A/N: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Herre's the next chapter. Thank you to Bookdragon01 for taking time to beta this before the holiday. Hopefully I'll have time to get somemore written this weekend after the 'turkey coma' wears off. Take care everyone!
As soon as they were seated in the historic restaurant, the discussion of what to order started.
"We need at least two maybe three larges; just to feed all of us; so what toppings do we want?" Jim asked as he handed out menus.
"No anchovies, Jim. I don't care what else is on them but I'm drawin' the line at those- things," Bones said with a scowl at his friend.
"Sheesh Bones, I only did that once. And it was what? Four and a half years ago? I didn't realize that when they said everything they really meant everything," Jim defended himself drawing chuckles from the others and an amused eyebrow raise from Spock.
"The appeal and point of putting preserved fish on a pizza is one I have never understood. I take it that you neglected to read the list of toppings before ordering?" Spock inquired dryly.
"Unfortunately I only read part of the list. I'd thought that putting anchovies on pizza was just an old myth; I'd never actually heard of them being offered before. Don't worry Bones, I'm not gonna do that again," Jim replied making a face at the memory. "Spock, I have no idea why anyone would put them on a pizza; they taste nasty anyway. So what do we all agree on? "
"I don't think there is a point to addin' them," McCoy muttered, shaking his head at the memory as well.
"Make one a vegetarian, the Asilomar is good, Spock and I have had it a couple times. The other two can be whatever," Uhura said, looking up from where she was leaning over Joanna's shoulder to read the choices.
"The combos sound good. Anything on the list that no one will touch? Not counting the anchovy ones." Sulu asked with a grin, pointing to the list of combination pizzas.
"Green pepper is not my faworite but I can ignore it on pizza," Chekov said with a shrug.
"So, one large Asilomar and a Big Sur. What else?" Jim asked.
"How 'bout this one, Daddy?" Joanna asked, pointing to the Cowell's Combo.
"That's what Jim and I always got after the first time. So do that one Jim," McCoy said, as Jim collected the menus.
"Alright, and two orders of bread sticks," Jim said with a grin. "I'll be right back," he added as he headed to the counter to place the order as the others settled around the largest open table.
After getting drinks and settled again, the pizzas arrived. Once they'd all been served, Jim turned to Scotty on the other side of Christine. "So where'd you disappear to? I called everywhere I could think of before we left."
Scotty hastily swallowed a mouthful of pizza, "Well Ah was trackin' down Keenser ta git an update on th' work. Ah finally found him in the sim lab goin' over th' escape routes for decks five and six. Ye know Cap'n tha' ye got ta turn your communicators off in there. Ah ran inta Sulu on my way out," Scotty explained, between bites.
"I got a call from my friend, Lt. Xander Barns, to come take a look at a combat training sim he and Lt. Cmdr Shev are working on," Sulu explained. "I was the only one Xander could think of that had actually fought a Romulan with a blade, and was still here. It's looking like a pretty good idea so far. They wanted some input on fighting and weapon styles, but I couldn't really give them much. My fight was too fast to give much accurate information," Sulu shrugged. "I suggested they talk to you Commander, for at least the physical capabilities, I didn't think you'd know much about their weapons styles or preferences."
"Thank you for your confidence, Lieutenant, I shall offer what help I can, though my experience fighting Romulans is not much different than you own, and limited to phasers. I'm not certain of the need for such a program at this time though," Spock responded, looking at Sulu for clarification.
"It's not only for training against Romulans, they're also working on Klingons, Orions, and anyone else we might end up having to go hand to hand with; renegades, raiders that sort of thing," Sulu explained, taking another bite of his pizza.
"Then might I suggest putting them in touch with Ambassador Selek? He, as I understand from my father, was on Romulus for several years, and though he is beyond the age to participate in such activities, he might have more pertinent information than I possess," Spock replied. "I will provide whatever help I can as well."
"At this point any help with appearance would be appreciated," Sulu said, rolling his eyes slightly. "All they really have on Romulans is that they're similar looking to Vulcans, and the images from our encounters with Nero and the contacts that other ships have had in the last two years. All I can say is its pretty bad."
