Hey! I'm really excited about all the good feedback I received on chapter one! Thanks to everyone who liked/read/commented/favorited/followed. :)

Thank you to the first commenter for clearing up that thing about the 14-month gestation period. I'm pretty sure I'd forgotten about that!

I would also like to thank lyssander for clearing up my question about mission length!

-Since I wrote the above A/N, I've received more lovely reviews and I plan to reply to them all individually! I'm glad that people seem interested in this story. I know my updates take forever, but it's only because I don't want to write just anything. I want everything to keep the story going for you guys.


No one ever wanted to come to Sickbay for their check-up. Leonard was accustomed to having to chase the crew members down when the time came—sometimes in the literal sense. No matter their age, no matter their species, crew members just didn't like check-ups.

Needless to say, it struck him as odd when Commander Spock showed up to Sickbay as scheduled. Admittedly, the Commander handled his appointments better than most—he always showed up on the day he was due. Still, Bones normally didn't expect him until after he'd finished his shift, meditated, and eaten his dinner.

"You're here," Bones deadpanned. He arched his brows in utter bemusement as Spock moved to stand before him.

Spock tilted his head, in what Leonard identified as inquisitiveness, and replied, "It would appear so, Doctor."

"Right." Leonard shrugged—it wasn't his business, and he didn't want to make it his business. He gestured wordlessly to the sea of biobeds before them. "Pick your favorite."

They were finished in fifteen minutes. No words were shared between them, besides Leonard's check-up script, but that wasn't necessarily outlandish. The thoughtful look on the Commander's face throughout the entire ordeal, however, was a completely different story.

Spock rose from the biobed and headed back in the direction from which he'd come. Bones picked up what instruments remained on the bed and turned around. Just as quickly as he'd done so, he stepped back.

The Commander hadn't left. He was standing there, in the doorway, silent, staring, and stoic. Honestly, it made Leonard more than a little uncomfortable. The two men looked at each other for a very, very long time.

Until Spock's leveled voice cut through the silence, like a blade.

"Doctor. It has come to my attention that Lieutenant Uhura recently took an extended period of leave. As I am aware of the principle of doctor-patient confidentiality, I will only ask you whether or not you are knowledgeable of her whereabouts."

Doctor-patient confidentiality. Hell, Leonard couldn't even tell Spock that Nyota was perfectly fine (last he'd checked, at least). Lying to him about her whereabouts wasn't high on Leonard's List of Wants and Needs. It was a good thing that he really had no idea where she'd gone, then.

"No," Bones said, and, despite the fact that his answer was honest, he still felt a need to duck his head and study his instruments, until Spock quietly thanked him and left Sickbay.

Leonard breathed a sigh of relief and, finally, he looked up. An ensign had entered. Bones had no idea what the kid had seen—he didn't care.

"Come on," Leonard grumbled. He headed over to the sink to rinse out his tools. As the water ran down his wrists, his forearms, Bones couldn't help but let his mind wander to Spock, and Spock's puppy dog expression, and Spock's baby—not that Nyota had ever indicated who the father of her unborn child was.

Leonard didn't know what he'd been thinking, taking on the role of her secret keeper. He wouldn't betray her, of course, principles considered or not, but the weight of the promise he'd made to her was just now flattening his broadened shoulders.

He needed a drink.


Nyota had never been this quiet.

Even as a toddler, Nyota had always been rambling off about something or another—at least, that's how Kamau remembered it. And, while he could be a little biased—considering how she was seven years younger than him, and his sister, and, in his mind, she was always rambling—he knew that he wasn't wrong on this one.

Nyota was downtrodden. Distressed. Upset.

Since she'd returned home five weeks ago, she'd been eating all of her meals appropriately, taking care of her body, keeping busy. But, throughout all this, she'd been almost completely and utterly silent.

Kamau had held off on asking about it for as long as he could—there was every chance that she was just in one of her moods, which, admittedly, occurred every once in a blue moon and was highly unlikely. Still, he counted on the impossible. Until the Uhura family's annual summer bash rolled around and Nyota passed on Aunt Akeela's sweet potato pie. Nobody ever said no to Akeela's sweet potato pie.

So, the next day, after he'd taken care of his hangover, Kamau made his way to the den, where Nyota had taken a liking to holing herself up. She would listen to music there, she would do work there, she would practice her languages there, and, once or twice a week, she'd opt to take her meals there.

Today, she was reading.

From the novel's spine, Kamau knew that she happened to be reading An Analysis on the Five Stages of Grief. She was rather engrossed in the book, too, because she didn't acknowledge his presence until he cleared his throat, loudly.

