ceres_libera (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ceres_libera) wrote2010-06-07 10:40 pm
ceres_libera) wrote2010-06-07 10:40 pm
Entry tags:
Unexpected 4/4
Title: "Unexpected 4/4"
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ceres_libera
Rating: R mostly for language and adult concepts
Disclaimer and Notes in Part 1
+
One year later
"Jim Kirk," Leonard roared, "if you don't stop fussing over me, I will kick you right out of this room."
"He can't do that, can he?" Jim asked Chapel, and damn her if the woman wasn't hiding a smile. "I'm the father!"
"I'm the father," Leonard said, panting as he began approaching the transition. "You're just the bastard who did this to me!"
"Leonard," Chapel said, looking up from where she was seated between his legs. "You're at zero station."
"Thank Christ," he grunted.
"Can we push?" Jim asked, and God help him, Leonard wanted to punch him.
"We?" he asked sarcastically. "Are you about to push a flour sack out of an opening that you didn't have a year ago? Not to mention the muscle … " his tirade was cut off by the flexing of those muscles as his body fruitlessly tried to expel the fetus. "Goddamnit!" he said weakly, falling back against the pillows. “She has a head like a bowling ball, I swear!”
Jim, bless him, raked the sweaty hair back off of his brow, and gave him some ice chips, somehow managing to look equal parts terrified and proud. “You always say that I have a head like a bowling ball,” he murmured to Leonard.
“Hmmph!” he snorted.
"Maybe if you tried to focus some of that energy on getting that baby out of you rather than expelling it uselessly at your partner, that would work better," Chapel deadpanned.
"Chapel?" Leonard asked.
She raised an eyebrow at him, saucy wench.
"When you're having the baby, I hope that I am just as understanding," he gritted out.
She smiled at him. Bitch. "I'm adjusting the bed so that gravity will help you, Chief," she said cheerfully.
"Fuck you," Leonard said.
"Bones!" Jim said, sounding shocked. "Don't swear at Chapel!"
"You're right," he said, licking his dry lips again. "I should be swearing at you, you bastard."
Jim beamed at him. "It is kind of our little thing," he said in an intimate tone.
Leonard fisted his hand in his shirt and pulled him down for a long kiss.
"Oh God," Chapel said from down below him. He thought she might be making a little gagging noise, and God help him, if he could get his foot out of the fucking stirrup, he would kick the woman.
"Get behind me, Jim," Leonard ordered, leaning forward. He could feel the ramp up to another contraction coming at him like a freight train.
Jim made to get behind him, and was just about to whisper something inappropriately filthy in his ear when Chapel interrupted him.
"TMI," Chapel crooned evilly, making a note on a padd.
"Chapel! I swear!" Leonard said and then gripped Jim's hands and bore down, unfortunately catching Jim unaware. "Sorry," he said gruffly to Jim when he could see again. He dropped his head back against Jim's shoulder and Jim kissed his cheek, wiping the hair off his brow with one hand and surreptitiously shaking the other one, probably trying to get feeling back into it.
"'s fine," Jim said.
"That was a good one," Chapel announced from her station. “+2.”
"Thanks for the update," Leonard snapped. "Jim," he said into Jim's neck. "I can hold onto the rails."
"Don't you dare," Jim said seriously. "I'm right here with you, Bones."
Leonard spent the next few minutes in agony as he burned and pushed. Spent, he dropped his head back on Jim's shoulder to wait for the next contraction as Jim murmured and told him that he was beautiful, told him that he loved him. Leonard laughed, not because he didn't believe the latter, but because seriously? He still believed that Jim's view of him as beautiful was a little cracked. A year of being a woman had shown him that most humans thought that he looked, at best, like a really big chick in drag. Who was pregnant.
"Jim," he said. "Why did you let me grow my hair out? It's so hot."
"I'll shave your head as soon as you give birth, Bones," Jim said, flipping the hair up off his neck and kissing his cheek. "Promise."
"It's all gonna fall out anyway," he said, grabbing a hold of Jim's hands and pushing for all he was worth. The burning stretch felt different this time, more burny. God, he was really losing it.
