How are you feeling?
Pretty shitty.
I take your reversion to vulgar language to be an expression of great anguish.
You have no idea, smarty.
(Shared mental laugh)
I miss you, Spock.
Are you in bed?
That's disgusting, honey. I'm huge.
I only mean to comfort you. Get in bed and allow me to speak to you.
Alright.
Spock began to recite an ancient Vulcan lullaby once sung to him when he was a child. He could hear the breathing of his wife lessen until she was asleep. Feeling the comfort of her own comfort, he drifted into his mind space as well.
On the bridge the following morning, Captain Kirk attempted to wheel out Spock's emotion regarding Uhura's excommunication from the ship. "Come on, Spock. We're not due to reach Dorvan V until 1500 hours. Let's talk." But Spock had no interest in talking and told Jim so, in as many polite terms as he could muster. His sarcastic sounding sass had progressed nicely, though he'd account Nyota for that fact.
He wouldn't talk, but he would glance in the direction of what used to be her chair. As she had recused herself from her duties for the time being, a new communications officer had taken her place. Jim had noticed this, most of his colleges had in fact, and yet they didn't press him. What he was going through presently was something they had not experienced before themselves and wouldn't know what to say anyway.
Two hours prior to their arrival on Dorvan, Spock was taking a break wandering the halls when he ran into Bones who was on his way to the bridge. "Damn it, man," Bones shouted as he dropped his charts, but began apologizing as he saw who bent down to help him.
"Good after noon, Doctor."
"Good afternoon, sir. How is Lieutenant Uhura?"
"In adequate health, if my sources are correct."
"Great," he nodded. "I'll see you later."
Spock continued to his quarters where he meditated heavily for thirty minutes. He had a bad feeling about something, and the worst part was-he just didn't know what of.
Nyota woke up early, struggling to get up, trying time and time again until she gave up and rolled herself out of bed, slowly enough and fell onto the pillows she'd had laid out for her two weeks ago for mornings such as this. She now fully felt like a cow, large in all places and unattractively too. She was nearly full term, this being the middle of her third month in Africa. The idea of women being pregnant for nine months had haunted her, but for ten, nearly eleven, she just couldn't bare it anymore. And on top of all of that, Spock hadn't returned any of her calls. She had been assured that he was off the ship, but she still couldn't fathom his silence.
By now, she was aware that he wasn't going to be there for the birth of their child. This fact frightened her more than anything else. From the moment she realized that she had to face the reality of her baby's adamant arrival, she had been scared. All she had ever heard in her life was the horrors of childbirth, and now her husband wouldn't even be there to ease the pain.
The silence resonating from the house was heartwarming. It was safe to say she didn't want her mother running after her today, at least not for many hours. So in the absence of her husband, she resorted being alone. She took off her night gown and struggled to put on a large warm sweater over her belly. Bottoms was took much more effort, but she survived and sighed tiredly as she made her way out of the room. "You're making it very hard for me to walk, baby," she spoke to the baby in her abdomen. She had recently begun doing this in an attempt to calm her loneliness as well as educate it about his father whom it would hardly meet in its early weeks.
Fortunately for her, the house was entirely one level, and so she didn't have to take any stairs. And so she could say it was her insistence and not Spock's daily nagging, she couldn't consciously think of going down stairs in her physical state.
As it was January, the weather was a cool temperature, warm like when she was growing up, but cool enough for a sweater, in the Vulcan style, of course. It had been a gift from Sarek, Spock's father, celebrating the arrival of his first grandchild. Nyota headed for the direction of the veranda where she meant to relax, but the unthinkable happened: her water broke.
Meanwhile, Spock lay unconscious in the medical bay fighting for his life.
Now let's get to this point. Spock and Kirk had been on a mission in the Dorvan jungles for some time now. It must have been at least a week, the longest mission they've ever had to encounter. Their goal had been to bring medical help to the chief's dying daughter, but unfortunately the lack of a satisfactory communications officer landed them running around the planet to save them from their own incompetence. If that wasn't bad enough, Bones had been taken hostage in order to bring the young girl back to health. With Acting-Captain Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty trying to find Jim and Spock, who were in the midst of heavy terrain and no equipment, their future didn't look so good.
And on top of this all, the planet itself was much hotter than the Captain was accustomed too. As Spock had grown up on Vulcan, one of the hottest planets in the Federation, he was well acclimated to the climate, but his captain was struggling. Every new breath was drying his lungs to the point where he could hardly breathe. In an attempt to save them from destruction, Spock found a thin river in the middle of the forest which he used to bring water back into his friend's cells whose salt was crystalizing on his face. Keeping themselves hydrated, Spock set up a small camp with minimal fire in order to reduce the attention being drawn to them. While Kirk rested, Spock thought of the most logical way to get them out of their present situation.
He concluded that the most logical course of action would be to return to the palace in which Bones was being kept hostage. The likelihood that there were communicators and phasers was much higher and if they were going to get back to the ship, they would need to get in contact with it. When Kirk had regained enough strength to continue, they followed a "breadcrumb" path Spock had left for them. Kirk made the effort to acknowledge how much Spock's logic did actually save his life.
When they were sure that the warriors who had been trying to kill them earlier had been neutralized, mostly by Spock's skilled hand to hand combat as Kirk only got two guys down, as usual, they entered the palace. Once in, Spock found an unsuspecting guard which he attacked in order to extract information from. He had found the location of the medical facilities and they began heading that way. When they had finally reached Bones, the girl had been healed and the chief come to execute McCoy and the communications officer with him. But with the communicator Spock had picked up off the guard he'd disarmed, he called Scotty to beam them back to the ship. Unfortunately, he had gotten caught in the cross fire between a set of phasers and a chief out to get him.
