NOTE: This is the chapter with the tragedy / angst in it. You have been warned.
Spock started to worry. It was a slow, growing feeling that slithered up one arm, and then across his back, and then before he knew it, was coiled around his chest. There was so much to worry about. The impending future. His abilities as a parent. And then there were the practical matters. Where exactly were they going to go? What exactly were they going to do?
"I think we're in over our heads," Nyota murmured one evening. She was seated at her desk, trying to decipher a document entitled Childcare Protocols for Children with Two Starfleet Parents.
"Almost certainly," Spock answered dryly, and to his surprise, Nyota threw her head back and laughed.
"I am so glad to have you," she chuckled, putting her arms around him and pressing her cheek to his chest.
And he held her, stroking her hair, wanting to tell her that despite his worries, he didn't wish that anything was different.
As time went on, Spock and Nyota began to adjust. They started making plans.
One day, he found her smiling in front of the computer.
"Look at this," she said, and he looked at the screen. There was a picture of a Starfleet facility.
"Starbase 5," Nyota said, and started flipping through pictures. First, there were the expected ones: vast gleaming corridors, high tech equipment, people in Starfleet uniforms looking busy. But then there were pictures of standard quarters, with a family looking happy sitting on the sofa, and then the mess hall, with a woman in the foreground sitting opposite a young boy, scolding him for pulling food off her tray.
The pictures ended, and Nyota flipped to the section on schools. It was mostly standard stuff, quotes from students, pictures of teachers explaining their educational philosophy, until they got to a classroom scene. There were a few human students, but mostly part-humans and races Spock couldn't even identify.
"I think that this is where we want to go," Nyota said with a smile.
Spock nodded. It seemed like a nice place, and if it was true to the pictures, their child wouldn't even stand out.
"Where is it?" he added after a second.
"Where Hubble Observation Post 3 used to be. They're turning it into a command center because it's quite well insulated from the Klingon and Romulan borders," Nyota spoke quickly, answering Spock's unspoken question.
"It seems ideal then," Spock stated, "If we can get an assignment."
Nyota grinned even deeper. She'd already taken the liberty of asking if they could get assignments, and had been told it wouldn't be a problem.
That night, Spock called his father. Sarek said he was pleased, although he wished they had decided to live somewhere closer to New Vulcan.
"What if you two need assistance?" he asked more than once. For a Vulcan, Spock was fairly young to be starting a family.
But overall, he was supportive. The destruction of Vulcan was making people do crazy things. Abandoning their lives. Making choices with the justification of 'we all die tomorrow'. Running off to pursue poorly-thought-out dreams. Starting a family was pretty mild, all considered.
Nyota's family was a different matter. They didn't like that she was pregnant. They didn't like Spock. They didn't like the idea of her giving up her career.
"You should send your daughter to live with us!" Spock heard her sister Naema saying. She was twenty years older than Nyota, almost like a second mother.
"But I want to know her growing up," Nyota argued.
"Then come home!" the sister wailed.
"I won't leave Spock," Nyota stated.
And Spock waited for Naema to say that he could come and live with them too, but of course she didn't.
Afterwards, Spock tried to talk to Nyota about it, but she brushed him off.
"Quite honestly," she said, "We have bigger things to worry about."
It was true. There seemed to be so much to prepare. Transfers to get in order. Paper work to ensure the baby's dual citizenship. Baby supplies to order and get delivered to their new quarters.
And their anxieties worsened.
"What if I don't know what I'm doing?" Nyota asked out loud over and over, echoing her sister's sentiments. She was the baby sibling herself. She had never so much as held a baby before.
And Spock started to worry that he would be like his father. Spock had always been so hard on him, and now he worried that he would never be as expressive, as loving a parent as Nyota. He thought of all the times as a child that he had run eagerly into his mother's arms and completely ignored his father. Was that what his life was going to be like?
Still, he loved Nyota, and thought that he was getting better at showing it and maybe those skills would transfer to the baby somehow. And somehow, being in love made their problems seem more surmountable.