"I kinda like it long though," Jim said wistfully.
Leonard shook his head at Jim's bizarreness. "The Admiralty doesn't though. Oh, here we go!" He pushed and pushed, until Chapel ordered him to stop. He heard the sound of suctioning. "Oh, thank God," he said.
"The Admiralty can suck it," Jim said, trying to keep up their conversation, but his voice had tears in it, and Leonard knew it wasn't about the Admiralty's opinions.
He still remembered the day he'd woken from a nap, somewhere late in the second trimester, and heard Jim calmly telling Admiral Greeley that if Leonard was reassigned to Earth, that he'd be going with him, and their baby, and that it would be up to the Admiralty to explain why the Captain of the Enterprise wasn't deriving the benefits of Starfleet's much ballyhooed new family-friendly policy.
"Bones," Jim whispered in awe, "I can see her head." Christine, who had her good points, occasionally, had set up mirrors so that Jim and he could see the baby's progress.
He wrapped an arm around Jim's neck and panted, wanting to push so badly, but knowing that he needed to wait for just a minute –
"Go, Leonard," Chapel ordered.
And he pushed, and felt tissue rending, and God! Was that noise coming from him? There was a long slippery, burning gush from his lower body and then … nothing. He dropped back against Jim.
"Bones …" Jim was barely breathing against him, but he was so tired … he couldn't open his eyes, just reached out his arms as Chapel, that wonderful woman, laid their baby on the deflating bulge of his belly.
Leonard laughed, even though he could feel the tears streaming down his face, running his hands all over the bewildered, blinking infant laying there, covered in blood and vernix. He turned her over and pulled her up to his chest, watching as Jim touched her face, her belly, her hands and feet.
"Oh, Bones," he was saying over and over again. "She's so beautiful."
He nodded, blinking, watching as their daughter flinched as her fathers' tears, his and Jim's, fell on her face, making them both laugh.
"It's a girl," Chapel said tearily.
"Joanna Leigh," Leonard whispered to the baby. "That's your mean Aunt Christine."
Chapel blew a raspberry through her tears, leaning over to kiss him, then Jim, then the baby. "I'm so glad Scotty blew up Engineering again," she said, running a hand over the baby's head. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world."
"Geoffrey might have a different opinion," Leonard said dryly, then bit his lip. "Jim baby," he said.
"Hmm …" Jim answered, one long finger under their daughter's chin. "I think she has your eyes, Bones."
Leonard looked at the baby. "I'm pretty sure those are blue eyes, Jim," he said, squinting, although he couldn't say that they'd stay that way.
"The shape, though," Jim said dreamily. He was besotted, and Leonard couldn't help but agree. Joanna Leigh Kirk-McCoy, named for both of her fathers, was clearly the most beautiful baby that had ever been born. There was no contest, really.
"Jim," Leonard said, a bit more urgently. "You gotta get up and take her. I'm not done yet."
"Oh," Jim said, kissing Leonard once and then again before he clambered out from behind him as Chapel cut the umbilicus. He took their baby from Leonard's arms with a look of wonder on his face, and even though he was smiling, Leonard couldn't help but feel a pang of loss at the separation. She'd been inside him for so long, after all.
"Leonard," Chapel said softly, from between his legs. She was rubbing his belly, trying to get his body to expel the afterbirth. "Ready?"
He watched Jim, holding their baby with one hand cupping her head, the other one spread out under her back. Jim was completely transfixed.
Leonard closed his eyes and pushed, reluctant to let them out of his sight for one minute, but needing to let his body do its work. He opened them again as he heard Jim talking to their daughter.
“Joanna Leigh,” Jim said reverently, “tell me that you’re going to take my side, and tell your Daddy that we need to make this official as soon as possible.” He tilted his head toward the baby and cut his eyes at Leonard, grinning like a loon when the baby made a feeble but well-timed squawk.
