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“Happy birthday, Uncle Jim,” called the little brown-haired girl through the video comm. She smiled, showing her newly missing front teeth. Jim laughed, eyes crinkling and took in the sight of his stepdaughter. With her missing teeth, hair in pig tails, and the smattering of freckles across her nose, he suddenly wished he’d been able to clear his schedule sooner so he could spend his birthday with Joanna and Bones, as originally scheduled. But, due to last minute hostilities in the neutral zone, Jim had been called away from the Enterprise as it was scheduled for maintenance Earth side. He had shuttled to the nearest Star base to help with negotiations, and as a result, all of his friends were now home and enjoying time off. Jim was glad; but it was moments like this that he wished he wasn’t the golden boy of Starfleet.
“Thanks, JoJo. I got your present yesterday,” he said, holding up the drawing of what he assumed was him, Bones and Joanna in front of their house in Georgia, with the not so subtle hint of a puppy sitting beside Joanna. Joanna grinned and leaned closer to the screen. Jim unknowingly did the same. She held her hand up to her mouth and whispered, “The rest of your present should be there any second.” She sat back and looked over Jim’s shoulder with a pleased look on her face. Jim felt his face crumple in confusion and he turned around to see what had caught Joanna’s attention. Then he was stumbling out of his chair and into the arms of his husband, not ashamed when a few tears leaked out and onto Bones’ shirt.
“How,” Jim finally brokenly gasped out and he tried to pull Bones closer and into his body. Bones kissed Jim’s lips, eyes and cheeks before gently pulling back. He smiled and said, “Joanna decided that no one should be alone on their birthday. And since she’s still a little young to make such a long trip,” he pointedly said while Joanna groaned and rolled her eyes, “I came at her insistence. There will still be plenty of time, for all of us, when you wrap up negotiations. Which I know from various sources will be pretty soon. Like tonight,” he finished saying, pulling Jim back to the vid screen. Joanna’s face brightened at that and then informed Jim, “Yeah! And Admiral Chris told me that you’d be home in time to tuck me in bed tomorrow night! So it’s going to be your birthday tomorrow too, because all your friends will be here and, oops. I’m not supposed to tell you about your party,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. Bones smiled at his daughter and then looked at Jim. Jim looked at his husband, looked at his daughter and told her, “JoJo? Every day I see you is my birthday. I love you kiddo. I can’t wait to tuck you in. And I’ll act so surprised, even Spock won’t know that you told me,” he said, putting his hand on the screen. Joanna sniffled and put her hand on her screen.
When they had all said goodbye, with Joanna promising to wait until Jim got home to decorate his cake, Jim walked over to Bones and held him close. “Thanks,” he murmured, slowly swaying them back and forth. “No problem, kid. Just don’t laugh when Joanna puts a party hat on Spock.” The two men smiled, and Jim promised himself to take a holo of Spock wearing a party hat to post on the official Enterprise profile page…