A couple weeks later, Nyota and Spock got a rare night to themselves for their fifth anniversary. Initially, they'd planned on a dinner with the girls, but when Kirk heard, he insisted that his friends let him baby-sit so they could have some time alone.
"Are you sure you can handle them both?" Nyota asked her friend when they came to drop Leryn and Amanda off at his quarters.
"Yeah, no problem! We'll have a great time. Put together some stuff to eat, play some games or something. I'll try to have them worn out by the time you guys come back."
"O…kay. Call us if you need anything, all right?"
Jim smiled. "We'll be fine. Go."
"Be good," Nyota told Leryn, "And help with your sister."
"I will! I always do." The door finally shut behind them.
"Are you hungry?" Kirk asked Leryn. "We should probably work on dinner."
She shrugged. "I guess. I want to finish my present for Mama and Papa."
"What present?"
She ran over to the little bag that she'd brought with her and pulled out a sheet of paper. On it was a drawing that she'd been working on. "See?" she asked him. "It's me and Mama and Papa and Amanda. And that's a galaxy." She pointed to the shape at the bottom.
"I see. You have a bit more coloring to do, huh?" Everyone's clothes were still blank.
"Yeah. I brought my markers."
"All right. How about you work on that and I'll get dinner. What do you want to eat?"
Leryn thought about it. "Ice cream. And waffles."
Kirk laughed. "Did you really think I was going to go for that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."
A much more sensible meal of chicken and pasta was prepared. "Come eat," Kirk told Leryn as he worked on getting a bottle ready for Amanda. "You can finish drawing later."
"Can't I work on it while I eat?" she asked.
He considered that for a moment. "What if you end up with food on your picture?"
"I'll be careful. I'm not a baby."
He was pretty sure he was going to regret it, but nodded. One can't earn the title of 'fun uncle' without taking a few chances. "All right, fine. But markers only on the table. No glitter. Don't need you ending up with sparkles in your mouth."
Amanda had generally been easy-going so far in the evening, and Kirk was grateful for that. He hadn't baby-sat both girls at the same time before, and had been mostly concerned with the baby. According to Bones, the three-month-old had a temper, but maybe that was just because whenever McCoy saw her, she was being poked and prodded and scanned. Jim couldn't blame the infant for being moody under those circumstances.
"This is way more fun than sickbay, huh?" he quietly asked Amanda as he picked her up and gave her the bottle.
"Huh?" Leryn inquired. Kirk shook his head.
"Nothing. Nevermind."
She shrugged and turned back to her work/food. A chicken tender in her left hand, she contemplated what color to use for her mother's dress. As she reached across the table for the purple marker, her elbow hit her cup. It teetered for a moment before overturning, spilling its contents all over everything – including Leryn's drawing.
Kirk put Amanda back down in her carrier and grabbed a towel to start mopping up the water. Staring at her ruined drawing as the colors began to mix and bleed, Leryn started to cry. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he tried to tell her.
"It's all messed up!"
He tried using the towel to blot up the water that was on top of the picture, but that just made things worse. "You can redraw it," he suggested.
"It'll take too long!"
"Well, then you could draw something else. Your mom and dad will be happy with whatever you give them, I promise." She watched him dubiously. "Come on, do you have more paper in your bag?"
"Yeah," she got out between hiccups, "But I wanted to make a picture of all of us."
Amanda realized at this point that attention wasn't going to be shifting back to her anytime soon. Her dinner had been interrupted mid-bottle and she wasn't happy about it. An ear-piercing wail rang through the room, quickly followed by another, then another.
Looking between the girls, Kirk sighed. "Why did I volunteer for this?" he muttered to himself.
Once they'd arrived back in their quarters, Nyota and Spock quickly decided to skip dinner for two and go straight to 'dessert.' After all, it wasn't often that they got the place to themselves, and it was illogical not to take full advantage of it.
Lying in bed afterwards, she absentmindedly traced abstract shapes on his chest. "Is it strange that I'm kind of weirded out by NOT having to worry about getting caught together?"
"It has been a very long time since we were able to share interpersonal relations without the fear of interruption," he agreed.
Nyota smiled. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing you call it that."
"It is an accurate description," he protested, "Though perhaps not as detailed or crude as other common choices on Earth."
"Has Jim been trying to expand your vocabulary again?"
Spock shook his head. "I believe I have learned more than enough already."
She laughed, sitting up to kiss him. "I love you."
"And I love you, as well."
As much as they would have liked to stay in bed in their quiet quarters all night, they eventually figured that they needed to go rescue Kirk if they ever wanted him to baby-sit again. So they got up, showered – separately, to maximize the chance of actually getting out the door – got dressed and headed for their friend's quarters.
"I am contemplating the odds that Jim has actually reached the limit of the girls' energy stores, as he predicted," Spock commented as they walked.
Nyota laughed. "Probably not. But maybe Leryn will sleep a little later in the morning. We can hope at least."
As they approached Kirk's door, they could already hear Amanda crying. "Uh-oh," Nyota murmured. Spock rang the chime, and the door opened a moment later, the sound of their daughter wailing instantly increasing in volume. "What happened?" she asked as she reached for the baby.
"Long story," Kirk replied. Amanda gave a few more whimpers before she realized whose arms she was in and almost immediately settled down. Jim's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?" he asked the tiny girl. "What, did you just get fed up with me?"
Leryn joined them in the doorway, holding up a sheet of paper with a drawing. "I made this for you," she told her parents as she offered it up. Spock took the paper from her.
"It is a very good representation of Earth," he praised.
She smiled. "I had another one, and it was much better. It was almost done, but it got wrecked and Uncle Jim couldn't fix it."
He looked up at that. "Hey! I tried! I'm not a miracle worker."
Nyota stifled a laugh. "Thank you for trying," she told him. "Leryn, can you say thank you for watching you tonight?"
"Thank you, Uncle Jim," she obediently echoed. Still holding Amanda, Nyota went to help her get her things together.
"It appears as though you are the one who was worn out this evening," Spock told his friend, his face completely neutral.
Kirk rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Those two together make a very effective form of birth control."
TBC...
A/N: My muse demanded a scene with Kirk baby-sitting, so...there it is. :-) Again, thanks so much for all of the feedback I've received.