"Please explain, Lieutenant," Spock said looking both puzzled and curious.
"They've basically mashed together all the images to make a composite, like most simulations. But, well the composite ended up looking like a Vulcan dressed up as a twentieth century punk for an old school Halloween," Sulu tried to explain, but seeing the slightly blank look on Spock's face he realized that the Commander would have to see for himself. "I can't explain it any better, Commander. Like I said it's pretty bad, I hope that none of the delegation we saw on the recording ever sees it, at least in this state. They might take offence and we'd be back at square one with them again."
"I will be sure to look in on them tomorrow in that case, as well as pass on word of the need for more accurate information to my father and Ambassador Selek," Spock assured him and Sulu sighed in relief that the problem would be fixed quickly.
"Thank you, I'll let them know you'll be coming to go by tomorrow," Sulu said as he picked up his drink.
McCoy leaned back in his chair and sighed as he picked up his glass. The image Sulu described sounded pretty ludicrous. He'd almost like to see it but then again he'd seen enough Romulans trying to kill him for a lifetime.
As he looked around the table, shaking his head the sight of Spock eating pizza with a knife and fork, McCoy felt Joanna lean her head against his shoulder. "What's wrong, Jo?" he asked looking at her in concern.
"Just tired, Daddy, and I wish Miss 'Nona could've come with us," Joanna said smiling up at him.
"We'll see her soon, Jo. You heard what she said 'bout bein' there for the trials. And if Jim doesn't comm. her tonight I'm gonna. Either way you'll get to talk to her," McCoy said quietly making her grin and kiss his cheek.
"I'm pretty sure Mom would kill me if I didn't let you talk to her, JoJo," Jim added from McCoy's other side.
"The chances of your Mother causing you mortal physical harm are extremely low Captain, less than .01%. I do not see why you would claim such an outcome would be likely to occur," Spock said looking perplexed at Jim's statement.
"It's a saying, Spock. Another way of saying she'll be extremely unhappy with me if I don't let her talk to Joanna," Jim explained. "And you've never seen her mad, Spock. She'll do or say what she has to, to get her point across," he added with a grin.
"He's right, Spock, you didn't see her go after the principle of Jo's school when he was givin' me hell about Jo bein' in my custody and not in school," McCoy said with a smirk at the memory. "All she did was tell me to let her handle it, introduced herself and proceeded to light into the idiot about the fact that circumstances change, and laid out what happened and what she expected him to do 'bout forwardin' Jo's school work," he explained as Spock nodded in understanding.
"I believe I understand, Doctor, it would seem that the desire to protect the young is a universal trait." Spock answered quietly as he turned back to his plate, and let the conversations drift to other things.
They left about an hour later, having divvied up the last few slices that even Scotty and Chekov hadn't been able to finish, they started the walk back to Starfleet. About halfway back her dad ended up giving Joanna a piggy back ride because she was too tired to walk any farther; and by the time they reached the Single Guest Barracks she was almost asleep.
Joanna woke up as they entered the building and Jim helped her down as they got into the lift. After telling the others goodnight in the hall, she quickly changed for bed and then waited as her Dad entered Winona's number in to their comm. unit.
They were filling Winona in on the court dates and the other events of the day when Jim rang the bell. He added his own side of things. Joanna was starting to yawn when they signed off and she headed for her bed in the corner and was sound asleep in minutes.
McCoy had managed to get the second bed for her after an argument with the housing officer that afternoon, who wanted to put them in larger quarters on the other side of the visitor's barracks complex. Once he found out that Joanna's nightmares and recent trauma were the reason McCoy was so adamant to stay so she had people she knew nearby, the officer had quickly sent a folding bed over.
McCoy quickly got ready for bed himself, knowing that he'd need all the sleep he could get before Joanna's nightmares woke him up.
A few hours later Joanna woke up with a strangled cry, looking around wildly, trying to remember where she was. For a moment the room was totally unfamiliar and that scared her. "D-Daddy?" she half whispered through a sob at a noise across the room.