Jim looked so triumphant that Leonard didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was probably protesting the fact that she didn’t feel secure with her limbs all hanging out in space the way they were. As she started to fuss, Jim carefully wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest, uncaring of the fact that she still hadn’t been cleaned up and that she was getting his uniform dirty. He smiled wearily at the sight. Jim never minded getting his uniform dirty, but for the first time ever he didn't mind seeing it streaked with blood.
One of the younger nurses approached the Captain a bit fearfully, and Jim turned to let her go by, not realizing that her mission was to take the baby to be cleaned up. “Jim,” Leonard said, “why don’t you go with Bobbie and get a lesson on bathing Joanna?”
“Are you sure, Bones?” Jim asked, looking torn.
“I’m fine, Jim,” he said tiredly. “Let Chapel finish up here and then let’s go home. We got some planning to do.”
The smile on Jim’s face was as bright as the sun on the water on a June Georgia day. He crossed the room and bent over with Joanna in his arms and kissed him like he needed the kisses to breathe. “Whenever you’re ready, Bones,” he said, when they broke apart, still beaming. “You pick the day.”
He rested his hand on Jim’s face. “You’ll be the first to know.” Between them, Joanna made a squeaky noise. “You’ll be one and a half, Peanut,” Leonard drawled. At the sound of his voice, the baby turned her face, seeking, and he pressed a kiss to her impossibly small forehead. “Bring her back soon,” he said to Jim, then made a shooing gesture, closing his eyes. He really wanted a shower and his own bed – well, Jim’s bed – their bed. He rested, barely noticing while Chapel fussed over him, stitching up parts of his anatomy that, with any luck, were soon to disappear.
“Leonard,” she said, echoing his own thoughts. “I swear that I can already see some changes.”
“Thank God,” he drawled, then paused at the timbre of his voice. “You hear that, too?” he asked.
“Definitely,” she said.
“All right then,” he said, and let himself drift off until his family came back.
+
“Captain? I’m sorry to disturb you, sir.” Jim smiled at the tone in Uhura’s voice. He’d known her long enough to recognize her cat that swallowed the canary voice.
“Not a problem, Lieutenant,” he said smoothly, using his official Captain voice. “Carry on.”
“Auntie Nyota’s up to something,” he said to Joanna, in an ‘I’ve got a secret tone’ when he released the comm. Joanna batted eyes that were sometimes blue, and sometimes really, really green at him, and smiled, showing her gums. God, he loved being able to work from home.
Joanna was wearing a blue science onesy, the kind that had covered her little feet, the ones that were kicking as she batted at the holo-animals that Scotty had set up to swirl over her head as she sat in her chair, 'to help the wee lass with her hand-eye coordination, which will be important to her future career as an engineer'.
At three months, she was getting closer and closer to actually getting one of the animals. Just a few minutes ago, she’d come thisclose. No surprises, there. She was clearly exceptional for her age, something that Spock found eminently logical, 'considering her parents are both well above normative standards in their relative fields'. What was less logical was flung across one of his padds as Joanna batted at the animals with infant verve. Jim fingered the booty, watching as the lightweight chameleon thread changed to mimic the color of his hand before he grasped her foot, putting it back on. He'd claimed that it was a perfectly logical gift for an infant who was still incapable of regulating her body temperature, but part of Jim still couldn’t believe that Spock had actually knitted booties for Joanna. And made sure, by his choice of thread, that they would complement any of Joanna's outfits.
“Vizier Vaa’lash would like to speak to you, Captain Kirk,” Uhura said formally.
From behind him, he heard Bones snort and he turned in time to see him stumbling, still half-asleep, wearing nothing but low-hanging sleep shorts. "I just bet he does, Nyota," he drawled.
Joanna vibrated with excitement at the sound of his voice, making cooing noises.
"Hello, my baby girl," Bones said to Joanna, giving her a kiss and picking her up from the chair atop Jim's desk. He bent over to kiss Jim, and Jim took the opportunity to run his hands up the sleep warm long muscles of Bones back. Ever since he'd gotten back to his original form, Bones had been working out extra-hard. He claimed it was because he needed to build the muscle he'd lost back up, but Jim wasn't complaining. He'd enjoyed Bones' voluptuous beauty when he'd been feminized, and he definitely was enjoying the perfection that was Bones in his masculine form. Especially now that he was totally ripped.