As the rest of the crew with him had been beamed up, he was running for his life when he came across a tall cliff. He looked off it into thin water and then back at the men chasing him, and he made the logical choice. By the time the chief's men had begun search of the river, the Enterprise had already beamed him up.
When he had been recovered, Doctor McCoy and Doctor Marcus along with a whole staff of doctors and nurses began work on him. He appeared to have broken most of the bones in his body and any unnecessary movement could render him inert. With Kirk standing in the back, Spock endured long hours of surgery and procedures all while unconscious, to the point that they had run out of their copper blood supply. Upon entering the ship, Kirk had ordered Sulu to set a course for Earth. Spock was in need of blood and more access to appropriate care. If there was any chance of saving him and then his consciousness, he would need to be on land.
And he would need his wife.
-Who was also being worked on by doctors.
Nyota had been oblivious to the contractions that had been occurring inside her body the entire evening and morning. She couldn't even say what she accounted the pain to. She had been ill most of the pregnancy so she could hardly tell the difference from good and bad pain wise. But now as she was aware of it, she noticed the pain immensely. She howled and cried in agony lying with her legs wide open on the padded table.
When her mother had found her lying on the ground just outside the house, she immediately got her to the medical facility down the road which had monitored her during the past few months. She had been completely silent lying on her side in the transporter with an oxygen mask fueling her. Her mother had tried to talk to her while she was in and out of consciousness, but she hardly heard a word. She was thinking solely of Spock.
In fact, that morning, she had experienced a sensation, a feeling like it was time for their baby to come. And all she could remember with all the commotion was that she hadn't had time to tell Spock, she hadn't thought to. She knew he could never make it now, but he deserved to know what was happening. So as she was being wheeled to a room set especially for her, safe from outside disease and insects, she hazily thought of Spock. When she had had enough strength to speak, she told her mother to call Spock.
She was farther along than expected. When the doctors examined her, they realized that she was nearly halfway to the birth of her child. She was told to walk the wall of the room in order to progress the delivery process, something Spock had encouraged her to do when the time came as he had educated himself on the matter. He had done much research, sending her facts and techniques to try, all of which she read and studied herself, employing her intellectuality to better her discomfort. Despite him not being there, his tricks really helped, especially the Vulcan ones which she felt extra comfortable with, the baby too, cooperating. Within six hours she had progressed three more centimeters and only had two more to go.
By now, her mother had been informed of Spock's current situation. She and her husband had agreed not to tell Nyota until after the baby was due so as not to upset her. But the constant nagging from her daughter to hear from Spock was irritating to say the least, but they kept true to their word. They had been informed by the Captain himself that the Enterprise was in route for San Francisco, the headquarters of the Federation and his home. He said that it would take them at least another day before they arrived and that Nyota should travel there when she is able.
When she asked for the millionth time where her husband was, she was told that he was coming. That he'd be there the next day. That kept her quiet enough to deliver their healthy baby boy Iburu Nevasa Spock, a name they both had agreed upon, Iburu meaning miracle in Swahili and Nevasa being Spock's Vulcan sun.
He was a beautiful baby, with a hint of Spock's ears, shaped nicely into a small triangle, and a light mixture of his mother's and father's complexion, making him a most perfect baby. When he was born, he was hardly let out of his mother's site, placing him on her swollen belly to look at. His size was incredibly in comparison to her own, and she was petite in width. But he loved his mother, hardly making a sound, falling asleep with her. It was as if he knew all the trouble she had gone through to bring him to life. He gurgled, and spit up on her shirt, but she didn't mind, knowing that he was alright and she was too. She couldn't imagine the look on Spock's face when he saw them together safe and sound. And she wasn't even a little upset that he wasn't there because it gave her all the more heroic stories to tell their son about him so he'd be ready when they met.
This was when Nyota's mother had decided to tell her about what happened to Spock. When she was informed, tears welled up in her eyes as she nursed Iburu, and ordered that a communicator be brought to her immediately so that she might communicate with Kirk and the rest of the crew.
"Where is he?" was the first thing she asked when she was put through to the bridge.
"He's in medical bay, Uhura. We have him in a warm healing pod, attempting to speed up the healing process," Kirk responded, looking sadly in her eyes, having cried himself not long ago.
"Connect me to medical bay, Jim. Please."
"He won't be awake, Uhura. He hasn't opened his eyes since the mission."
"Please, Jim," she pleaded again and he sighed sadly and called for Bones through the ship's communication system. Within seconds, Nyota and Iburu were looking at Spock lying motionless in a pod just as Kirk had said. Instantly, Iburu began to cry, the first since he was born. Crying herself, Nyota started rocking the baby up and down in her arms trying to console him. "It's okay, honey. Daddy's going to be alright," she whispered. Over the newborns tears, she asked the doctor if there was any of the villain Khan's blood to cure him as it had for Jim. But Bones only answered that what small supply they had they had used and it wasn't showing any signs of aid.
"I'm sorry, Uhura," he mumbled.
"I want to be there with him," she muttered back, and hung up before she had to hear anyone else speak to her.
It's finally done. Baby Spock/Uhura has arrived. Reviews and praise welcomed as always. But don'e stop there because I'm not done yet. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
