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Leonard wouldn't exactly call himself good at knitting, but his weekly chats with Joanna, working alongside her on larger projects from lightyears away, had built up his skill quickly. They'd made it six months, missing only a few weeks, when he got his usual Christmas 'morning' call. Joanna looked adorable in her Santa-hat-wearing dinosaur pajamas that he'd gotten her—he briefly wondered when she'd be too old for this tradition—as she showed him every present she received. Each gift emphasized that his baby girl was no longer a baby, and at eleven, she was already starting to move away from her childhood interests. Granted, her reptile wrangling went from toys to a live corn snake, so at least that was still the same.
"Oh! Daddy! I thought of another project for us—well," Joanna fidgeted with her yarn basket and looked away, "I didn't, but it's my therapist's idea."
"I'm real proud of you for still going to see Doctor Davey, Jojo," Leonard said softly as his daughter looked back at the camera. "And I'm still going to see Doctor S'von, so cheers to both of us!"
"Yeah!" Joanna exclaimed, back to her usual self.
"So what's this idea?"
"Well, Doctor Davey figured out I'm no good at journalin', so he said I could use my knitting to keep track of my feelings." Joanna tossed the lid off her yarn basket and started pulling out a rainbow of colors. "I have fourteen colors, an' I have two shades for most of 'em. One shade represents a positive feeling, the second represents a negative feeling, an' I stitch one line every night that represents my feelings about that day."
"That sounds like a wonderful idea, Jo!"
"An' momma helped me pick out colors that would all go nicely together so that when I'm done, it will still be pretty." Joanna smiled and tipped her yarn basket toward the camera. "See? It'll be pretty! Doctor Davey said it'll help me work out my feelings an' I'll have a cool scarf at the end. Ain't that a great idea?"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!" Joanna got quiet for a second and fished around the yarn basket—yarn that Leonard just now realized was cashmere, and she was likely getting a sensory buzz off of it. "Do you want to do this with me, Daddy?"
Leonard smiled and nodded. "O'course, I'd love to, Sweet Pea!"
Joanna's smile was blinding as she explained each color and what they represented. "Red for confident and angry. Orange for optimistic and impatient. Yellow for happy and nervous. Green for hopeful and envious. Blue for peaceful and stressed. Purple for creative, and I didn't wanna have a negative purple because I really like purple." She got lost on a tangent of why she liked purple so much before catching herself and stopping. "Do you like them?"
"Well, I also see a black, white, and gray in there. What do those mean, Jojo?"
"Black, uh, black means…depressed." Joanna looked away; it hurt that she might have inherited that from him. They'd had many talks about his depression over the years; Leonard just had to hope that she understood that sometimes brains are like that, and it's okay. "The gray is for sadness, and the white is for when I feel nothing."
Leonard noticed a pink at the bottom of her stash and lifted an eyebrow. "I spot one more col—"
"NO YOU DID NOT!" Joanna shouted as she hastily shoved all the yarn back into her basket.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure I did. How am I s'posed to work on this with you if I don't have all the colors?" Leonard teased. Though he assured her that she didn't have to tell him if she didn't want to.
Joanna was blushing red when she finally admitted, "It means love."
"Love?"
"Momma's calling, gotta go!"
"No she's—"
"Bye Daddy, I love you!"
"Joanna!"
The call cut off, and Leonard leaned back in his chair, shaking his head with a chuckle. "My baby girl's not so baby anymore," he sighed to himself. "Love, huh? I won't be using much of that color."
Throughout the year, Leonard made himself a 'feelings temperature' scarf and checked in with Joanna each week. He also decided to make a gag gift for Spock, with his feelings toward the overgrown elf, to which he added a 'negative' purple for annoyance. He may or may not tell Spock what each color represented, but he knew for damn sure that it'd have a helluva lot of orchid purple.