Bones broke away from Jim, taking Joanna with him into the bathroom. She had chairs everywhere in their quarters, so that she could be with one of her parents, or Spock or Uhura, or … hell, even Cupcake had a chair for Joanna in his quarters.
"I hope I didn't wake him," Uhura said worriedly. "I know today's his day to sleep in."
"Don't worry," Jim said. "He wouldn't have gotten up if he wasn't ready. I think he's meeting Christine at the gym." In the bathroom, he heard Bones singing to the baby while she squealed and he smiled. "So … " Jim said, after listening to Bones and Joanna for a bit longer. "Vaa'lash?"
"Oh my goodness," Uhura said, her tone deceptively innocent. "I am so sorry, Captain Kirk. Have I left him waiting all this time? How unworthy of me. Will you be taking the call?"
"I'm afraid not," Jim said. "I'm too busy taking care of my daughter this morning to answer anything other than the highest priority calls."
"Of course, sir," Nyota said, "I'll certainly let him know. You should know, sir," she continued in her dutiful way, "that the Vizier has renewed his offer to officiate at your upcoming wedding ceremony."
"In a pig's eye!" Bones said thunderously from the bathroom doorway. He was still bare-chested but was now wearing his gym shorts as he bounced Joanna on one arm, bicep bulging. She was completely undisturbed by her father's bluster and continued waving the rattle that she must have found in the bathroom.
Jim swore that Spock or Nyota, or both of them, was supplementing Joanna's already overflowing toy basket by just leaving things in their mutual bathroom.
"Would that be your official answer, Dr. McCoy?" Uhura asked.
"Oh, I'd have a few other things to say if I was going to let loose, Ny, and you damned well know it!" Bones swirled his hand over Joanna's mostly not there hair. She'd been white blonde like Jim had been when she was born, but that hair had pretty much fallen out, and her new hair didn't seem to be much of any color, although her eyebrows and eyelashes were dark.
"Our official answer," Jim said, cutting off a further tirade, "is that our upcoming wedding will be an exclusive, family-only, invitation event. You can thank him for the offer, Lieutenant, if you care to."
There was a smile in Nyota's voice. She, as Bones' witness, was definitely on the list, along with the rest of the crew. "Certainly, Captain. Uhura out."
"That bastard," Bones said, propping Joanna up on the coach next to him as he pulled on socks and sneakers. "Still trying to make political hay off our lives. Fuck him."
"I swear to God that's going to be her first word, Bones," Jim said, shaking his head mock sadly.
"I'm pretty sure her first words are going to be 'Bones, Bones, Oh, Boooones'," Bones smirked, "especially if you don't learn how to modulate your voice."
Jim waggled his eyebrows at Bones. "Four days to change your mind, Booooones."
Joanna squealed as Bones picked her up and stalked over to Jim, handing the baby over before he reached down between Jim's legs and squeezed lightly. "Balls, Jim … remember?" Then he plundered Jim's mouth with a bruising kiss before he broke away, pulling the t-shirt out of his back pocket.
"You keep sweet talking me like that and I'll definitely marry you," Jim said, looking up at Bones through his lashes as Bones pulled the shirt down over his newly shorn hair.
Bones smiled at him, dimple and all, then bent and kissed Joanna. "I'll be back for lunch, baby. Don't let your Daddy start any wars."
Joanna shook her rattle at her departing father, and Jim swung back around to his desk to watch him go, admiring the view. Then he sat with Joanna on his lap, contemplating his pile of never-ending paperwork. Memo to Scotty about expanding their quarters? Almost done. Note to Pike, confirming his travel plans? Sent. Monthly intel reports? Completely boring, but getting there. Ops report? Accepted and sent to Uhura for transmittal.
Jim whistled lightly as he worked, bouncing Joanna on his lap and humming under his breath as he felt her settle in against him and get heavier, readying for her mid-morning nap. He supposed that he should put her back in her chair, or lay her down on the couch, but he rocked back in his chair and watched until she drifted off, lips pursed as she soothed herself to sleep, and he smiled.