McCoy had woken at her cry and was out of bed before she called. "It's ok, Jo," he assured her sitting beside her and holding her close. Joanna burrowed into his shoulder, as he gently ran one hand over her hair, murmuring quiet nonsense to her.
"Daddy, can you stay with me?" she asked a few minutes later.
"Sure can, Darlin' Girl," her father replied, getting her settled again and stretching out on his back next to her.
"I love ya, Daddy," Joana whispered as she wrapped her arms around his right bicep and snuggled her cheek into his shoulder.
"Love you too Jo." McCoy replied resting his left hand on top of one of hers, and watched as her breathing evened out, before allowing himself to go back to sleep.
The next morning McCoy and Joanna joined the others in the mess for breakfast. After answering the usual morning questions about their night everyone's attention returned to their meals and waking up.
"Daddy, what's goin' on today?" Joanna asked as conversation started to pick up as everyone finished eating.
"Well, we're goin' over to Jim's and you're gettin' back on that home work," McCoy told her, making her pout. "The rest of us are gonna to be goin' over all the paperwork for our trip to New Vulcan, Jo. We're gonna try and get as much as we can done by this evenin', and pick it up again tomorrow. And hopefully by Monday we'll be done except for inventories and last minute corrections."
"Aw man," Joanna muttered, thinking about the roughly week of homework she still had to do.
"I know you'd rather be out doin' somethin' Jo, but we have to make sure we've got everythin'. Remember when we went on vacation to Jekyll Island? All the packin' lists we made?" McCoy asked, knowing that Joanna would remember.
"Yeah, you and Mama spent ages makin' 'em. Even though we were only goin' for a week you musta had eight or nine lists," Joanna replied remembering the trip vividly even though she'd only been five. It had turned out to be the last family trip they had taken.
"Well it's the same sort of thing Jo, we made our lists of what we needed and now we need to make sure that the ship got sent the right things; foods, medicines, all the things we need out in space. Like checkin' your suitcase before we left to make sure nothin' got left behind," her father explained, watching as she grinned back at him.
"I wish I could help, Daddy," Joanna said, getting a chuckle from Jim.
"I wish you could too, JoJo." Jim said leaning around McCoy to look at her. "Some of those lists get pretty long and complicated," he added and several of the others chuckled, nodding in agreement.
"Well shall we get ta work then?" Scotty asked standing up to dump his tray. "The sooner we're done wi' this lot, the sooner we can get back ta the ship an' get ta the real work."
"Ok, Department heads, my 'office' in fifteen; we'll start knocking this out," Jim announced as they left. "JoJo, let us know if you need help with your homework, ok?"
"Ok, Uncle Jim. I already know I'm gonna need help when I get to my math. It's algebra of some kind," Joanna replied, wrinkling her nose at the thought.
"I kin help you vith it, if you vant, Joanna," Chekov said turning around to look at her.
"Don't you need to go over the lists?" Joanna asked.
"Yes and no. As zhe nawagator, I really do not have a supply list. I vill have a check list vonce ve are on board. And it is no trouble to help you, I used to help my cousins vith zheirs." Chekov replied, walking backwards.
"Ok, that would be great, Pavel. I just don't get the stuff," Joanna replied. "I was gonna start on it after lunch. That way I'm awake for it and I'll hopefully have most of the other stuff done. Will that be ok?"
"I vill see you zhen," he replied. "I vas planning on seeing if I could help vith zhe programming problem Hikaru's friend is having zhis morning."
"Thanks, Pavel, I'm going to go and see what I can do too, as soon as I get my sword," Sulu said with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief. "You'll most likely remember a few more details about appearance then I do."
Jim glanced behind him at Spock, as Chekov's remark reminded him of the previous night's conversation. "Did you get a hold of your Father, Spock?" he asked.
"I contacted him when we returned last night and he said that he would inform Ambassador Selek as soon as we were finished speaking. I do not know his schedule so I cannot predict when he might be free to assist," Spock replied.
"I didn't think you'd forgotten. I was just curious. Too much help is sometimes as bad as too little, on this type of project," Jim said as they reached their building.