"We will make it … because … of how we feel," Spock whispered shakily to her one night, when she'd broken down after the ship had taken shots for the third time in twenty-four hours. They'd stayed in bed because it had become such a common occurrence that the night shift had been authorized to fire back without waking command in most situations.
"Spock, I never knew you were a romantic," Nyota answered back, a slight bit of amusement showing beneath her fear.
And he knew it was a complete logical disconnect, thinking that being in love would somehow solve problems external to the relationship. But it was so easy to believe.
And in a way, Spock felt he had to believe in something. He had lost his planet, and had lost everything, and the fact that his life was changing in good ways as well as bad somehow gave it meaning. Sure, he was a situation that he had never expected to be in, but after all the destruction, it gave him focus. It gave him hope in spite of everything.
As time went on, and the baby started to move, Spock found himself becoming protective of Nyota. He lost his will to spend his nights anywhere but beside her. It started to bother him that she was still on duty. He asked Kirk more than once if he could keep her confined to the ship. Kirk usually brushed this off jovially.
"She can still pass the physical better than a lot of people," he joked once, referring to the fact that several crewmembers failed after coming back from the recent Christmas vacation.
But when they were preparing to take out a base on Astalt 3, Kirk finally snapped at him.
"You know what!" he spat, "I think we're all going to die!"
Kirk was in a bad mood. He'd been up all night talking to Starfleet command on the Comm.
"We're leaving behind only enough people to beam us up and get us out of her if things go sideways," he said more softly once he had calmed down, "Everybody else goes."
The crew lined up and Kirk yelled out,
"Make sure your phasers are in high power mode L before you beam down."
Spock raised an eyebrow as he heard this.
"High power mode L?" he asked Kirk as he walked by, "Does that mean we expect to encounter Romulans?"
Kirk stared at Spock. He looked about ten years older than he had when he'd boarded the Enterprise.
"Spock," he said with forced calm, "If I was cleared to tell you what is going on, I would, okay. I don't like keeping things from you. But right now, it is need-to-know."
And he paced back to the front without a word.
Two-by-two, they beamed down into formation. Spock was at the left side as they moved forward. Nyota was taking up the rear. Trying to force himself into Starfleet mode, Spock couldn't help but look back occasionally as they marched on.
Almost as soon as they started moving, shots were fired. Clearly Romulan weaponry. Spock ducked behind a tree and fired back. It seemed to be enough to scare off whoever was firing, and the air cleared. But then there were two short whistles and one long one in the distance. That was Kirk, whistling the code for 'assailant escaped'. They hadn't got whoever was shooting. And their communicators weren't functioning.
Worried, Spock looked back. Nyota had fallen behind. Intentionally, he stumbled slightly. Nothing noticeable, he could have just as easily tripped on the uneven ground. But it gave Nyota a chance to catch up, so that they were both at the back. She gave him a wary glare, as if she knew what he was up to. They marched forward.
Suddenly, they heard a screeching noise. There was something above them. Then they looked around, and the forest was on fire. Whoever had been shooting must have alerted the base. There was ghastly screaming, and the crew scattered. Many of them forgot their training and ran instead of dropping when their clothes caught fire.
Spock looked around for Nyota. Her hair was singed, but she wasn't burning. He grabbed her hand and ran. They ran until they were in a clearing that seemed too damp to burn.
Nyota was having trouble keeping up, and by the time they got to the clearing, she was breathing heavily. She sat down on a log to rest.
On edge, Spock looked around to see if anyone was coming. As he turned his back, a Romulan came out of the woods, threw Nyota down harshly and tried to take her phaser. Spock turned around and shot him.
He strained his eyes to see if anyone else, friend or foe was on their way, but he didn't see anyone. He turned back to Nyota.
"I think he broke my shoulder," she said, and he looked but didn't touch it. It was safer held in place by the cloth of her dress. Fumbling with his Comm., Spock tried to contact the ship, then the rest of the crew, but it was silent.
"I'm alright, I can wait for the ship," she whispered, but he knew she was lying. She kept holding her chest and gasping for breath intermittently.
"You should go on," she said after a minute, hunching forward.