Life was … unexpectedly good.
+
fin
/Dental warning
Author:
ceres_liberaRating: R mostly for language and adult concepts
Disclaimer and Notes in Part 1
+
One year later
"Jim Kirk," Leonard roared, "if you don't stop fussing over me, I will kick you right out of this room."
"He can't do that, can he?" Jim asked Chapel, and damn her if the woman wasn't hiding a smile. "I'm the father!"
"I'm the father," Leonard said, panting as he began approaching the transition. "You're just the bastard who did this to me!"
"Leonard," Chapel said, looking up from where she was seated between his legs. "You're at zero station."
"Thank Christ," he grunted.
"Can we push?" Jim asked, and God help him, Leonard wanted to punch him.
"We?" he asked sarcastically. "Are you about to push a flour sack out of an opening that you didn't have a year ago? Not to mention the muscle … " his tirade was cut off by the flexing of those muscles as his body fruitlessly tried to expel the fetus. "Goddamnit!" he said weakly, falling back against the pillows. “She has a head like a bowling ball, I swear!”
Jim, bless him, raked the sweaty hair back off of his brow, and gave him some ice chips, somehow managing to look equal parts terrified and proud. “You always say that I have a head like a bowling ball,” he murmured to Leonard.
“Hmmph!” he snorted.
"Maybe if you tried to focus some of that energy on getting that baby out of you rather than expelling it uselessly at your partner, that would work better," Chapel deadpanned.
"Chapel?" Leonard asked.
She raised an eyebrow at him, saucy wench.
"When you're having the baby, I hope that I am just as understanding," he gritted out.
She smiled at him. Bitch. "I'm adjusting the bed so that gravity will help you, Chief," she said cheerfully.
"Fuck you," Leonard said.
"Bones!" Jim said, sounding shocked. "Don't swear at Chapel!"
"You're right," he said, licking his dry lips again. "I should be swearing at you, you bastard."
Jim beamed at him. "It is kind of our little thing," he said in an intimate tone.
Leonard fisted his hand in his shirt and pulled him down for a long kiss.
"Oh God," Chapel said from down below him. He thought she might be making a little gagging noise, and God help him, if he could get his foot out of the fucking stirrup, he would kick the woman.
"Get behind me, Jim," Leonard ordered, leaning forward. He could feel the ramp up to another contraction coming at him like a freight train.
Jim made to get behind him, and was just about to whisper something inappropriately filthy in his ear when Chapel interrupted him.
"TMI," Chapel crooned evilly, making a note on a padd.
"Chapel! I swear!" Leonard said and then gripped Jim's hands and bore down, unfortunately catching Jim unaware. "Sorry," he said gruffly to Jim when he could see again. He dropped his head back against Jim's shoulder and Jim kissed his cheek, wiping the hair off his brow with one hand and surreptitiously shaking the other one, probably trying to get feeling back into it.
"'s fine," Jim said.
"That was a good one," Chapel announced from her station. “+2.”
"Thanks for the update," Leonard snapped. "Jim," he said into Jim's neck. "I can hold onto the rails."
"Don't you dare," Jim said seriously. "I'm right here with you, Bones."
Leonard spent the next few minutes in agony as he burned and pushed. Spent, he dropped his head back on Jim's shoulder to wait for the next contraction as Jim murmured and told him that he was beautiful, told him that he loved him. Leonard laughed, not because he didn't believe the latter, but because seriously? He still believed that Jim's view of him as beautiful was a little cracked. A year of being a woman had shown him that most humans thought that he looked, at best, like a really big chick in drag. Who was pregnant.
"Jim," he said. "Why did you let me grow my hair out? It's so hot."
"I'll shave your head as soon as you give birth, Bones," Jim said, flipping the hair up off his neck and kissing his cheek. "Promise."
"It's all gonna fall out anyway," he said, grabbing a hold of Jim's hands and pushing for all he was worth. The burning stretch felt different this time, more burny. God, he was really losing it.
"I kinda like it long though," Jim said wistfully.
