Chapter Text
The door chimed. You had just gotten back from work and had spent half of your shift cleaning the lab after an experiment went wrong. Nothing unusual, though. You could count the days on which nothing went wrong on the fingers of one hand. That was just what science was. To test a theory experiments that didn’t work were just as important as those that brought the result you had expected.
„Come in“ , you called. You had planned to spend the rest of the day curled up on your bed with either a good book or some other kind of entertainment, once you got out of your dirty uniform, but you didn’t mind visitors either.
You didn’t have to look up to his face to recognise Spock, by now you’d spot his posture even in a sea of thousands of people. Especially when his hands were behind his back like now. Still, you DID look up, because you simply liked looking at his face with those soft brown eyes and the ears you have to remember not to call cute because obviously Vulcans aren’t cute. “Hi.”
“Hello.”
You bit back a smile. After all this time Spock was still Spock. You had to prompt him for almost everything, even if he came to you to tell you something. You wondered if that was just a trait of his. That he wasn’t sure if you had time or if you were interested in talking at that very moment and that he wanted you to decide whether or not he should begin a longer conversation. Except for important stuff. If something was important or tradition like your questions back in the past, he could be very blunt and straightforward, even to the point where it was a little too much.
“What brings you to me? Wanna spend the evening together? Did I forget our date?” It wouldn’t be the first time. After busy days sometimes you didn’t keep in mind to meet Spock in the evening. Which had led to him leaving you little messages to remind you that he would be waiting for you or that he would come to you at a specific time. Which in return led to you acting as if you forgot even more often, just because you liked getting messages from him. By now you were rather sure he knew, because his messages got less and less pragmatic and more poetic – Vulcan poetry, but still. But today you hadn’t seen any messages from him.
„You have not forgotten any date as we did not have one today. But a date it is. A rather memorable one.“
You looked puzzled. Was today any special day? It wasn’t Valentine‘ s, no Christmas or Easter, no Hanukkah, or Jom Kippur, no Eid al- Fitr , or Eid al-Adha, no Diwali, Vesak, Samhain. It wasn’t Federation Day either. Not even Interplanetary Book Day. And you had no idea if the Vulcans had any religious or secular holidays. „I’m at a loss.“
„I expected you to be. Keeping track of time during a period that includes time travel is something most humans find complicated.“
You should be insulted. Spock did like to point out skills in which humans were inferior to Vulcans a lot. But you knew he didn’t get a push for his ego out of it. You weren’t sure he had an ego at all. He was simply stating facts and yeah, since humans still tended to mark time with the use of a calendar, even now that the star date was used, time travel made that a bit difficult.
„Today marks the eight month anniversary of the last of 36 questions.“
„Oh”, was all you could say at first. Okay, that was a memorable day. And you intended to mark it in your personal calendar later, so you wouldn’t forget about it. You were surprised he valued that date at all, though. That was rather sentimental, would have been even for a human.
„I gather you are still interested in being my partner?“ There was a slight smirk on Spock’s lips. He knew for sure. Which made clear for you that he was all in into this, too. He would not have asked and risked to hurt you worse than necessary if he wasn’t.
You crossed the space towards him and pressed your lips onto his. Huh, curious. He kissed you back alright, but usually his hand would search for yours when you kissed the human way, so that he could bring your fingers together as well. You liked it. You missed it! You let your hand glide down his arm to his hands and …
Spock stepped back. You frowned. Did you do something wrong? He never minded you touching him in private before. But he didn’t look ashamed or in need of distance, emotional or otherwise. In fact, you would have guessed that his eyes were smiling, although his lips kept from showing outward signs of amusement or affection.
