Chapter IX - This isn't for nothing
Kirk had just returned from an appointment with a Vulcan doctor, and decided to look for Amanda. He had managed to break his back while trying to lift Spock that morning. He was too old to lift a Vulcan of more than one hundred eighty pounds that wanted to stay in bed. He imagined that things would only get worse as time passed, but he didn't want to think about it at the time.
To his surprise, he found Amanda crying, resting her back on the kitchen counter. It wasn't the first time he saw her crying, but it was the first time he saw her do it so openly.
"Amanda, what happened? Is everything okay with Spock?" as soon as the words left his lips, he chided himself for thinking only of Spock when she was suffering. Over the past two months, they approached themselves of one another considerably, and Kirk cared about her too. But nothing could occupy the same amount of place in his mind as Spock.
She took a moment to compose herself, trying to find her composure befitting the wife of an important Vulcan ambassador. "Spock refused to eat. I can't even make my child eat lunch."
Kirk approached her and offered a reassuring hug. "I know this isn't easy, Amanda. But we need to do it for him. Now, why don't I do some of my famous plomeek soup? Spock always said that he liked it when I cooked."
He began to gather the necessary ingredients. It had been a while since the last time he had cooked, but it was one of his many unexpected pleasures. There were many things he liked to do that contradicted what was expected of a captain or an admiral of Starfleet, but had long since not worried about that. He had earned his place and could ill afford to ignore the opinions of others. Of course he was now a wanted criminal and would probably lose his commission as soon as the Admiralty could pull his hands on him, so it didn't matter much.
"Spock never told me that you cooked for him..." Amanda began. "Actually, he never gave me many details about you. I always thought there was much he wouldn't like his father to know about you, and he has always been a discreet person, but I would like to know more about what life was like for you."
Kirk stopped uncomfortable with the pan in his hands. He and Spock didn't usually announce the exact nature of their relationship. Of course anyone who spent any amount of time with them was able to see that it wasn't just friendship, but he was never the type to kiss and tell and Spock was even more discreet. He still remember when Spock complained about the unwanted questions he had heard about him and his captain at the time, and how his greatest source of outrage (even though he had replicated that Vulcans don't feel outrage when Kirk suggested it) was that strangers were speculating about his personal life, not that half the quadrant felt that their relationship was more than it was at the time.
He finally decided that Amanda deserved to know more about her child, and that there would be no harm in sharing just a bit of information. So, while cooking, he started talking about small details of their lives. Innocuous things that wouldn't offend Spock if he knew that his mother had heard of them. Things like a small Trill restaurant on Earth that Spock just loved and that he had a holo picture of Amanda in his office at the Academy. And before he knew it, he found himself talking about the most absurd details about Spock, and couldn't help but being embarrassed because now she would realize that he knew such things about him. Details like how he changed the dominant hand to play chess when he was nervous, the delicate way that until today he caressed his ka'athyra before playing and the fact that despite years of living in environments with temperature acclimatized to humans, he still slept with the temperature of his room slightly lower that that what would cause heat stroke in humans and using various covers. He didn't really think about how Amanda would imagine that he knew it, because nothing she imagined could be more embarrassing than the truth. But he just couldn't stop talking about all those little details that he found out about in the two decades of coexistence. Luckily, he managed to bite his tongue before saying that Spock almost always used his left hand to stroke his hair, or that he was very needy when accidentally ate chocolate. Spock would never forgive him if he had revealed such things to his mother. With a certain dread, he realized that Sarek was in his mind and feared what he could have seen there. Even if they weren't so discreet, there were certain things that a parent shouldn't see, and many of them were in his mind. He dismissed these thoughts, convincing himself that as a good Vulcan, Sarek would erase any unwanted memory. Or at least he expected him to act like that.
In what seemed like a matter of minutes, the soup was ready. He needed to give it to Spock before it got cold, although this wasn't a major concern on a planet so hot. Anyway, he would have more time to talk with Amanda later, now needed to ensure that Spock was well fed.
Ka'athyra is the name of the Vulcan lyre.