Thank you to everyone who read or reviewed the last chapter. I'm sorry for the lag between updates. I had a little bit of a creative block on this story so I kept working on other things until I was ready. We are really getting towards the end of this part. Sometimes it's hard to tie all the parts together. I had to step back for a moment to figure out how I wanted things to go.
Chapter 22: Ghosts
"Do not make assumptions about how much another person is able to handle. If you keep doing so, you'll never see their true strength." Chapter 2 of the Idiots Guide to Family Bonding, revised third edition
Nyota's head hurt. It had for the last few days, but it was worse now. She also wants to strangle one of her boyfriends, due to not telling her things that she needed to know. Spock has had days to tell her the truth about her father, but didn't and that meant she found out by accident in the worst way possible. Thankfully for him, she was restraining herself.
It's a silent ride to work as she ignores Spock. She spends most of her time picking at the toaster strudel that Jim forced her to bring with her. She wasn't that hungry. Not after discovering that her father came with a ticking clock. Her stomach is too upset to keep anything down.
She wished Ivy was with them so she had somebody to talk to, but today was one of the days where Ivy had morning classes at the downtown UF San Francisco campus. Maybe it was for the best because in addition to giving Ivy a reprieve from the various Starfleet cadets gossiping about her, this gave Nyota more time to figure out how to tell Ivy that their father is dying because of his own actions.
Nyota still has no idea how to do that. Does she tell Ivy the truth or does she sugarcoat it? Did Ivy already know that their father completely sucked at monogamy? How does one begin a conversation like this? Maybe this is why De'bo'rah keeps putting it off. Maybe she should wait until De'bo'rah actually tells her officially.
At the same time, every day that she keeps the bad news to herself, it is another day with their father lost to Ivy. Nyota doesn't know exactly how Ivy feels about losing that time, but maybe she would want to spend that time with the man. Does her little sister miss their father? Does she want to see him again? Does she need to say a proper goodbye?
Nyota knows she doesn't want to see him again. She's still too angry about his recent actions. However, maybe things are different for Ivy. Yes, he tried to use her to hurt Nyota, but he was also the one who kept her away from her monstrous biological mother. Maybe Ivy would feel like she should tell him something because of that.
Ivy spent more time with him than Nyota ever did. Nyota spent her formative years with Sarah. Ivy was with their dad. Always daddy's little girl, maybe because he was the one who got her away from hell. Their past relationship may mean more to Ivy than recent actions, especially actions made under diminished mental faculties.
Although just because Nyota understands how difficult saying something like that is, it doesn't mean that she's not mad at Spock for withholding this information from her for days. Which explains why she can't talk to him. (Okay, she was madder at De'bo'rah, but she couldn't actively express her anger at De'bo'rah because her husband was dying and Nyota didn't want to push her farther away.
"You're angry at me." Spock finally says 10 minutes into their drive. Oh good, he's getting better at picking up social cues.
"I'm not angry." That was a blatant lie and she knew it.
"You're upset with me." And apparently so did Spock.
"No." She responded very quickly.
"You're lying" Nyota closes her eyes. Seriously, why did he have to get this perceptive?
"And you're using contractions which worries me." Spock raises an eyebrow at her.
"I'm not angry. I have a headache and I did not sleep very well last night." And I keep dreaming about my father's funeral. But I'm not going to discuss that with you.
"Do you need some acetaminophen?" Spock asked genuinely concerned.
"I took some before we left the house and I think it will kick in any moment." Not a lie and she hopes it really does.
"Do you feel that you are able to perform adequately at work, regardless of your incapacitation?" Spock asked, still concerned.
"I'm okay. Besides class will be more restful with Jamie still grasping the concept of sleeping for more than an hour at a time."
"You were able to get her to sleep successfully last night." The reason why she ended up overhearing that particular conversation is she lost the coin toss on who would go help Jim get Jamie to sleep. Really, it was for both of them because neither could sleep through that.
"De'bo'rah was already with Jim and… Okay I don't even know how to explain what happened." She really doesn't.
"De'bo'rah told you the real reason why she came?" And yet, Spock knew.
"No, she didn't tell me anything. Just like she hasn't since she got here. She did tell Jim about my dad being on his deathbed and I just happened to be in the hallway. That means that no one has told me that my father is dying, including you." She gives Spock icy glare number three.