„I believe it is customary to bring botanical lifeforms for such an occasion. I prefer not to kill any living being for a sign of affection, though.“ He brought his hands out from behind his back and you could see he held collection of little bags of seeds. „And I believed that vegetables – and this time also fruits - would be a more pragmatic gift.“
You couldn’t hold back a grin. „Admit it, you prefer freshly grown vegetables as well. You can live with this synthetic or overbred crap, sure. But once you tasted the real thing, you knew what you have missed.“
„To deny a truth would be illogical. But I was only thinking about what you would prefer. And you seemed to have liked to grow your own food – together with me.“
It was true. You had never believed it possible, being a child of the 23 rd century. But you had grown to enjoy gardening, especially side by side with Spock. And you looked forward to starting to grow even more. Though you’d have to find a more fitting space than just the small shelves. Maybe you’d ask one of the engineers to work with you on some pots or patches of soil that were solid enough to not mind when the ship got shaken by yet another anomaly.
Maybe you could even turn a greater portion of your quarters into a hydroponic garden? Though that would mean you had to either make do with less space for yourself or you had to partially move in with Spock and you didn’t know how he felt about that . You never really spent much time in his rooms, and you didn’t see each other daily either.
You assumed that was a thought for another day. You’d find enough space to plant your seeds, you were sure. If necessary, you could turn them into an experiment, planting them in soils from many different planets to see if they could grow in them. The ship had so many labs, surely they’d give you some space in one of them. But today wasn’t about gardening. Today was about Spock and you.
„They’re perfect“, you whispered and kissed Spock again . Absentmindedly you reached behind you, putting the bags of seeds onto your desk, so your hands were free to reach for Spock’s .
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If you had thought Spock subtle when first talking about his feelings, you learned that he had been rather talkative back then. It took him years to tell you about Pon Farr and even then you had to prompt him more than ever. Not that he’d ever had to fear you leaving him. You certainly were no match made in heaven, you sure had your differences and difficulties. But neither of you would’ve ever left the other. Not even when you noticed Spock’s tendency to jump in front of everything trying to attack the captain – or you, for that matter. A trait of his that you definitely could live without. Spending days on his bedside, waiting for him to wake up or trying to get green blood out of your uniform became common pastimes of yours for long years.
One could say you hurt your career for him. Maybe that was true. When offered a promotion to fill a job opening on another ship, you denied to stay with Spock. But then again he denied a command of his own as well, because he was more than content with serving on the Enterprise. And over the years you got promoted aboard the Enterprise as well. And once he left the ship, you followed him wherever he would go – only to often end up serving about the Enterprise yet again. Thankfully once you were officially bonded, Starfleet knew not to separate the two of you. Thank you, Vulcan High Command!
When you first got back to earth for a prolonged time, because the Enterprise needed a refit, with Spock teaching at the Academy and you working in yet another lab for the time being, you reached out to a real estate agent. You found out the coordinates of your flat in the past and learned that nowadays there were small houses with not so small gardens, surrounded by a park, that still held the pond you had walked along when you found the dog.
You didn’t have to think twice. So you bought one of the houses. The one exactly where you had planted your vegetable plants about 250 years earlier. Not because you really wanted to settle down here for good. Not when Spock still didn’t really like the European winter or winter- ish spring. But sentimentality simply made it impossible, not to want to go back to that place now that you were grounded on earth for a while, and later on whenever you were in orbit around earth again.
Of course you had a garden there. A garden with lots of fruits and vegetables growing there, with a small pavilion in which Spock and later your children and even later your grandchildren would meditate in if the weather allowed it.
But when you grew older, what you loved most was the wooden bench on which Spock and you would sit in the warm sunshine. Sitting in the place that built the foundation of your love you would tell your grandchildren of the adventures in time and space you had had in your time. As much as you loved Spock’s home on Vulcan, as well as the small ship you owned, since Starfleet found you too old for duty by now, this was the one place that would forever be home to you. And although you knew that after your death, your husband and bondmate would probably go back to active duty or would even follow his father’s path into diplomacy, now that he had licked blood of it when dealing with the Klingons, you couldn’t help but feeling at peace.
With Spock, your plants, your family and the newest addition to the family, a fire breathing dog with a horn and antennae, you could look back on your life and feel nothing but love and gratitude. It was funny what a lockdown could lead to. And looking back, you wouldn’t have missed that pandemic for the world.