Leonard shook his head at Jim's bizarreness. "The Admiralty doesn't though. Oh, here we go!" He pushed and pushed, until Chapel ordered him to stop. He heard the sound of suctioning. "Oh, thank God," he said.
"The Admiralty can suck it," Jim said, trying to keep up their conversation, but his voice had tears in it, and Leonard knew it wasn't about the Admiralty's opinions.
He still remembered the day he'd woken from a nap, somewhere late in the second trimester, and heard Jim calmly telling Admiral Greeley that if Leonard was reassigned to Earth, that he'd be going with him, and their baby, and that it would be up to the Admiralty to explain why the Captain of the Enterprise wasn't deriving the benefits of Starfleet's much ballyhooed new family-friendly policy.
"Bones," Jim whispered in awe, "I can see her head." Christine, who had her good points, occasionally, had set up mirrors so that Jim and he could see the baby's progress.
He wrapped an arm around Jim's neck and panted, wanting to push so badly, but knowing that he needed to wait for just a minute –
"Go, Leonard," Chapel ordered.
And he pushed, and felt tissue rending, and God! Was that noise coming from him? There was a long slippery, burning gush from his lower body and then … nothing. He dropped back against Jim.
"Bones …" Jim was barely breathing against him, but he was so tired … he couldn't open his eyes, just reached out his arms as Chapel, that wonderful woman, laid their baby on the deflating bulge of his belly.
Leonard laughed, even though he could feel the tears streaming down his face, running his hands all over the bewildered, blinking infant laying there, covered in blood and vernix. He turned her over and pulled her up to his chest, watching as Jim touched her face, her belly, her hands and feet.
"Oh, Bones," he was saying over and over again. "She's so beautiful."
He nodded, blinking, watching as their daughter flinched as her fathers' tears, his and Jim's, fell on her face, making them both laugh.
"It's a girl," Chapel said tearily.
"Joanna Leigh," Leonard whispered to the baby. "That's your mean Aunt Christine."
Chapel blew a raspberry through her tears, leaning over to kiss him, then Jim, then the baby. "I'm so glad Scotty blew up Engineering again," she said, running a hand over the baby's head. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world."
"Geoffrey might have a different opinion," Leonard said dryly, then bit his lip. "Jim baby," he said.
"Hmm …" Jim answered, one long finger under their daughter's chin. "I think she has your eyes, Bones."
Leonard looked at the baby. "I'm pretty sure those are blue eyes, Jim," he said, squinting, although he couldn't say that they'd stay that way.
"The shape, though," Jim said dreamily. He was besotted, and Leonard couldn't help but agree. Joanna Leigh Kirk-McCoy, named for both of her fathers, was clearly the most beautiful baby that had ever been born. There was no contest, really.
"Jim," Leonard said, a bit more urgently. "You gotta get up and take her. I'm not done yet."
"Oh," Jim said, kissing Leonard once and then again before he clambered out from behind him as Chapel cut the umbilicus. He took their baby from Leonard's arms with a look of wonder on his face, and even though he was smiling, Leonard couldn't help but feel a pang of loss at the separation. She'd been inside him for so long, after all.
"Leonard," Chapel said softly, from between his legs. She was rubbing his belly, trying to get his body to expel the afterbirth. "Ready?"
He watched Jim, holding their baby with one hand cupping her head, the other one spread out under her back. Jim was completely transfixed.
Leonard closed his eyes and pushed, reluctant to let them out of his sight for one minute, but needing to let his body do its work. He opened them again as he heard Jim talking to their daughter.
“Joanna Leigh,” Jim said reverently, “tell me that you’re going to take my side, and tell your Daddy that we need to make this official as soon as possible.” He tilted his head toward the baby and cut his eyes at Leonard, grinning like a loon when the baby made a feeble but well-timed squawk.
Jim looked so triumphant that Leonard didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was probably protesting the fact that she didn’t feel secure with her limbs all hanging out in space the way they were. As she started to fuss, Jim carefully wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest, uncaring of the fact that she still hadn’t been cleaned up and that she was getting his uniform dirty. He smiled wearily at the sight. Jim never minded getting his uniform dirty, but for the first time ever he didn't mind seeing it streaked with blood.