"I felt it most prudent for De'bo'rah to tell you the truth. However, I did try to prepare you for the eventual possibility." Which involved strange movie choices and talking about his attempts to make amends with Sarek after Amanda's death.
"Because movies make everything better right? Sometimes I think you just kept quiet because you didn't want to deal with pesky human emotions." Nyota accused.
"I do not like seeing you in pain." He tried to grab her hand, but she pulled away.
"I'm in pain because you didn't tell me and I have a headache." She rubs her temple with her fingers."
"There are various techniques I can utilize to help alleviate that pain." Spock starts to move a hand towards her.
"Don't," she pulls away again. "Just keep your eyes on the road. If you touch me right now you're going to be home for at least a week due to psychic backlash."
She's angry at everyone. Nyota was furious with De'bo'rah because she never told her what was going on. Not just her father dying, but about the fact that her marriage has been a sham for years. Nyota can understand why she didn't tell Ivy, but Nyota is a 27-year-old Starfleet officer. She watched an entire planet be imploded in front of her. She can take the truth that her father managed to ruin marriage number three due to the fact he cannot keep his dick to himself.
She can take the truth about his mortality hurried about by his own choices. Instead she finds out by accident and now she's stuck wondering how to break the news to Ivy.
Of course De'bo'rah would not have been put in the position that she was if her father did not do what he did. She's specifically angry at the man for putting De'bo'rah's life at risk. They got lucky about the STI. He could have passed the same death sentence to De'bo'rah and it only did not happen that way because of her alien heritage.
Nyota was also angry about the man's hypocrisy. Apparently it's okay for him to sleep around and cheat on his wife. You know, as long as it's just one person at a time. But it's not okay for her to have two boyfriends that respect her and treat her as an emotional and intellectual equal (when they're not trying to keep bad news from her).
She's angry at her father for not being immortal. He was going to leave Ivy to fend for herself because of his bad choices. There's enough prophylactics in the galaxy to not have stuff like this happen. You don't even have to pay for the stuff. It is part of the Federation's goal to eventually become a money free society by next century.
She's furious at Spock for not telling her or at least not directly letting her know this was coming. His movie choices do not count because she's just assumed that he was working through Amanda issues. She's just a bit of a mess.
"I can feel your anger and sadness without physical contact." Spock's words bring her back to the present.
'Do you realize how much of it is directed at you?' She thought to herself. Then she remembered all of those journal articles that Jim's ex-boyfriend Dr. Kim sent her about Vulcan mental bonds.
"Should you be able to do that?" She asked, because Spock would have to know more than her. She's already well aware that Vulcans keep a lot of their mating practices to themselves. Arlene had to sign two nondisclosure agreements before they would fill her in on some of the more job pertinent things that she needed to know.
"I do not know. I feel that is a question best suited for Dr. Weston. You should make a new appointment with her." Spock suggested.
"I will after midterms," she told him. "Spock, we have dated each other long enough for you to know that I hate being lied to. And that's what you've been doing for the last several days. So don't expect me to want to pretend like everything is okay right now because it's not. Because as mad as I am at my father for screwing the wrong person and putting himself into this mess. I'm mad at you for knowing about it and not warning me."
She told him going off in a semi tirade. Seriously, why did they have to be caught in traffic? If they just had a vehicle with hover capabilities, this wouldn't be a problem, but Jim loved his vintage vehicles and apparently, this car belonged to Amanda before she married Vulcan royalty.
"I did not lie." Spock replied.
"A lie of omission is still a lie." She tells him.
"I am aware."
"How long have you known my father is dying?" Nyota asked
"Since we brought Jamie home from the hospital." Spock's response made her even more upset.
"It's been days. Why didn't you say anything?" She wasn't yelling at Spock. She was almost yelling at Spock, but she was not quite there yet.
"It was De'bo'rah's place to inform you. She wanted to do that herself. Although I did try on multiple occasions to get her to discuss this with you directly."
"Obviously not hard enough."
"I am of the opinion that the only possibility that would have worked was to lock both of you in a room together until you discussed the situation. Even then,' I am not certain.
"My father is dying. My father's dying because he fucked around on his third wife. And apparently everybody thinks that I can't take this news. But I can." Her words were calm and even which surprised her. She was tempted to scream, but that would just disprove her point.
"I do not believe De'bo'rah delayed in informing you of the situation because she does not see you fully capable of handling such news. I believe she delayed because she's not ready to tell that her husband is dying because he engaged in sexual relations outside of their relationship without permission or notification."