As soon as Joanna was settled with her homework at the table in Jim's quarters, McCoy joined the others in the office. Uhura, Christine, Giotto, Spock and the other Department Heads had borrowed the rest of the chairs from Jim's quarters or brought their own, while Scotty and Keenser had settled on the floor, in one corner surrounded by what looked like a small mountain of PADDs. Christine had thoughtfully saved him a chair and he sent her a grateful look as he sat next to her. He sorted out the PADD he wanted from the stack and nodded to Giotto on the other side of the room.
"Mornin' Chief," McCoy said to Giotto as Jim walked in with his own stack of PADDs and settled behind his desk adding his own stack to the one already there.
"Same to you, Doc. So far so good," Giotto replied with a wave of his hand at the stacks of PADDs everyone had with them.
"Let's hope it stays that way," McCoy said with a grimace remembering some of the debacles they'd had in the past as Giotto nodded.
"Ok I've got the synthesizer set for coffee, tea or juice as well as snacks if we need 'em. Let me know if you find any major problems. And yes, Bones, I know about Quarter master Chen's accident so I have her PADDs here. Lt Gren isn't due back till this afternoon because of a family emergency," Jim said glancing at each of them before picking up the first of his PADDs.
The next few hours were fairly quiet, the only sounds being styluses tapping and the occasional murmured question. Joanna came in several times for help with her homework and did her best not to disturb them anymore than she had to. There was only one major issue and that was when it was discovered that a piece of medical equipment that McCoy had been waiting for and an equally important scientific instrument had gotten put on the opposite lists as well as in the opposite labs due to the similarity of the names. McCoy, Spock and Scotty spent ten minutes in discussion as to how to get them back in the correct labs without damaging them.
Lunch was picnic style, out on the grass in a shady out of the way corner of the yard surrounding the barracks, since everyone agreed they needed a break from Jim's office. Sulu and Chekov joined them a few minutes later, both looking annoyed.
"You two ok?" McCoy asked as they sat down, noticing that Chekov was muttering what could only be Russian curses under his breath as he poked at the information on his PADD.
"Yeah, I think so. We've been trying to work out a bug in the character design programming, but so far we're hitting a dead end," Sulu explained as they sat down.
"Commander, could I trouble you to take a look at zhis, vhen you have time?" Chekov asked holding out the PADD. "I know I am missing somezhing but I cannot find it."
"Of course, Ensign, I will review it on my way to the sim lab after lunch," Spock replied, placing the PADD beside him.
The afternoon was very similar to the morning the only difference being that they were joined by Lt Gren the Assistant Quartermaster, and Spock had gone to help with the combat sim. Joanna and Chekov seemed to make short work of her math; the young Ensign explaining the process and clearing up her difficulties easily.
Just before Jim was going to call it a day and release everyone for dinner, Lt Martin rang the office bell.
"Come in," Jim called when the chime sounded. "Hey, Martin is something wrong?" he asked seeing the expression on Martin's face.
"I guess that depends, Sir," Martin replied. "The crew's found out that we're not leaving when we were scheduled to and they're starting to ask questions. And I'm not sure how much to tell them."
"Chief, can you set up a crew briefing for tomorrow morning 1000?" Jim asked, thinking rapidly.
"I think so, Captain. Any special location?" Giotto replied.
"No just somewhere that we'll all fit. God, I wish we were on the ship. This would be so much easier," Jim said.
"It would be, but we'll find a place," Giotto assured Jim, as he stood.
"Uh, Captain, why don't you just send out a statement, like they do for Academy wide announcements? It would be easier than trying to fit roughly five hundred ninety-eight people into one place quietly," Uhura reminded him smiling at the sheepish look Jim shot her.
"Yeah, that would be easier. Sorry, Chief, Martin," Jim replied
"Are you going to tell them everythin' that's delayin' us?" McCoy asked.
"I don't know, Bones, it's not really any of their business what's going on with you. But then again if the media try and make something of it I feel like they should be warned so that they'll be prepared if the worst happens," Jim said thoughtfully, his mind obviously running over various ways of not hurting Bones or Joanna, but letting the crew know what was going on was important.
