"I…" Spock says, "you are alive?"
Nyota notices with a start that the English being spoken is not just coming from his translator. That's Spock speaking. She knows he's picked up that one of her languages much as she's picked up one of his, but it's much simpler to just let the translator do the thing it was built for.
He has an accent. It's not something he can place, but the literally alien syllables sound strange in his mouth.
The woman nods. "Yes," she says. "Did Sarek say differently?"
Spock looks at his dad. Nyota cannot read his expression. His expressions generally map to human ones, but there's always a chance she could wildly misinterpret something and she's not even going to try, here. "I believe he implied as much."
"I could never find a way to tell you," Sarek says.
"You led me to believe I was profoundly genetically abnormal."
"You are." Sarek sighs and looks over at Spock's mother. "You are half-human after all." He rubs the back of his head with his hand, something Spock does not do. "I did not expect to become with child from a human woman," he continues, "and so I was less careful than perhaps I should have been."
"To be fair," Spock's mother says, "women tend to be the ones to carry children among humans, although of course that's not always the case." She looks at the gathered crew of them. "You're all Spock's friends, I take it?" She looks at her son. "Sarek freaked out so much when he found out he was pregnant. I guess would have revealed to the planetary government that he was sleeping with a human." She puts a hand over her mouth, possibly stifling a giggle, when she notices Nyota roll her eyes. "I don't know all of it, but I guess he bailed on his last assignment to find me." She looks over at Sarek. "It was very romantic."
Something in Sarek's face twitches.
The vaguely shell-shocked expression on Spock's face doesn't really go away.
"I am half-human?" Spock asks. "Half-alien?"
"Yes," Amanda says. She is being very good about the whole shell-shocked sudden son thing.
Nyota makes an executive decision. Grabbing Jim by the wrist, she pulls him towards the center of the Common, where there's an absolutely massive plinth supporting an equally massive statue.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"Giving them space," she answers.
She notices the rest of the Enterprise crew following them except for Bones, who is still hanging out near Spock.
"So…" she asks, "you have any mysteriously alien parents?"
He shakes his head. "Apparently something funky happened when my parents were in space, but that probably doesn't mean anything." He shrugs. "
"You think I'd be able to go with him?" He says after a beat.
"What?"
"Go back to Vulcan, I mean."
Nyota stares at him.
"You would do that?"
He nods.
"Maybe," he says, which contradicts the nod, but this is Jim. Despite outward appearances, he does put a lot of thought into the big things he does when he has the time to do so.
Nyota stares at him. "What would you do on Vulcan?" she asks.
He shrugs. "Something other than live out my life in a small town," he says. "If I stay here, all I've got left for me is the army. If Spock lets me go back to Vulcan, I could, I don't know, act as a cultural envoy, or just… learn everything I can." He grins, and she thinks about how much he wanted to be an astronaut, before never quite managing to go to college.
"I know what you mean," Nyota says. She hasn't thought much about what it would mean to be the only person on the planet to speak Vulcan, to carry that secret with her for her whole life.
"I know it's kind of a cop out to go 'earth sucks, let's go somewhere else,'" Jim says, "but—"
"Earth sucks, let's go somewhere else?" Nyota answers. "Yeah—yeah."
"Do you think we've given them enough time?"
"Probably."
They walk back towards the group. Nyota notices the rest of their crew doing the same. Apparently she isn't the only one who's had the idea to leave Spock with his parents for this.
Spock looks like a mess, which is probably good for him, and his dad looks perturbed, which is probably the vulcan equivalent of "feeling extreme emotions."
Bones, ever the diplomat, asks, "Wait, so are vulcans seahorses?"
"Excuse me?" Sarek asks. He could be offended, but there would be literally know way for Nyota to know.
"You know," he says. "Weird alien biology, or whatever."
Sarek, with a delicacy that is honestly impressive, says, "On Vulcan, the equivalent group of animals to Earth mammals splits the carrying of the children and the… feeding of the infants."
Bones nods. "Fascinating," he says. "I'm sure that must make some evolutionary sense, but I can't think of one."
"You all came here from Iowa?" Amanda asks.
Nyota shakes her head. "We kind of picked up everyone on the way," she says. "I guess that's what happens on roadtrips? A lot of them don't really have anywhere else to go."
That is apparently the cue for Pavel, who really is the most representative example of that trend.
"I guess," and this is hard for Nyota to admit, "I guess we don't have much else to do?" They've helped Spock. He's either going to stay here, or go home, and either way he probably isn't going to go back to Riverside.
Nyota doesn't want to go back to Riverside either, but it's not like she has no options. She's managed a reasonable education for herself, while Jim—well there's a reason he never quite managed to be an astronaut like his parents.
Sarek looks almost sad for a moment, which is only weird because Nyota knows he's Vulcan.
"As I have explained to my son, I will be remaining here, on Earth, until such time as my different lifespan arises suspicion," Sarek says.
"What will you do, then?" Nyota asks Spock.
He looks at Jim. "I do not know," he says.
"Can I go with you?" Jim blurts, like the words aren't entirely under his control.
Spock takes a long moment to reply. "We must talk further," he says.