She knows that there is a valid point here. Okay, she can understand why De'bo'rah was reluctant to tell her this, but it still doesn't change the fact that she had a right to know and was purposely kept in the dark for too long.
"That still doesn't change the fact that I should've been informed immediately." Nyota argued.
"Are you more upset about the fact your father is dying, the circumstances that led to his death, the fact that De'bo'rah did not disclose the true nature of his current circumstances to you directly or the fact that I was aware of those circumstances before you were informed due to indirect means?"
"I don't know." She said going back to ignoring her boyfriend because all of the above is not an option.
Thankfully they were only in the vehicle for five more minutes before they reached the underground parking garage of the Academy. As soon as he parked, Nyota is on her way to her Introduction to Klingon class. She doesn't stop to kiss him, which is a normal part of their morning ritual. Spock doesn't try to kiss her. Maybe he realizes how upset she really is.
She's thankful her 9 AM is a small class of about 15 students at this point. Many people dropped when they realized that this would not be an easy class at all. This makes attendance easy which is why it's easy for her to notice that Kevin Chan's girlfriend, Elizabeth Simmons, isn't there. She'll check her email later to see if Liz informed Nyota of her absence before class. Notification of your Professor is a requirement at the Academy, especially in the language classes.
Too much of their work involves participation, such as with today's class. She lets the students run through of the study guide for the midterm while she takes something else for the headache because what she took earlier is not working. She's feeling worse. She should probably read her emails while her students are busy, but everything on her PADD is starting to blur together.
Finally after two hours, she's able to leave. Of course, when she gets back to her office, there is a box of chocolate dipped pretzels waiting for her. Once she sees that they're from Spock, not Jim, they go into the compost bin because her head hurts too much to deal with this.
"What did those chocolates ever do to you?" Her officemate Garcia asked.
"They were from Spock and I'm a little upset at him right now." So it's best that they go into the trash so she doesn't stress eat, not that she wants anything from him right now.
"Why? What could he have done that warrants throwing away what was probably good chocolate covered pretzels? It's not like he is sleeping with his assistant. My now ex did that a lot." Her colleague explained.
"Because he doesn't have one." Nyota quipped back. "It is nothing that sordid. I'm just not in a chocolate pretzel mood." Although maybe she could find a way to make the headache and nausea go away.
"There has to be more to it than that. Why are you upset?" She asked.
'My father's dying.' The words are on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't say it. She really doesn't want to say it out loud. That will make all this to real.
"My stepmom told Spock something about what's going on with my dad that she has yet to tell me about directly and I found out that Spock didn't tell me. That's why I'm not in the mood for apology pretzels." Nyota explained
"Did she purposely ask him not to tell you yet?" Garcia asked.
"I don't know." Spock made it sound that way, but she really doesn't know for sure
"You should probably talk to him or your stepmom before you get all self-righteous. He obviously feels bad about it. He did bring you chocolate covered pretzels, good ones at that." Nyota knows she's right, but she's still upset with Spock.
She doesn't say anything else to Garcia and picks up her personal communicator. It's filled with messages from Jim and Spock. Most of them from Spock, at least, are apologies because apparently De'bo'rah really did tell him not to say anything. She doesn't reply to any of his messages because she's still mad. But trashing the chocolate covered pretzels are a great improvement over the cell phone throwing at her former cubicle mate incident from last school year.
She does reply to Jim because first, she's not as upset with him. He didn't lie to her. He just held her in bed as she cried last night. Jim didn't even try to get her to talk about what happened. She was really thankful for that. The other reason why she needed to check up on Jim was only half of his messages are coherent.
Me: Did you tell Spock to get me apology pretzels? Also, when did you last sleep? You last three emails were all about dim sum.
Captain sexy pants: Dim Sum Funeral. It's a movie about dealing with parental death. Although maybe The Descendants would be better. Not the remake, the old version with George Clooney.
Me: I do love a good George Clooney movie. Although I am worried about your sleep deprivation.
Captain sexy pants: I'm fine, mostly okay. This is worse than that time I went four days without sleep because Scotty did something very Scotty. Newborns are worse.
Me: We are so getting a live-in nanny. Spock's Vulcan royalty. We can completely afford it.
Captain sexy pants: Are you okay?