"I'll be happy to write up something for you, if you want," Uhura offered.
"Thanks Uhura, get it to me before you post it please. Ok everyone get outta here and get some dinner. I'll see you tomorrow," Jim said standing and making shooing motions towards the door, making the others chuckle as they left.
The next day followed a similar pattern as they finished the preliminary inventories and as Monday rolled around the department heads and their assistants were getting ready to board the Enterprise to finish their inventories and go over the changes from the upgrades.
As they were assembling in the hanger bay, Jim received a message from Spock saying that he'd join them later as he'd been called for an interview with Admiral Liu. Uhura looked slightly worried when Jim quietly told her, but she gave him a small smile and took her seat. Joanna was almost bouncing in her seat with excitement as they took off, much to her father's dismay and everyone else's amusement.
Joanna was going to drive him insane; McCoy decided five minutes after they'd reached the ship. His daughter had yet to stop bouncing with excitement at actually being in space and on the Enterprise. He hoped that giving her something to do in the Medbay would help her calm down.
"Oh for Pete's sake, she'll calm down, Leo. You said yourself that she's never been off planet before," Christine murmured to him, smiling as they 'herded' Joanna towards the Medbay.
"I hope so, Chris. I have no idea why she's so damn excited 'bout bein' in space," he grumbled back shooting her a bewildered look.
"Well we know she didn't get that from you, so we can count ourselves lucky. I don't know what we'd do with two of you on board, grumblin' about the dangers of space and 'these infernal tin cans'," Christine replied grinning up at him. He grumbled about smart ass nurses under his breath making her chuckle.
As McCoy was showing Joanna around the Medbay, the rest of the nurses and M'Benga arrived. After quick introductions, Christine passed out the PADDs and everyone got to work. Christine got Joanna settled at her desk with a PADD of her own as well as her school reading assignments.
Joanna turned out to be a big help with the inventory, helping keep PADDs organized and helping Christine with the list of missing and mis-marked medicines on another.
Lunch was in the mess, with the rest of the crew. Joanna drew a few stares at first, since everyone was curious about her. Most hadn't known that McCoy was divorced let alone a father before receiving the message about the delay the day before. Spock and Rhymer joined them for lunch, while Uhura hurriedly grabbed a sandwich and ran to catch the return shuttle for her own meeting with Admiral Liu.
After lunch, Jim took Joanna on a tour of the ship while Rhymer and McCoy were meeting about the trials. Jim used the tour to check in with the various other departments as well as introducing Joanna to them. They ended the tour on the bridge. There wasn't much to see except the outside of Starbase One, but it was still better than an image of space.
"JoJo, please don't touch anything without asking first," Jim told her before letting her wander around the bridge while he sat down and started working on his paperwork. Joanna quietly wandered around, spending a few minutes with her friends, finding out more about the different stations, and meeting the rest of the bridge crew.
About an hour later Jim and Joanna headed back down to Medbay.
"How's the rest of the ship?" McCoy asked her when they got back.
"Interestin', Daddy. I think I'll be gettin' lost for a while. I liked the arboretum, observation deck, and the bridge the best," Joanna replied hugging her father. "When do I get to see where we'll live?"
"Just let me finish this list and we'll go, Darlin'. I'm almost done," McCoy told her as he turned back to the shelf of medicine.
"Why don't you show me what you've been doing down here while we wait, JoJo?" Jim asked and spent the next few minutes going over the PADDs she'd been helping Christine with, even though he had copies of them waiting for him to sign off on in his office.
Ten minutes later McCoy entered his door code. "Jo, we're gonna have to do a bit of work on the place to get you your own room, so for now I'll take the couch," he told her as the door opened.
"Why, Daddy?" Joanna asked, puzzled as she looked around.
"Well it was designed for one person or maybe a couple, so it's only got the one bedroom."
"Oh," she said looking around the front room at the odds and ends scattered about. On the small desk in the corner were several framed images of her, Jim, and the rest of the crew like he had on his desk in the Medbay. But other than that there wasn't much else in the way of decoration, just some of the older drawings she'd sent, taped to the wall by the desk and a couple of nondescript pictures hanging near the couch.
