns, looks back at the windows, which are mirrored from the outside, so of course, he doesn't see me, but he seems to see straight through it all to me, one hand on his husband's shoulder and one hand still rested at the side of his baby's face. The train starts to move, and I watch, shaking, as distance piles up between us, Jim's electric blue eyes following me throughout it all.
A/N: I can't believe the first story I put up in this collection included mpreg. o_o I actually really don't like mpreg.
Um, anyway. This is a collection of short stories. Most of them are from the infamous kink meme on livejournal. I'm going to try to keep a T rating, though there is a chance I won't. You will be given fair warning if I do, though.
This won't be updated on a weekly basis or anything, unless I end up doing it by accident. Rest assured I will never leave you with a cliffhanger unless I already have a sequal one-shot already finished and ready to go, though. It's a pretty safe bet to say that all of these stories will at least contain the characters Kirk and Spock and/or Bones, because those are my personal favorites, and if Kirk and Spock are there... well, I happen to believe in what TOS preached. They were totally doing fade to blacks between episodes.
Well. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. This is unbeta-ed, so sorry if you found any mistakes. If you have any comments, positive or negative, I'd love to hear them.