Me: That is a ridiculously loaded question. I have the world's worst headache and I'm a little worried about my students' lack of understanding of the Klingon language. Midterms are going to be a nightmare. Or rather the days before midterms are going to be a nightmare because I'm going to be dealing with panicky students for days beforehand wanting last-minute help.
Captain sexy pants: I meant about the situation with your father.
Me: I don't want to talk about it. I just need to be upset. So, if you could tell our mutual boyfriend that I don't need an apology present right now, that would be lovely.
Captain sexy pants: You can send your message to snookums yourself.
Captain sexy pants: It's okay for you to be angry. Just don't be numb.
Me: What does that mean?
Captain sexy pants: Gotta go, Peter is finger-painting the carpets again.
If anyone else did that, she would think it was an excuse, but she could completely see Peter finger painting on the carpets again, especially because she's 99% sure De'bo'rah got him more paint. That's the other reason to be unhappy. She doesn't think about it instead. She starts reading her emails, not one from Cadet Simmons. If she doesn't show up tomorrow, that means she's going to have to send an email. The things you have to do when you're Professor.
She does have several panicky emails about the upcoming midterm. She needs to finish writing it. She's been distracted with Jamie coming early and Spock and the antics of Jim's crazy brother. She decides to concentrate on that for the remainder of her office hours. Or at least she tried to. Halfway through, she realizes that you should probably never write a test when you have a nasty headache or you're really mad at your boyfriend. You probably shouldn't ask your students to translate phrases about idiot boyfriends and dead fathers.
In her afternoon Introduction to Vulcan-based languages class, she gets a text message asking her to bring dinner and cleaning supplies. Apparently the painting on the carpet thing was not an excuse to end their conversation. Really, she's surprised they haven't replaced the white carpets yet. Spock's house was not made for small children. They're going to have to renovate after the five year mission if they want kids.
It's weird. She's mad at Spock and yet, she's thinking house renovations post five-year mission. In the past she never thought that far ahead. No more than from anniversary to anniversary and now she's thinking five years down the road and maybe that's why she's angry. Can you make it five years down the road when there are secrets? She's not sure.
She doesn't ride home with Spock. Her excuse is she has a meeting with one of her panicky students whose freaking out about midterms. This was not just an excuse to avoid Spock because Damien really was an absolute nervous wreck. Of course she's the one who set that time to make sure she had a reason to not ride home with Spock.
The fact that he left her the car and takes public transit home makes her feel a little better. Good enough to pick up something other than a bucket of chicken for dinner. Her original plan was to make Spock fend for himself, but she does get him the squash casserole and the quinoa side dish, even though he's the only person who will eat quinoa.
Dinner was an exhausting affair, mostly because she was avoiding everyone. She was avoiding De'bo'rah because she didn't want to deal with even thinking about her father's impending demise, nor did she want to talk about it. Really, this makes it easier on De'bo'rah because if Nyota doesn't talk to her than she doesn't have to lie to her anymore.
She did not want to talk to Spock because she was still upset and she just knows that he's going to try to talk her into going to Pretoria to see her father one more time because of course Spock wanted one more time with Amanda and obviously assumes that she needs the same closure that Spock wishes he could have. Okay maybe she's projecting there, but she still just isn't ready for a Spock conversation.
She's also avoiding her sister as well because she still wasn't ready to tell her that their dad was dying. She's not even sure how to do that. She's had all day, and she still doesn't know where to start so she eats as quickly as she can and does baby duty. She also tucked Jim in with Spock. (Jim was out the moment his head hit the pillow and she's pretty sure Arlene was right behind him. What did Jamie put her caregivers through during the daytime?)
She can completely take care of one baby, or at least that's what she thought when she volunteered to do this to let Jim get some sleep. Except she can't because it's 2 AM, Jamie won't stop crying, and she's supposed to be up in four hours to get ready for final midterm prep. Although in Jamie's defense, she probably wouldn't fall asleep anyway because she keeps dreaming about her father's funeral. That's not good.
After 15 minutes of continuous screaming Nyota is seriously contemplating waking up Jim to deal with his… If Jim is on the birth certificate as the other parent, she should probably go with daughter not niece but she's just going to let her boyfriend decide on those labels. She is too sleep deprived to think on those things which probably means it's a good thing that she didn't see Spock walk into the room.
"I was informed that it's my turn to take over baby duty." Spock says as he takes Jamie from her arms.