One of the younger nurses approached the Captain a bit fearfully, and Jim turned to let her go by, not realizing that her mission was to take the baby to be cleaned up. “Jim,” Leonard said, “why don’t you go with Bobbie and get a lesson on bathing Joanna?”
“Are you sure, Bones?” Jim asked, looking torn.
“I’m fine, Jim,” he said tiredly. “Let Chapel finish up here and then let’s go home. We got some planning to do.”
The smile on Jim’s face was as bright as the sun on the water on a June Georgia day. He crossed the room and bent over with Joanna in his arms and kissed him like he needed the kisses to breathe. “Whenever you’re ready, Bones,” he said, when they broke apart, still beaming. “You pick the day.”
He rested his hand on Jim’s face. “You’ll be the first to know.” Between them, Joanna made a squeaky noise. “You’ll be one and a half, Peanut,” Leonard drawled. At the sound of his voice, the baby turned her face, seeking, and he pressed a kiss to her impossibly small forehead. “Bring her back soon,” he said to Jim, then made a shooing gesture, closing his eyes. He really wanted a shower and his own bed – well, Jim’s bed – their bed. He rested, barely noticing while Chapel fussed over him, stitching up parts of his anatomy that, with any luck, were soon to disappear.
“Leonard,” she said, echoing his own thoughts. “I swear that I can already see some changes.”
“Thank God,” he drawled, then paused at the timbre of his voice. “You hear that, too?” he asked.
“Definitely,” she said.
“All right then,” he said, and let himself drift off until his family came back.
+
“Captain? I’m sorry to disturb you, sir.” Jim smiled at the tone in Uhura’s voice. He’d known her long enough to recognize her cat that swallowed the canary voice.
“Not a problem, Lieutenant,” he said smoothly, using his official Captain voice. “Carry on.”
“Auntie Nyota’s up to something,” he said to Joanna, in an ‘I’ve got a secret tone’ when he released the comm. Joanna batted eyes that were sometimes blue, and sometimes really, really green at him, and smiled, showing her gums. God, he loved being able to work from home.
Joanna was wearing a blue science onesy, the kind that had covered her little feet, the ones that were kicking as she batted at the holo-animals that Scotty had set up to swirl over her head as she sat in her chair, 'to help the wee lass with her hand-eye coordination, which will be important to her future career as an engineer'.
At three months, she was getting closer and closer to actually getting one of the animals. Just a few minutes ago, she’d come thisclose. No surprises, there. She was clearly exceptional for her age, something that Spock found eminently logical, 'considering her parents are both well above normative standards in their relative fields'. What was less logical was flung across one of his padds as Joanna batted at the animals with infant verve. Jim fingered the booty, watching as the lightweight chameleon thread changed to mimic the color of his hand before he grasped her foot, putting it back on. He'd claimed that it was a perfectly logical gift for an infant who was still incapable of regulating her body temperature, but part of Jim still couldn’t believe that Spock had actually knitted booties for Joanna. And made sure, by his choice of thread, that they would complement any of Joanna's outfits.
“Vizier Vaa’lash would like to speak to you, Captain Kirk,” Uhura said formally.
From behind him, he heard Bones snort and he turned in time to see him stumbling, still half-asleep, wearing nothing but low-hanging sleep shorts. "I just bet he does, Nyota," he drawled.
Joanna vibrated with excitement at the sound of his voice, making cooing noises.
"Hello, my baby girl," Bones said to Joanna, giving her a kiss and picking her up from the chair atop Jim's desk. He bent over to kiss Jim, and Jim took the opportunity to run his hands up the sleep warm long muscles of Bones back. Ever since he'd gotten back to his original form, Bones had been working out extra-hard. He claimed it was because he needed to build the muscle he'd lost back up, but Jim wasn't complaining. He'd enjoyed Bones' voluptuous beauty when he'd been feminized, and he definitely was enjoying the perfection that was Bones in his masculine form. Especially now that he was totally ripped.