Spock's mind reeled. He didn't want to leave her.
"I am unsure of how useful I would be without the crew and only limited knowledge of the purpose of the mission," he stated.
Nyota looked relieved when he said this. For a moment, she stammered, but then Spock interjected,
"Where does it hurt?"
And she motioned her shoulder, and then lower back, and then across her belly. She breathed heavily again, and then looked downwards.
"Spock," she whispered, "I think I'm going into labour."
He looked at her, alarmed. It was too soon. The baby might not make it. Not in the middle of a field. Not without medical attention. For a moment, he wondered if Nyota would still love him without the baby, and then was ashamed by the thought.
"Can I see?" he asked with false calm, and she sat up straight and let him see her skirt. It was drenched in crimson blood.
"I think you should lie down," he spoke, trying to hide that his heart was pounding. As he helped her down, there was another wave of blood that stained her skirt. It was heavier and brighter that what he remembered from this simulation at the Academy. She was bleeding out.
Trying to hide his sheer panic, Spock picked up his Comm. and tried to call for help. It stayed silent. Eventually, he put it down.
"Is there something wrong?" Nyota gasped.
"I just wish we had the help of trained professionals," he said back, not wanting her to go into shock. But he could tell that she knew he was lying. Her mouth was taut with the pain, and it was as if she knew it wasn't the right type of pain.
"Just stay calm," he whispered, not sure if he should tell her to push or not. From what he could recall from medical texts, it didn't matter.
Spock wished that she'd been brave. She hadn't.
"There's something horribly wrong, isn't there?" she'd cried out over and over and over. She alternately screamed and sobbed, and then slowly she went quiet. She began to get distant and confused.
"Are we done yet?" she asked once, blearily, leaning her head back and chuckling.
And slowly, the baby was born in all the wrong order, first the placenta, and then the feet and finally the head, accompanied by a sudden pouring of blood. Against all odds, the baby started to whimper.
"Look," Spock whispered, holding the baby up so that Nyota could see her, "Our baby."
Nyota gazed at her, confused, not really understanding.
Spock wished that he and Nyota'd had a heartfelt goodbye. They hadn't.
After staring at the baby for a minute, she breathed,
"Spock, I feel sick," and then turned her head and threw up blood across her shoulder. And then her eyes closed and her skin went dull and she didn't speak again.
Spock looked down at the baby. She was so tiny. Her crying was barely louder than his footsteps. It seemed so unbelievable that she was in his arms and Nyota was dead at his feet. He held her as she cried for what seemed like hours.
He had nothing to give her. There was water in a puddle from a recent rainfall, but it was filthy, and she was too small to fight off an infection.
Night fell, and after a minute's hesitation, Spock removed Nyota's dress. Shaking, he wrapped the baby in it. He still couldn't reach the ship. He wondered if he and the baby were also going to die on this planet. Defiantly, he rocked her.
The sun rose, and Spock could see Nyota's body again. Somehow, she seemed more dead than before, her face pale, her features sunken. He turned around so that he wouldn't have to face her. Three more hours passed, during which the baby became weaker and weaker, and then stopped crying altogether. Spock gave her some of the water out of the puddle and she started stirring.
As Spock started rocking her, there was a flash in the distance. He didn't know it at the time, but it was the base exploding. Kirk had destroyed it by sneaking in and reversing the polarity of a power converter after the rest of the crew on the ground had been killed. He had a talent for that sort of thing.
Spock never did find out what was inside the base. He never did find out why it was so important to destroy it.
"Two life signs, one weak," a voice came across the Comm. a few minutes later.
"Is that you Spock?" the voice continued. Before he could answer, he felt himself being beamed up into the transporter bay.
Kirk's mouth opened as he saw Spock materialize without his shirt, smeared in blood, carrying a baby wrapped in a dress.
"Where's Nyota?" Kirk asked.
"She died yesterday," Spock spoke steadily, leaving the transporter room and walking towards sickbay, "Her communicator is by her body if you wish to recover it."
"Spock, are you all right?" Kirk yelled running after him. Spock increased his pace so that Kirk couldn't catch up.