"It's fine." Nyota said as she tried to take the baby back, but Spock wouldn't let her. "I'm not sleeping anyway so there's no point of two of us going without sleep."
"Are you contemplating the nature of mortality?" Spock asked.
Do nightmares about a dying father count? She's not sure.
"I am contemplating the nature of sleep deprivation. When does she start sleeping for the night?" Nyota yawns when she asked this question
"I will need to consult one of the baby books." Spock says matter of fact. She can't help but smirk.
" I knew you wouldn't be able to leave by yourself." Jim walks into the room to grab her.
"Because I can stay. I'm not convinced sleep with a headache is possible." Nyota argues, and Jim is not having it. He's giving her his 'I am the captain you will do what I say' death glare.
"You'll feel better in the morning." Jim says, dragging her off to bed. "You need sleep and Spock is volunteering. I say we take full advantage of the fact he can be fresh as a daisy with two hours of sleep."
Jim definitely had a point there, especially after he gave her a massage (with the happy ending) before putting her back to bed.
Unfortunately, she still woke up with a headache and she still had to go to class. (Although she was a little less tense because of her middle of the night orgasm. The morning drive to Starfleet Academy was better today. Maybe because she was less angry at Spock. Or maybe because Ivy was there. Probably because Ivy was there.
"Are you still unwell?" Spock asked from beside her halfway to the Academy.
"Are you sick? Or maybe you're pregnant." Okay, what she said earlier about being glad Ivy was with them. She takes that back. Seriously, what is with her sister?
"I'm not pregnant." If her head did not hurt so much, she would have rolled her eyes when she replied.
"If you're sexually active, it's always a possibility or at least that's what De'bo'rah said when she put me on the shot."
"Oh, thank God Jim is not in the car." She mumbled under her breath.
"Look, we cannot have children without medical intervention and let's leave it at that. Right now, I just have a bad headache that I've had for way too long. You speculating about something that will not happen anytime soon, is not helping." Nyota tells her sister from the front of the car.
"So that's why you went to the fertility clinic last month?" Ivy asked.
"My head hurts too much for this conversation. You are up, Spock." She said as she put her head in her hands. She should've wore sunglasses.
"You should see Dr. McCoy." Spock told her.
"That's not going to work. Nyota has always hated doctors which is why I'm kind of surprised you got her to go to the fertility clinic or that she's friends with Dr. McCoy for that matter." Her sister snickered.
"That does explain why she keeps canceling her session with Dr. Weston." Spock commented. Of course, he knew that she kept canceling her appointment. Dr. Kim probably kept calling about it.
"I'm fine." Of course she says this with her eyes shut trying to avoid the sunlight because it's probably making it worse. She's pretty sure they're both glaring at her.
"Okay I know you hate that word, but I really am." She argued.
"You have had a headache for the last two days."
"Three days, actually." Nyota corrected.
"Okay, we're so dragging you off to the doctors." Ivy said from behind.
"I am inclined to agree with your sister. It is practical that you stay in good health for her." Spock argued
"What went unsaid was you're going to be the only family she has left after your dad finally dies. She's almost grateful for that wording because Ivy still doesn't know."
"Fine, you both win. If I have any more symptoms, I will see, Dr. McCoy."
Now, originally, she was planning on not keeping this promise, but she was willing to say anything to get out of that car. Of course, that's because she wasn't expecting to show more symptoms, but then she threw up on her cubicle mate and Kevin Chan. She called Spock and Kevin called Jim and she ended up visiting Dr. McCoy.
"I really am fine." She argued as the doctor examined her in his office at Starfleet Medical.
"According to the toddler, you had a headache for three days and you threw up on a student." He said with tricorder still in hand.
"I threw up in a trashcan next to a student." Nyota argued back.
"Your sister thinks I should give you a pregnancy test." Nyota responded by baring her head in her hands.
"I think my sister just wants another playmate. Jamie's enough." She mumbled through her fingers.
"Yes, you're displaying new parent circles under your eyes so I say yes one child is enough. The pregnancy scan came up negative anyway." He told her.
"There was no point in doing one. I may be off the chemical birth control, but we're still using barrier prophylactics." Because the radiation isn't exactly out of Jim's body completely yet. "In addition to both of my partners having extremely low sperm counts."
"I would be a bad physician if I didn't run one. I'm looking into all logical explanations about why you threw up on a student. You are showing no evidence of virus or infection, so I decided to indulge your sister." The doctor explains.