"Daddy, can we do somethin' 'bout the pictures in here?" Joanna asked cautiously wrinkling her nose at the blue, brown, and grey pictures that looked like they were finger painted.
"I think so, Jo. I'm not in here that much to just sit, so I never did anythin' with 'em. But you can help redecorate if you want. Just not all pink and purple- save that for your room, alright?" McCoy told her.
"Daddy, my room is not gonna be pink and purple; I wanna do it in greens and blues. This'll be fun," Jo replied hugging him.
"Bedroom's straight back, bathroom's to the left," he continued leading her though the rest of his quarters. "We'll have to ask Scotty how we're gonna fit your room in but it'll fit somehow, if I know that crazy engineer," McCoy continued making Joanna giggle, as they headed back to the Medbay.
They returned that night tired but with about a third of the inventories done. Uhura met them at the hanger to get the final report of the day from Lieutenants Hawkins and Hannity and had seemed worried as they'd walked back. Jim found his message from Admiral Liu waiting for him when he entered his quarters, and hurried to clean up and change into a clean uniform for his meeting.
Christine joined McCoy and Joanna in the hall the next morning after breakfast as they waited for the others to finish getting ready to head back up to the ship. McCoy couldn't help noticing the slight scowl on her face.
"So what's got a bee in your bonnet this mornin' Chris?" he asked, hoping it was something as simple as a bad night; he certainly didn't need any more drama in his life right now.
Christine looked up at him for a moment. "I've been tryin' to have a good chat with Nyota since y'all got here and she's been avoidin' me. I was gonna ask her if everythin' was alright after hearin' 'bout Admiral Liu callin' her in yesterday but she slipped out after dinner and wouldn't answer the door. Then she all but ran off when I started to talk to her this mornin'. You haven't heard anything have you?" she asked, her confusion and hurt obvious to him.
"No I haven't, Chris. I bet she'll -" he stopped seeing Jim coming. "Why not ask-" once again he was cut off as Uhura hurried out of her quarters.
"Jim!" she called making him turn to look at her. That was all the warning he got as Uhura rushed over and jumped up to hug him around the neck. "Thank you, thank you," she whispered grinning as Jim let her momentum spin them around once, an answering grin on his face.
"See, I told you not to worry," Jim said almost laughing as he released her, stepping back to take her hands. "I knew it would look great on you. Have you told him yet?"
"I was on my way to but I had to stop and thank you," Uhura replied grinning happily.
"Well, get going. Tell him I said no thanks are needed but that he's welcome," Jim chuckled as Uhura quickly kissed his cheek before she turned and hurried towards Spock's quarters.
McCoy and Christine were staring at Jim like he'd grown another head when he turned back to them and Joanna was grinning.
"Ok Jim, what the hell was that about?" McCoy demanded as soon as Jim reached them. There was no way in hell Jim could get out of answering that one, not after what had just happened.
"Just something I was helping Spock and Uhura with that worked out," Jim replied evasively causing McCoy's scowl to darken.
"Oh? And what was it?" Christine asked before McCoy could say anything.
"You'll find out most likely tonight Bones, Christine," Jim said, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. "I'd tell you, but I promised I wouldn't," he added hoping it would explain why he couldn't explain any better, as Joanna giggled and motioned for Jim to bend down.
"Is it about the ring Shangazi Nyota was wearin' 'round her neck?" she whispered softly in his ear, giggling again when Jim nodded as Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu joined them.
"What do you know about it?" Jim whispered back.
"That it was a special present from Mr. Spock, and I'll find out more later," Joanna whispered back, rolling her eyes at that typical adult statement.
"So what's going on?" Sulu asked taking in the slightly disgruntled looks on McCoy and Christine's faces and the grins on Joanna and Jim's.
"Nothing really, just something I can't talk about yet," Jim replied, as Spock's door opened and he and Uhura walked out.
The surprise at her being in Spock's quarters was slightly overshadowed, first, by the fact that oblivious to their audience, Uhura leaned up and kissed him as they stepped out, and by the fact that Spock was smiling, just a slight quirk of his lips but still a smile.
