"Toska" (Star Trek XI, PG-13 for implications)

[browngirl]

Title: "Toska"
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Rating: PG-13 at most
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/Uhura
Summary: T'Amanda asks Jim what he is to her parents.
Content Advisory: Implications, discussion, and a little girl. Not even a thousand words.
All Thanks To: circ_bamboo for The Awesomely Untranslatable Commentfic Fest, igrockspock for liking this, lomedet for encouraging me to adopt the plotbunny eons ago, and of course for ninhursag.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or their settings belong to me. (T'Amanda belongs to fanon and the rest belong to Paramount.)
Author's Note: See first second comment. It's an explanation of the title.



Cool emptiness opens at Nyota's back, tugging her from sleep, but it's nothing she isn't used to. Spock doesn't even stir beside her, his arm solid beneath her hand; his dreams radiate banked warmth into her mind, clean as a sauna and limitless as a long-gone sky. She tucks her forehead against his shoulder, inhales, exhales, and settles herself back towards her rest.

At least, until her daughter's voice in the entry room catches her ear. Nyota lifts her hand from Spock's arm, not wanting her flickering concern to disturb him, and carefully shifts onto her back as she listens to T'Amanda say with profound sternness, "I conclude that this pattern extends to nights when I did not wake. Captain Jim --" Nyota's heart stutters "-- do you sleep in my parents' bedroom?"

There are a few silent seconds, while Nyota thinks desperately about kicking away the sheets and rolling out of bed, but she stays where she is, still but for her hammering pulse. Jim sighs a little, and she hears the whisper of cloth as he shifts; she can just imagine him sinking to his knees to look her imperious daughter in the eye. "Sometimes... yes. Last night."

"Alpha shift has not begun yet," T'Amanda corrects him, and Nyota smiles up at the dim ceiling. "It is still night. Why are you leaving now?"

"I have captainy things to get done before Alpha starts." Jim's voice slides into a desperately high register; T'Amanda must have frowned. "Tee, I really should--"

"Mother is Father's wife." T'Amanda sounds upset, too. "Father is Mother's husband." Strained, at least; she's never liked being confused. "What are you -- with them? Don't tell me I cannot understand." Upset enough to use a contraction. Nyota tightens her hand into a fist, longing to intervene, holding herself back.

Of course, her agitation wakes Spock, his sleep breaking like a soap bubble; he tenses beside her, ready to meet any threat, and she lays two fingers across the back of his hand. Jim says, a little slower, "No, T'Amanda, I think you can understand." Spock's puzzlement fades as alarm crests and sinks, as he realizes what they're overhearing. "When they first made me Captain I wanted -- so much. Not everything," and Nyota can almost see her daughter's skeptical look, because who wouldn't look skeptically at Jim Kirk for that claim? "But a lot. And I had a lot, but there was something missing, even with my awesome crew, even with this beautiful ship. I didn't... I couldn't figure it out but it was there inside me, this hole I couldn't fill, until your parents showed me what it was by filling it. So now... what I am is theirs, Tee. I'm theirs. I belong to Starfleet, and to the Enterprise, to Dr. McCoy, and to your parents."

Nyota's heart twinges sweetly. Spock turns his hand beneath her fingers, folding his around them. After a few more heartbeats T'Amanda echoes, "You are theirs, with them."

"Exactly." That particular warmth in Jim's voice always makes Nyota want to kiss him, even it also makes her want to slap him and occasionally she has. "And, uh, I need to go."

"You may leave, Captain Jim." Jim hums softly as T'Amanda probably hugs him. Spock is amused deep down, and allowing Nyota to feel it. Amused, and pleased.

Another shift of cloth, Jim's "Move back, okay?", and a quick huff of breath and click of metal. Nyota presses her free hand to her mouth, because Jim is such a showoff.

T'Amanda makes an inarticulately human noise of confusion. "The door is three meters over there! Why are you climbing into the Jeffries tube?"

"That, Tee," Jim says, a little breathless and characteristically overdramatic, "is a story for another day." The panel clicks back into place, and Nyota looks at Spock, serene in the dimness.

Then he actually smiles, his cheek crinkling into relief, as they hear T'Amanda's tinkling little-girl laughter.