AN: Thanks for the reviews, apparently asking for them really helps. :)
I still do not own this. Likely, that's not gonna change.
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As they hid in the warmth of the cafeteria from the early December cold and rain, Spock turned to Nyota, standing behind him in the line: „Some time ago,we talked about you gaining interest in xenolanguages when you were little. What confuses me is, why did you decide to join the Starfleet? You said your goal once was to learn all Federation languages. Barring an academic career, diplomacy would be the most logical option with these qualifications."
"Oh, I never wanted to be a diplomat," Nyota answered lightly, taking her meal of choice.
"May I enquire why? My impression has always been that in human eyes, it has a certain kind of...seeming attractiveness," he commented as he followed her to a table.
Glamour, Nyota thought, that was the word. No wonder there was no simple way to express it in Vulcan. "Generally speaking, you are probably right. However, my mother is a politician. I have always known from personal experience that diplomatic life was mostly boring talks with irritating people."
There was a strange almost-expression on his face.
"Did I say something wrong, Esteemed Commander?"
"No," he paused. "My father is an ambassador."
"Oh! I meant no..." I'm not having him quoting Surak back at me when I quoted it at him just a couple of weeks ago, she thought, "...slight on the profession of your father, Esteemed Commander."
By the slight twitch of his eyebrow, she judged he spotted her near miss. "I did not take it as such," he replied. "I merely meant to observe that as an ambassador's son, I had some appreciation for what you describe, and while I would probably coach it in milder terms, your observation is not unjustified."
Nyota's brain caught up with her only now. "Wait, your father is an ambassador?"
"Indeed."
There was a vague suspicion forming in Nyota's mind. It was probably baseless, but..."Where, if I may ask?"
"Currently, he is not posted anywhere, but when he is, he is stationed on Earth."
Or not so baseless. "You mean to tell me...you actually mean to tell me that Ambassador Sarek is your father?"
Spock inclined his head. "Yes, he is. Do you know him?"
"If I...well, no. Of course I don't know him, as such. I have seen him several times, many years ago, but I never actually talked to him. But...wait, if Ambassador Sarek is your father, it means...your mother is Lady Amanda?"
"Indeed."
Nyota stared. After a while, she remembered herself and said: "Well. That is certainly...surprising."
"Why so?"
She shrugged. "Well, for one, I never knew you had mixed heritage. But mostly because I have actually talked to Lady Amanda. She gave me a sehlat made of plush, I remember."
This time, he stared, or at least, did the Vulcan equivalent of a stare. "What exactly does your mother do?"
She smiled cheerfully. "Now, she's a member of parliament of the African Union, but at the time of your father's last but one posting on Earth, she was actually the African president. We met your parents during their visit to Africa, and I did my best to impress Lady Amanda with my Vulcan. She really was impressed, or at least pretended to be, and gave me the toy. I remember how I begged mother to ask the ambassadors for lunch so that I could talk to an actual, living Vulcan.Well, in the end I didn't, of course, since Ambassador Sarek talked exclusively to my parents – I think he was actually quite disgusted that I was present, even though he didn't say anything, naturally – but Lady Amanda was the next best thing. Your father was the first Vulcan I saw in person in my life."
He blinked. "This is most...fascinating."
Nyota was smiling even more brightly now. "It is, isn't it?"
"How old were you at the time?"
"Nine."
One of his eyebrows went up. "Wasn't that a bit old for plush toys already?"
Now she smirked. "It was a plush sehlat, Esteemed Commander. I would gladly accept such a gift now."
'It was a plush sehlat, Esteemed Commander.' Well, that was certainly one sentence she never thought she'd say in her life. Nor had he ever expected to hear it.
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As the Christmas holiday was approaching rapidly, Nyota was trying to get in the spirit. She seemed to spend most of her free time focused on Vulcan culture now, and it was a bit difficult to reorientate to gospels and carols and bits of tinsel everywhere. The choir helped a little, since they were concentrating on holiday songs at the moment, but the problem was that naturally meant Hanukkah tunes too. And they just sounded more natural to Nyota than traditional Christmas carols. So instead of going around the campus singing O Viri, Este Hilares, there was Al Ha-Nisim constantly on her mind. Rachel, her friend from the choir, couldn't stop laughing at her.
"That's because our songs are simply better!" She explained.
"Ha! If only we sang proper carols, like Go, Tell It On The Mountain or something, I wouldn't have this problem. But the European carols are just boring. It's not the spirit of the season at all," Nyota explained her dissatisfaction.
