POV: McCoy

Year 4 - 1st 5yr mission

It was coming. Any moment now, the distress call would come and McCoy would leap into the fray and offer whatever assistance he could. He'd had years of preparation and practice under his belt and he was ready, would never be more ready or willing to aid another than he was at this very moment. Only…his comm remained silent.

It had been a long labor. Nineteen hours of contractions and cramps and Jim threatening Spock's life should the Vulcan even look at him again let alone try to touch him. Nineteen hours for the baby to reach stabilized levels when extraction would be possible. Then there was a squalling baby, with ten fingers and ten toes, two pointed ears and Jim's ability to project loudly.

Her name was T'Sai Amanda something unpronounceable (that almost made Jim cry when he heard it). She had a dark cap of hair, Jim's lips, Spock's cheekbones and clear blue eyes that was not the standard for Vulcan babies, therefore Spock was certain they would remain blue much to Jim's delight. She also had been crying for forty minutes without stop.

McCoy had left the three of them alone to examine their daughter and coo at her every move, but he knew that the sedative had worked its way through Jim's blood stream by now and that their illustrious captain would now be dead to the world, no doubt drooling in his stupor. That left Spock to deal with the child, and McCoy ready and waiting to avail himself when the plea for assistance finally came through.

He updated Jim and Spock's personal files, added T'Sai to his growing number of charts, scheduled her first check-up and drank a celebratory glass of Bourbon and still no call came. He was beginning to worry that Spock had resorted to nerve pinching the child to sleep so he crept quietly from his office to peak into Jim's isolation room.

He experienced momentary panic at the silence that met him when he peered through the door but it quickly faded at the sight before him. Sure enough, Jim's quiet snores filled the room and there was a tell-tale patch of moisture at the corner of his gaping mouth. Then he shifted his gaze to Spock and what he saw had McCoy reaching to initiate the recording device set into the wall. No doubt Jim would want to see this for himself, and maybe McCoy would want proof when he told everyone he had ever met about this moment, since no one would ever believe him otherwise.

Spock was holding T'Sai against his chest, rubbing a soothing hand against her back, pressing soft kisses to her fuzzy hair, and swaying gently back and forth. It was a scene McCoy had never anticipated and the open tenderness displayed on the Vulcan's face caused his chest to fill with a sudden tightness. When Jim grunted in his sleep, Spock reached down and ran a hand through his hair to calm him. Sliding his hand down to lay over Jim's heart, Spock rested it there and allowed a soft smile to overcome his features as he began humming an ancient Terran lullaby about dreams coming true.

Backing out of the room, McCoy stopped the recording and sent it to Jim's inbox before deleting the hardcopy. This moment was for them, McCoy would just be grateful he had been allowed to witness it and leave it at that. Checking Jim's stats one last time from his medi-padd, McCoy took himself off to his bed. And if he walked the halls with a lullaby on his lips and a swing in his step, no one commented on it.