Bones broke away from Jim, taking Joanna with him into the bathroom. She had chairs everywhere in their quarters, so that she could be with one of her parents, or Spock or Uhura, or … hell, even Cupcake had a chair for Joanna in his quarters.
"I hope I didn't wake him," Uhura said worriedly. "I know today's his day to sleep in."
"Don't worry," Jim said. "He wouldn't have gotten up if he wasn't ready. I think he's meeting Christine at the gym." In the bathroom, he heard Bones singing to the baby while she squealed and he smiled. "So … " Jim said, after listening to Bones and Joanna for a bit longer. "Vaa'lash?"
"Oh my goodness," Uhura said, her tone deceptively innocent. "I am so sorry, Captain Kirk. Have I left him waiting all this time? How unworthy of me. Will you be taking the call?"
"I'm afraid not," Jim said. "I'm too busy taking care of my daughter this morning to answer anything other than the highest priority calls."
"Of course, sir," Nyota said, "I'll certainly let him know. You should know, sir," she continued in her dutiful way, "that the Vizier has renewed his offer to officiate at your upcoming wedding ceremony."
"In a pig's eye!" Bones said thunderously from the bathroom doorway. He was still bare-chested but was now wearing his gym shorts as he bounced Joanna on one arm, bicep bulging. She was completely undisturbed by her father's bluster and continued waving the rattle that she must have found in the bathroom.
Jim swore that Spock or Nyota, or both of them, was supplementing Joanna's already overflowing toy basket by just leaving things in their mutual bathroom.
"Would that be your official answer, Dr. McCoy?" Uhura asked.
"Oh, I'd have a few other things to say if I was going to let loose, Ny, and you damned well know it!" Bones swirled his hand over Joanna's mostly not there hair. She'd been white blonde like Jim had been when she was born, but that hair had pretty much fallen out, and her new hair didn't seem to be much of any color, although her eyebrows and eyelashes were dark.
"Our official answer," Jim said, cutting off a further tirade, "is that our upcoming wedding will be an exclusive, family-only, invitation event. You can thank him for the offer, Lieutenant, if you care to."
There was a smile in Nyota's voice. She, as Bones' witness, was definitely on the list, along with the rest of the crew. "Certainly, Captain. Uhura out."
"That bastard," Bones said, propping Joanna up on the coach next to him as he pulled on socks and sneakers. "Still trying to make political hay off our lives. Fuck him."
"I swear to God that's going to be her first word, Bones," Jim said, shaking his head mock sadly.
"I'm pretty sure her first words are going to be 'Bones, Bones, Oh, Boooones'," Bones smirked, "especially if you don't learn how to modulate your voice."
Jim waggled his eyebrows at Bones. "Four days to change your mind, Booooones."
Joanna squealed as Bones picked her up and stalked over to Jim, handing the baby over before he reached down between Jim's legs and squeezed lightly. "Balls, Jim … remember?" Then he plundered Jim's mouth with a bruising kiss before he broke away, pulling the t-shirt out of his back pocket.
"You keep sweet talking me like that and I'll definitely marry you," Jim said, looking up at Bones through his lashes as Bones pulled the shirt down over his newly shorn hair.
Bones smiled at him, dimple and all, then bent and kissed Joanna. "I'll be back for lunch, baby. Don't let your Daddy start any wars."
Joanna shook her rattle at her departing father, and Jim swung back around to his desk to watch him go, admiring the view. Then he sat with Joanna on his lap, contemplating his pile of never-ending paperwork. Memo to Scotty about expanding their quarters? Almost done. Note to Pike, confirming his travel plans? Sent. Monthly intel reports? Completely boring, but getting there. Ops report? Accepted and sent to Uhura for transmittal.
Jim whistled lightly as he worked, bouncing Joanna on his lap and humming under his breath as he felt her settle in against him and get heavier, readying for her mid-morning nap. He supposed that he should put her back in her chair, or lay her down on the couch, but he rocked back in his chair and watched until she drifted off, lips pursed as she soothed herself to sleep, and he smiled.
Life was … unexpectedly good.
+
fin
/Dental warning
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