Series: Moments in Time
Characters: McCoy, Amanda Grayson, bit of Sarek, Kirk, Spock
Rating: K+
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Journey to Babel.
Summary: Post-episode Sickbay scene.
The Lady Amanda Grayson (for so she prefers to be called, as only a scant few off-worlders can successfully attempt her Vulcan married name without butchering it beyond recognition) is enjoying her stay on the U.S.S. Enterprise far more than she is of course letting on to her Vulcan husband, though she suspects he is likely well aware through their marriage bond of her true feelings. While outwardly she remains most calm and the perfect complement to a prominent Starfleet ambassador, inwardly she is fairly dancing with glee over the fact that for the first time in many, many years, she is able to once again be a human mother.
Spock had always been far too tolerant, in all his peers' (and superiors') opinions, of her human parental idiosyncrasies throughout his adolescence, and the trait has only become more pronounced through distance and time. No one else in the universe, she is quite sure, would have been permitted the liberty she took of divulging such private information as she had done a few nights previous, even to such close acquaintances as the captain and Dr. McCoy. As it stands, Spock indulged her, not only in this instance, and she intends to make her appreciation of his boundary-sacrificing known to him, well prior to their landing at Babel. There, she must revert to being the perfect Vulcan aide once again, and leave her son to his human…shipmates.
Is that what he calls them? She smiles to herself, busily working at an embroidery at Sarek's bedside. Why such an illogical stigma is attached to something so innocuous as a mere word; the horror, calling someone a friend – such emotion! – in Vulcan culture continues to amuse her, as they do not themselves see the illogic in the action, but kaiidth. Theirs is a better way, and while she may not agree with every facet thereof she does accept and understand the philosophy behind it.
Sarek eyes her over top of the Sickbay thermal blanket with what appears to be mild boredom, which is a fair assumption given that Dr. McCoy banned all diplomatic work from the room last evening, after Spock had smuggled Sarek's personal data-padd in through a very gullible astrophysics ensign who obviously had a crush on her son the size of a small planetoid.
She is about to put the embroidery away and attempt to entertain him, as a proper bond-mate should, when the door to the recovery cubicle opens and the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer enters, a dark scowl affixed firmly to his face. The movement of the door is quiet enough, but it lets in a sudden barrage of noise from the outer ward, a loud discussion and rattling of what she can only assume is machinery of some kind.
Sarek's eyebrows crawl up toward his hairline.
The door shuts, blocking out the noise once more, though McCoy's glare remains, directed more at the door than at the room's occupants.
"How're you feelin' this morning, Ambassador?" he inquires, sincerely enough.
"I am perfectly functional, Doctor."
"Chapel says you took a little walk last night, any dizziness or other side effects to report?"
"None, Doctor. I am nearly fully recovered, and will be able to resume my diplomatic duties within the day."
"We'll see about that." The doctor enters some information on a small scanner, before reaching up to adjust a diagnostic panel over the bed. "Mrs. Sarek, how did he sleep?"
"You are welcome to call me Amanda, Doctor McCoy," she replies with a smile, for the man has no idea how incorrect the title really is, grammatically and socially, in Vulcan culture.
"Alrighty. So how did he sleep?"
"Well, Doctor, he –"
A small crash in the outer ward, loud enough to be heard through the supposedly soundproofed walls, startles them both, though Sarek merely looks slightly interested at the diversion. He really must be bored, she thinks with mild amusement.
The doctor articulates something which she is quite sure is a bitten-off Klingon curse, before stepping over to trip the door sensor and sticking his head out into the outer recovery ward.
"All right, that is it – get your backside back in that bed, Spock, or so help me I will sedate you with enough pentathol-D you may never be able to have little hobgoblins!"
She notes with interest that the bellow is loud enough to rattle a loose panel in Sarek's diagnostic board. Whatever is said in response is not loud enough to hear, but apparently is sufficient for the doctor to retreat back into the room with a gesture of resignation.
"They're drivin' me nuts," he mutters, returning to the diagnostics.
"My son and the captain, I presume?" she inquires with a smile.
"Who else?" A scowl, and the panel seems to meet approval for he moves away from the bed. Sarek has progressed from looking mildly interested to looking mildly annoyed, and now closes his eyes. "They've been driving the whole ward crazy for the last two days because they won't shut up."
Amanda cannot help but feel her own eyebrow rise in question, a habit which cannot be broken by now, product of decades in the company of Vulcans. "I find that difficult to believe, Doctor. My son is not a talkative being."
"Tell that to my delta shift staff," is the dry rejoinder. "They've run the entire gamut of redoing the menu for the replicators in Officers' Mess to next period's crew evaluations to Old Terran children's literature to now, they're discussing the possibility of creating a miniature warp bubble within a confined space using only the technology currently present aboard ship."
Sarek's eyes open, gleaming with interest.
"I put a stop to the actual experimenting when Scotty commed me to ask why there were temporal disturbances coming from my Sickbay, so you are not havin' any part of it!"
Amanda barely refrains from laughing as Sarek's eyes close again without another word.
"Anyway." The doctor sets down the scanner, and leans against the wall across from her, arms folded. He grins out of the blue, and she suddenly sees through the façade of irritation which had before masked the obvious affection underneath. "They never get a chance to just sit around and do nothing, Starfleet keeps us pretty dang busy."