Rachel shook her head. "Not even your carols are a match for us. If Al Ha-Nisim is not good enough for you, there's always Hava Nagila, and nothing beats Hava Nagila."
When Nyota tried to employ Gaila as a judge for this dispute, the Orion simply responded by singing a traditional Orion festive song, which had Nyota blushing for an hour afterwards. Even Rachel had to admit that Hava Nagila didn't quite measure up to that.
With the season, there always came the impossible task of selecting things for her parents. They had everything they wanted, and then some. They also had excellent taste, probably much better than Nyota herself. Buying things for them was lottery. Sometimes, there was a stroke of inspiration, but mostly she just went with anything that struck her fancy and repeated to herself that it was the thought hat counted. She was always showered with gifts from them, which didn't make it any easier.
And as if that task wasn't enough, she was faced with the decision of whether to give Christmas presents to the aliens and non-Christians in her life. Rachel always welcomed Hanukkah gifts, so that was all right, and it was actually Eid al-Fitr this year around the time of Christmas, too, so that took care of Aisha and her sister. And since she wasn't very close with these girls, some trifle would do.
As for Gaila, Nyota had established present-giving with her in their first year, so that was simple. And Gaila was a blessing to shop for. It was enough to just pick some lingerie that wouldn't clash terribly with her skin colour. That just left the other important alien, and that was a question she was carefully trying to forget about.
Should she give him anything? On one hand, they were a student and a teacher, and as such, it seemed inappropriate. And Christmas was definitely not his native holiday. On the other hand, his mother was human. And, they met to talk every evening, which, when she thought about it, made him her closest friend right after Gaila, since there was no one else to whom she talked that often. So that would seem to warrant a gift. Oh, the headache! And she couldn't ask anyone either, since Gaila would just come up with something completely inappropriate and the other girls were not close enough to her to feel comfortable discussing this.
In the end, she remembered him quoting a 20th century Earth philosopher some time ago, and decided that a philosophy book had just the right kind of impersonality about it that even if he considered a gift inappropriate, this one wouldn't be overly so.
However, when she opened a package that was delivered to her on the twenty-fifth of December and discovered a plush sehlat inside, she wondered if she shouldn't have gone with something a bit more personal.
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Spock's time deciding whether to get something for Nyota was actually even more troubled. Like her, he could make a logical argument for both options: on one hand, she was his student, on the other, they were in contact very frequently. Aware that his sense of propriety might not be completely accurate when dealing with human habits, even though he has been living among them for so long, he decided to opt for the logical solution and get some human advice. There were two options open to him, but he judged that his mother did not understand the situation at the Academy well enough for his purposes. Consequently, he selected a gift for Captain Pike – that at least was always easy, a bottle of good Scotch – and went to visit his superior officer a few days before Christmas.
"It's good of you to think of your captain, Spock. And what you selected is a fine bottle, too, I will enjoy it. You never forget, do you?"
"Vulcans have good memory, Captain. And bringing you joy on Christmas is uncomplicated enough," Spock stated frankly as he sat down in his Captain's living room.
The Captain laughed. "I dare say it is. But then, giving gifts to middle-aged men is usually simple. It's the young women I personally have the most trouble with. Finding a way to satisfy them seems impossible nowadays," and he chuckled.
Spock took the offered opportunity. "My problem usually stems from not being able to determine with any certainty to whom should I actually be giving gifts, where is the border between a purely formal acquaintance and a closer one."
Captain Pike laughed again. "No wonder you find this difficult, even humans struggle with it, and it's our custom in the first place. There are no clear lines, Mr. Spock. Do you have some particular problem this year?"
Spock inclined his head. "Frankly, yes, Captain. I have a student whom I am helping with Vulcan language, and we meet every evening for dinner in the Academy cafeteria to converse in my native tongue. I'm unsure what would be the proper behavior on my part."
His companion frowned. "Yes, I see where the difficulty comes from," he paused. "I'd say it was appropriate to get a present in this case. Every day is quite a lot of conversation, after all!"
Well, who was Spock to disobey his superior officer?
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AN: For Gaila's festive song, I'm imagining something along the lines of Nanny Ogg's Hedgehog Song, only a thousand times more explicit. Come to think of it, Gaila and Nyota do have a kind of Nanny-Granny dynamics about them...
Oh, and if you don't know those Jewish songs, definitely listen to them. Unlike Nyota, I actually love the traditional European carols, but Rachel is right, Hava Nagila is hard to beat.