Startled, Nyota all but jumped into an upright position on the settee she'd been occupying. When her eyes rested on Kamau's face, and a glimmer of recognition glazed over her gentle features, she shot him a look.

"You scared me," she muttered. She shut the book in her lap and watched him, expectantly. He didn't say a word. She creased her brows. "Hello? Earth to Kamau? Kila kitu nzuri?"

Kamau rolled his eyes and maneuvered his way to her side. "Oh, I'm fine. It's you who has the problem, dada."

Nyota turned away from him. "What are you talking about, Kamau?" There was guilt in her tone.

"Only the fact that you are not talking, Ny."

"I thought my talking annoyed you."

"It did. Still does. But that never shut you up before." She looked so small when he was standing, he noticed. And, right then, she just looked small in general, somehow smaller than she'd been all those years ago, when they were running in fields together and they could actually manage to frighten one another with ghost stories.

If he had to compare it to anything, Kamau thought, she was as small as she'd been when their Uncle Heshima died. He didn't die like a "normal" person; as his sister, Nyota and Kamau's mother, liked to say, he died as he'd lived: the center of attention. And he'd done it in the Uhura family room, right before the dinner celebrating his returning home. One moment, Heshima had been telling Kamau about his colleagues in the Xenolinguistics Department at Starfleet Academy; the next, Heshima was face-down on the rug before the fireplace, and his heart had stopped. What happened next was very much a blur. In a state of shock, Kamau watched as family members moved left and right, to and fro, crying, screaming, fretting over Heshima's body.

Through all of the commotion, Kamau saw Nyota huddled in the corner of the coffee table, her eyes never leaving the place where Heshima's body lay, even when it did; and he saw her white-stricken face, the liquid streaming, pouring, down her cheeks. He'd scared her plenty times by then, when she was seven and he was fifteen, but never had he seen her so helpless and tiny. And so he'd sprang into action and grabbed her, took her away from the grown folks who weren't paying her any mind and who were far too distracted to realize what they were allowing a child to be exposed to. He'd taken her upstairs—Makena, too, once Kamau found her outside with their cousins—and he'd assumed the responsibility of keeping his sisters and his cousins (excluding Heshima's four sons, of course) focused on anything save Uncle Heshima.

But he was all Nyota wanted to talk about, if she was going to talk.

He'd been her favorite uncle.

Kamau understood that they'd both seen things since then, both been through more of the ups and downs of life, both given up that phenomenon called innocence. But, for some outlandish reason, he thought all of that was supposed to make you larger, bigger. He thought he'd never have to see her like this again.

The room was quiet for a moment. And then came Nyota's paper-thin voice, the words she managed through the tears she tried and failed to hide from him.

"I—I'm scared, Kamau."

Kamau swallowed thickly. He hesitated, but, ultimately, he ended up right beside her on the settee, taking her into his arms and rubbing her shoulders and back while she stained his shirt with salt.

"I'm so scared," she murmured into his chest. "The baby, it's—."

"It's what, Ny?" There was something weird to him, about referring to his niece or nephew as an "it." But he knew that his sister did it more out of circumstance than anything. At dinner three evenings prior, she'd quietly told her family that she was unsure of the child's sex.

"The baby could…" She trailed off. He didn't push her. He just waited. "The baby could be sick, Mau."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember how I told you I was seeing someone from another species?"

"—Don't tell me he's green, Ny."

She laughed, in spite of herself. "He's not green. But he's not human, either. And that could be a problem." She breathed in, shakily. "The baby's father is the only surviving hybrid of his kind. Everyone before him, everyone after him, didn't make it."

"And you're worried that the little munchkin won't make it." Kamau finished. He hugged her tighter, sighed so hard that he saw her head rise and fall in tandem.

Nyota nodded.

"Well, the fact that you're worried just means you'll do everything in your power to make sure that things go as smoothly as possible. And I think I can help with that."

"It's more than just eating healthy, you know?"

"I'm aware. But that's not what I meant."

She perked up, though she said nothing. He continued. "I have a doctor friend who specializes in the hybrid baby thing. If you want, I can get him to take you on as a patient."

"I'd like that."

"You'd better. I told him you're going next Wednesday."

She didn't say anything. He did feel her mouth curl into a sort of smile.

He felt her breathing even out.

"Did Aunt Akeela leave any sweet potato pie behind?" Her voice was still shattered.

"No." Kamau smirked when he heard her inhale sharply.

"But I saved you some. Figured you'd come to your senses eventually."


Translated from: Swahili

Dada- Sister

Kila kitu nzuri- Everything Good