Joanna's giggle made Uhura whip around in surprise that they had an audience. She bit her lip in embarrassment and shot a glance at Spock whose ears and cheeks were noticeably greener than normal.
"Guys, I think the 'cat's out of the bag' as the old saying goes," Jim said still grinning.
"That would, I believe, be an understatement, Captain," Spock replied evenly as his flush slowly faded.
"Uh, would someone care to explain?" Sulu asked.
"Lt. Uhura has agreed to become my wife. We just received confirmation from the Admiralty this morning that the paperwork for our marriage was approved," Spock told them, calm as ever, though the slight smile never left his face.
"Mazel tov!" Chekov was the first to say breaking the others out of the slight stupor that the news and Spock's uncharacteristic behavior had caused.
"Aye, Commander, Lieutenant. All the best t' ye," Scotty added, grinning as Christine hurried to hug her friend.
"Thank you, Ensign, Mr. Scott," Spock replied with a nod
" Yes, thanks, everyone," Uhura replied as the rest followed Christine, and surrounded them.
As the tumult of good wishes started to die down, the lift opened and a tired M'Benga stepped out.
"So what's going on?" he asked looking at the group.
"Spock and Uhura are engaged, Geoff," Christine told him still grinning.
"Well, congratulations to you both. Captain, I'll be joining you at lunch today, as soon as I get a nap. Night all," M'Benga said yawning. "I hate night shift," they heard him mutter as he headed down the hall to his quarters.
"Shall we continue this over lunch in the ship's mess?" Jim asked chuckling over M'Benga's exit, as they stepped into the lift.
The rest of the morning followed Monday's pattern of work. Lunch was made festive by the addition of a cake that M'Benga brought up with him, and the surprised well wishes of the rest of the crew present.
After lunch, Jim took his turn with Rhymer to go over his testimony and the list of things to do and not to do on the stand. Then Rhymer took a few minutes to talk with Joanna before they caught the shuttles back to San Francisco. Once on the ground Spock and Uhura hurried to get ready for dinner at the Vulcan Embassy with Sarek; while the others headed for the mess.
That evening after dinner McCoy brought up the subject of a room for Joanna with Scotty. The engineer willingly pulled up the floor plan of the deck around McCoy's quarters on his PADD and the three of them started working out the changes necessary to add another bedroom.
By Wednesday night things seemed fairly well worked out both on the ship and with the preparations for the trial. So naturally they were all slightly on edge waiting for something to go wrong. The first indication of that was the fact that Joanna had a full blown night terror that night and managed to wake Spock, Jim, Scotty, and Giotto, their nearest neighbors, with her screaming.
Thursday and Friday were spent making sure that all the last minute supply corrections were taken care of and that all systems were operational and ready to depart. Joanna's continuing night terrors were a puzzle for everyone; she'd woken or disturbed their four nearest neighbors both nights screaming even with the sound proofing activated in all the rooms, the fact that she refused to say what they were about was starting to alarm the others, especially McCoy.
Friday, after a full day of sorting out the final shipment of medicines and prepping the Medbay, and a final round of meetings with Rhymer, all McCoy wanted was some time with Joanna and to try and get as good of a night's sleep as possible before the shuttle ride to Atlanta.
Joanna was quieter than usual, just wanting to snuggle with him on the couch and watch an old favorite movie of hers, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. McCoy just rolled his eyes, it was definitely not his favorite movie, but it made Joanna happy.
"You know, Indy reminds me of Uncle Jim a bit," she told him with a yawn as he tucked her in bed.
"Oh, how so?" McCoy asked puzzled, not sure what Jim and a movie character from the twentieth century had in common.
"He does what he has too to take care of things and the people who matter to him and is always getting' into trouble in the process. But Uncle Jim cares more than he wants people to know most of the time," Joanna explained, fighting to keep her eyes open, as her Dad nodded at her surprisingly accurate description of Jim.
"I know, Jo. Night Darlin', sweet dreams," he told her gently kissing her cheek as she snuggled under the blankets with her bear. She woke them with another night terror a few hours later and spent the rest of the night glued to him.