"Dare I assume, Doctor, that you might have been able to already medically discharge my son, and are keeping him here on purpose for the sake of enforced recreation, of a sort?" she inquires shrewdly.
"You may assume anything you like, ma'am," is the innocent reply, accompanied by twinkling eyes. "I must remind you of doctor-patient confidentiality, of course, unless I have written permission from Mr. Spock to share his medical records with his parents."
She does laugh at this point, and knows then exactly why Spock has unaccountably taken a liking to this unusual human – very much at odds with his own personality. They must be like combustible chemicals, harmless enough by themselves but explosively reactive when in close contact; a sharp contrast to the oddly intense affection first born out of loyalty she could see had developed between Spock and his captain. None had been more shocked than she, to learn that it was not just James Kirk, whom Spock had brought with him to his unexpectedly early Time (a beautiful act of human defiance which she privately applauded); she knew then that she must someday find out what was so unusual about this unremarkable human physician, that her son would make such a grand gesture against his culture. And, if the rumors were correct, she owed this man her son's life, and that of his captain for that matter; the man was obviously more devious than his Hippocratic Oath and smooth Southern accent would indicate at first glance.
The shriek of a klaxon suddenly splits the air around them, startling even Sarek into opening his eyes again. McCoy throws his hands in the air with an eyeroll of resignation.
"Annnnnd that'd be Jim trying to get out of bed again. Excuse me, please." The door opens, momentarily deafening them with the siren, and then quickly shuts behind the retreating physician. His voice can soon be heard even through the soundproofed walls, berating the unfortunate captain for his foolhardiness in attempting to leave Sickbay unannounced.
Sarek blinks after the doctor's exit in startled silence.
"Do you suppose he has an escape alarm on your bed, my husband?" she inquires, with genuine curiosity.
Sarek's withering look turns into an incredulous stare as the tirade outside escalates suddenly. As her beloved is incapacitated, the role of peacekeeper falls naturally to her, and she moves hesitantly to the door, peering out as it opens into the ward beyond.
She should not have been concerned.
"I cannot believe you did that!" The doctor's pitch has reached a whole new level of glass-shattering screech. "D'you know how long it takes me to get a requisition signed nowadays for a replacement?"
"Really, Doctor, calm yourself. As First Officer, I am the one who signs your requisitions for the quartermaster; mark it in your reports as urgent and I shall do so at my earliest convenience."
"That doesn't – you still – Jim, what the devil are you laughing at?"
The captain is indeed, half-slid down in his bed, fairly giggling like a child into a spare pillow, and the sight makes her smile. The man meets her eyes over the blanket and waves a limp hand her direction, whereupon her son freezes hilariously like a wild animal in headlights.
"Amanda," McCoy drawls at the sight of her, and gestures grandly toward what looks like a pile of scrap metal on a small table between the two patients' beds. "Your precious son apparently thought it was logical to take apart my brand-new state-of-the-art Tri-D bone scanner in order to reconfigure it to produce a rudimentary light distortion device as part of their warp bubble experiment!"
Spock looks rather like the time when as a very small child, he had thought it was quite logical to take apart her sewing machine in order to examine its inner workings, fully confident he could put it back together – only to discover that at six years of age he did not have the necessary technical expertise.
"It's brand new, Spock!"
"Was brand-new, Bones," the captain interjects thoughtfully.
"The only reason you're not gettin' it too is you're on the happy drugs and you aren't gonna remember this in two hours anyway," McCoy snarls, waving an empty hypospray cartridge at the bed in a threatening gesture.
"Doctor, you refused to allow me access to my upgraded tricorder, my computer terminal, or any of my data-padds, any of which would have sufficed to at least permit me a tri-d construction program with which to demonstrate my theories to the captain. I was forced to…improvise."
"And a very good job of it you did too, Commander. A full commendation in your file for creative thinking."
"You are so high right now, Jim, it's embarrassing. And in front of Spock's mom, too." McCoy pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head ruefully. "I should've known better than to leave you two alone for longer than fifteen minutes."
Spock is eyeing her with an expression of trepidation mingled with what she knows to be Vulcan embarrassment, though any other human (except possibly the captain, when he is not on a strong painkiller) would mistake it as mere aloofness.
"My son has always been of a mechanical mind, Doctor – you should indeed have known better," she interjects with a smile. "I have several household items which have never recovered from his childhood attentions."
"Yeah, well, I'll bet those items didn't take three months to requisition from Starfleet Command through twelve separate req forms and eight different signatures," is the grumbled response, though she can see that the doctor is finding it hard to remain angry in the fact of Spock's wide-eyed squirming.
"When we create the first warp bubble aboard ship, we will name it after you, Bones," the captain says solemnly.
Spock's look of tolerant fondness across the ward is not very well-hidden, she is somewhat surprised to see. Perhaps the captain is not the only one who is on McCoy's "happy drugs."
Either way, she will not soon forget this voyage, or meeting these unique humans who have somehow accomplished what she had thought to be impossible – worked their way, by stealth or by force (or both, given their personalities), past her son's walls, probably without him realizing it was even happening. Truly, they must be master tacticians.
This will bear future study; perhaps she can convince Spock to, for the first time in years, spend a shore leave at home, the next time they are in the vicinity of Vulcan, and bring his 'shipmates' with him.
She has the feeling Sarek will conveniently find a warring faction to represent in some obscure sector of the galaxy, but after all – this voyage has at least been an improvement on the last fifteen years.
Baby steps.