Have We Been Here Before?
Chapter Twenty-six - Building the Gate
Enterprise
Mid April 2269
Spock
When Grayson crawled across the floor and pulled on his pants leg just as he was beginning to stand up, he almost lost his balance, grabbing at the desk top to prevent his stepping on his son. Hearing his startled huff of breath, Nyota came running, and plucked up Grayson. "I think we need some way to keep him in the playroom when we are working."
He was sure she was right.
The next evening, as they sat in the mess hall eating supper and talking with their friends, he brought up the subject, and Scotty knew exactly what was needed. "A baby gate, tha's what ya need. Works a charm."
As Spock had never heard of a baby gate before, Scotty launched into a long-winded explanation, interrupted by Chekov's assertion that this was a Russian invention. Scotty gave him an astonished look and shook his head. Scotty offered to help in the construction, and Pavel volunteered as well. They would build it on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday afternoon, Scotty and Pavel showed up at the door with their arms laden with construction materials. Spock answered, Grayson in his arms. Nyota was off, exercising with her friends. She would be very surprised when she returned.
Spock carried Grayson into the playroom and sat him down on the bright floor cloth, giving him several toys. And the men began, first putting together the framework, measuring carefully to be sure that it would fill the entire doorframe. Two long crossbars were cut, and brackets were made to fit them.
The crossbars were secured to the doorframe first. It was while they were doing this that Grayson began to fuss. Pavel went straight to the synthesizer and dialed up one of the teething biscuits, which he gave to Grayson. Grayson smiled and wiggled, the biscuit gripped between his gums.
Pavel went back to help again, holding the crossbar in place while the brackets were secured to the doorframe. When both crossbars were secure, the framework was then joined to them, the whole thing being very well joined together and secure. The men stepped back, regarding their work with pleasure. Grayson, however, was most definitely not please. They watched as he tried every way he could think of to move the gate out of the doorway.
Scotty grinned and high-fived Pavel, who was grinning as well. Spock thanked the two of them for their help, and showed them out. He then spent several minutes cleaning up the remainder of the debris left from the construction job. By the time he finished that, Grayson was most definitely becoming fussy. He sat down on the living room side of the baby gate and began to talk to his son.
When Nyota got back home, she was treated to the sight of her two men, seated on opposite sides of the baby gate, holding a conversation. She felt it was probably a good thing that very little of what Grayson said was intelligible at this point, for the tone of his voice said very clearly that he was not at all pleased with what his father had done. However, she was pleased. There would be no stepped-on baby fingers in this household! She walked over and bent down to kiss the back of Spock's neck and watched his ears turn green, and then she settled herself down beside him to watch her son banging on the bars of his new cage.