"It was stress." Nyota argued.
"That I can see. Although it should be getting better now that Jim's brother is locked up. Also it's not like you're the one taking the midterms. I'm going to be dealing with stressed-out freshmen for the next two weeks."
"Kevin Chan showed up in my office this morning to explain why his girlfriend has been missing from my class for the last two sessions and it sort of triggered a stress reaction." Nyota started to explain
"And whatever he said to you made you throw up?" Leonard asked.
"Liz's father died last weekend." Which is ironic considering the man survived the hell that is Tarsus to get taken out by cancer.
"Why would that make you sick?" Leonard asked.
"So Jim didn't tell you?" She kind of assumed he would because Leonard was Jim's BFF.
"What should Jim have told me?"
"The reason why De'bo'rah came up in addition to helping Ivy with her legal problems and her upcoming conference is to break the news that my dad's dying." Nyota confessed.
"Fuck."
"I think I said something similar, at least in my head. I didn't say that loud because I learned all of this by overhearing De'bo'rah telling Jim the truth and I didn't want them to know I was there." Nyota explained.
"Definitely stressed. Although I'm arranging for you to see Dr. Weston tomorrow to look into a few other possibilities."
"Why do I need to see a mind healer?"
"Because those sex therapy mind melds that I know you're doing may be the reason why you're having headaches. Now that Jim told me about." From his tone, it's obvious that Leonard wishes he wasn't informed of it.
"We haven't done that for about two weeks." And they won't be happening for a little while longer because she really doesn't want Spock in her head right now. Again she is less mad than before, but she doesn't understand what she's feeling. So she doesn't want anyone else to try.
"Than the absence could be the reason for the headache." Leonard hypothesized. "I can also give you the name of the few support groups for what you're going through. I've dealt with a terminally ill parent before and it's not easy."
"I already have a therapist."
"Have you talked to your therapist about this or your boyfriends?"
"I don't have an appointment till tomorrow. We've been cutting down to once a week because I've been doing better. I haven't thrown a single object at Spock's head for knowing about this for days without telling me."
"I guess I'll squeeze you in with Dr. Weston before that appointment in the morning. I should be happy with the progress you're making. Take it from somebody who has gone through this, you need to take support when it's offered to you. I didn't take that support. I turned to the bottle instead of my wife and now I don't have a wife." Leonard told her.
"It's not like that. Besides, De'bo'rah has all of the end-of-life decision-making capabilities. That's probably the only reason why she's still married to him." Nyota explained.
"In addition, it would be a waste of money because the death do us part of the vows are coming sooner rather than later." Leonard quipped.
"I'm not ready to joke about it." Nyota crossed her arms over her chest.
"That's understandable. Looking back on it, I think the waiting was worse than his actual death. I kept hoping for something to fix things and there wasn't anything." She could hear a hint of sadness in his voice.
"I was going to ask you to look over his test results to see if there was something that they were missing, but maybe that's wishful thinking on my part."
"I can, but this is when you need to prepare for the worst outcome."
"I know." She exhaled slowly. "There's so many things unresolved. Ivy doesn't even know and I'm not sure De'bo'rah will ever tell her. I don't know if I even want to talk to him or see him again. I just… don't know what to do." Nyota felt like crying.
"First, you're going to go to your appointments with Dr. Caraballo and Dr. Weston, even if I have to drive you there you myself tomorrow. Actually first thing you're going to do is talk to your boyfriends about what's going on. Don't internalize it. Again, that was one of the contributing factors to my divorce."
"I thought you ended up divorcing because she ended up sleeping with someone else?" Nyota asked
"It was one of the contributing factors. Tell Ivy the truth. Don't sugarcoat it and tell her as soon as possible. Make plans to be in Pretoria for Christmas. Figure out what you need to say to him. Prepare for goodbye."
"I don't know if I can. I've been mad at him so long, but I don't even know if I should be because he's sick. We are never going to have a chance to fix things between us. I'm never going to have a chance to ask if he really hates my current relationship so much or was it just his sickness? I'm never going to be able ask him why he did what he did to Ivy. I don't know if I can forgive him. I am never going to be able to talk this out. He's never going to get better." By this point, she's crying. It's the first time she's cried about it since the night with Jim and that was only a few tears. This was like the floodgates have opened up. She felt her friend put an arm around her.
"I'm not going to say it gets better because that would be empty platitudes and I don't do that."
"Because you really do have the world's worst bedside manner?" She joked between tears.
"Possibly. You're one of the strongest women I know and you'll get through it. I know you will." She really hopes he's right.
Leonard gives her the good headache medicine and it does help. At least it did until about 1:45 AM when Jamie decides that Jim's attention is just not enough. She decided to tag Jim out because Arlene had the day shift and Jamie may have woken her up from a not so nice nightmare about burying her father. Maybe some time with the cute cuddly crying baby will help. Jamie's kind of cute when she's not screaming.
Although Nyota will acknowledge that all the screaming is making her seriously reconsider letting a team of fertility doctors get her pregnant sometime in the future. This is the point that De'bo'rah comes in.
"You're watching Jamie tonight?" She asked slightly surprised."
"We are taking turns." Nyota explains because she really doesn't want to talk to your stepmom right now, especially not after her breakdown with Leonard that afternoon. She's barely keeping it together right now.
"She likes singing." Deborah suggested.
"I know. I overheard Jim's special lullaby a couple of nights ago. Jim has a pretty good voice." And Winona was actually pretty good at putting a lullaby together.
"Oh." Was all the woman said as she put the pieces together. "How much else did you overhear last night?"
"Everything you told Jim anyway. I haven't asked Spock to give me details on what you told him." She doesn't want to know anything else. What she knows is enough.
"I meant to tell you. It's just hard to acknowledge that things went the way they did. There was nothing to stop it. Telling you would make it all real." De'bor'ah acknowledged. "And maybe I just want to pretend that this isn't happening for a little bit longer."
"But that's not really an option. You need to tell Ivy. You're her mom. You need to do this."
"I know. After midterms, Jim suggested that I get Dr Caraballo to come and help." That's not actually a bad suggestion if it's not just an excuse to put things off.
"Are you still going to be here after midterms?" Nyota asked." Don't you need to get back to…" 'Watch him die', she couldn't quite get that out.
"Things are stable. I also have a conference in San Francisco next week on sentient trafficking that I'm headlining so there's no point in going back for just a few days. Of course I could get a hotel."
"It's fine. We have the space."
"You do have wonderful foldout couches." Deborah joked.
At that moment baby Jamie decides that the milk she drank about 10 minutes earlier is not working and promptly throws up over Nyota. De'bo'rah takes Jamie away while Nyota changes and takes a tiny shower. How can a baby that tiny have that much milk in their tummy? Thankfully, it didn't get in her hair.
By the time she gets out of the shower, Jamie is asleep and so is De'bo'rah. She doesn't have the heart to wake De'bo'rah up and move her to the convertible in Spock's office. Instead she goes to her bedroom and crawls in next to Jim. The good drugs Leonard gave her kicks in and she gets a glorious four hours due to her doctor deciding she's getting a sick day.
Of course, for her to get a sick day, said doctor drags her to Dr. Weston's office. Jim and Spock are also there as reinforcements. Thankfully they stay in the lobby. Spock wanted to come in, but Dr. Weston firmly wanted to examine Nyota alone or rather as alone as possible with Nyota's primary care doctor in the room.
Dr. Weston was a very sweet woman, at least by Vulcan standards. She even made jokes about this being no worse than a gynecological visit. That didn't put Nyota's mind at ease because she absolutely hated the speculum tricorder. Hundreds of years and they have yet to come up with something less invasive because apparently normal tricorders just doesn't cut it.
After half an hour of chatting, including discussions about her recent headaches in excruciating detail, Dr. Weston decides to look inside.
"Your bond is perfectly healthy so I don't think that is what's causing your headaches. Dr McCoy successfully ruled out other possibilities, such as a tumor the day before. I believe that stress is most likely the cause. Although I've also been informed that you recently went off your chemical contraceptive and your hormone levels readjusting could also be a contributing factor."
"What did you say?" Nyota asked, obviously mishearing her. There is no way that she was bonded to Spock. It wasn't supposed to be possible, if what other Spock said was true. Of course, Sulu wasn't with Ben in the other timeline either, so who knows.
"Your bond is perfectly healthy. Although I am surprised to see it, considering that you were initially referred to me because you believed you had trouble forming a bond, but were able to form one spontaneously." Nyota didn't hear much after this because she promptly lost her breakfast. She totally blames Jim for forcing her to eat the French toast.
To be continued.