The emotional temperature scarf was a surprisingly good exercise. When Leonard found himself with nearly a week worth of white, he signed himself up for more visits with his therapist. When that white faded to black, Doctor S'von worked with him to adjust his medications until things started getting colorful again. Joanna also had the same experience, which scared the shit out of him, but she assured him that they were 'going through this together' and that 'she'd be fine.' By the time the holiday season was closing in, his scarf was full of positive colors, with a few lines of negative colors sprinkled in for character.
Spock's scarf also went through a helluva journey. Orchid purple was certainly a common color, as was stressed blue, envious green, and impatient orange. Steel blue, dark olive green, and orange-red, respectively. Whenever Spock was in sickbay or off on a mission god-knows-where for days on end, Spock's scarf filled with nervous lemon yellow. But then, around March, things started to shift. Leonard used far more positive colors; even his annoyance turned to happy sunshine yellow. And then, one day, Leonard found himself reaching for the pink yarn on both of their scarves.
The pink was few and far between at first, but it was there. The first time came when Spock brought him down a packed lunch during a busy sickbay day. The second time came when he—with Jim's help—convinced Starfleet to let them stay at a base near Earth for long enough that their families could visit. They each had three lines of pink for that, for each day Leonard got to spend with Joanna. Soon Spock's scarf matched his, full of the positive feelings that left Leonard wondering when it was the last time he felt so fulfilled…and when Leonard fell in love with the goddamn Vulcan. Though the latter, he could easily calculate with the scarf.
Christmas rolled around again, as it does every year, and Leonard had his call with his twelve-year-old baby girl. Joanna proudly wore her annual Christmas pajamas, though he noticed she only wore the bottoms and chose a different top with some sassy one-liner from the show she's currently hyperfixating on. After she got done showing him all her gifts—even more mature than the previous year—they shared their completed scarves with each other. Joanna's, like his, had more positive colors as the year went on, which made his heart happy.
"Today's gonna be another happy yellow for me, Jo," Leonard said with a smile. "Well, at least it will until I give Spock his feelings scarf."
Joanna grinned and leaned closer to the camera. "You made Mister Spock a scarf?"
"Well, it started out as a gag gift—"
"No one takes three-hundred sixty-five days to make just anyone a gag gift, Daddy." Joanna twirled her braid around her finger, looking perfectly innocent. "Lemme see it."
Leonard blushed and shook his head, blurting a gruff, "No."
Joanna grinned. "I bet it's full of pink!"
"No, it's not!"
Joanna rolled her eyes and sighed, as dramatic as her daddy, "Momma and I both know that you're in love with Mister Spock, Daddy. Just tell 'im!"
"Hey, remember how last year you cut me off 'cause I teased you about the pink?"
"No, don't!"
Leonard chuckled and pulled out Spock's scarf. "Just teasin'. Anyway, here's where the year—"
"You have two purples, what does the other purple mean?"
"Annoyance."
"Did the scarf help?"
Leonard smoothed down the scarf on the desk in front of him and counted the rows. "Yeah, it really helped. Both for my own feelings about my life and my feelings about Spock."
"You gonna ask 'im out?" Joanna asked with her head tilted thoughtfully to the side. "I'd like to meet 'im."
"No, no, I don't think he likes me back an' I don't want to risk our friendship." Leonard scratched his chin and leaned back in his chair with a drawn-out sigh. "Plus the mission is over soon, and I'll be in Georgia for a whole year while he's on New Vulcan."
"We made our daddy-daughter relationship work long distance!"
"Yes, darlin', we sure did, but adult relationships are different."
"If you love him, you should at least try!"
Leonard's smile flickered for a second before returning to a confident, albeit false, smile. "We'll see how the scarf goes over, maybe I'll tell 'im if he figures it out."
Joanna rolled her eyes again and huffed at him, "Don't be a baby."
"'Scuze me?" Leonard asked, lifting an eyebrow.
"You. Are. A. Baby."
Leonard wanted to laugh, but he also didn't appreciate his baby girl calling him out like that. "Don't think I heard—"
"You heard me, you're being a baby!" Joanna pointed at the camera. "You tell Mister Spock your feelings!"
"I'll let the scarf do it for me."
Joanna gave out a frustrated half-scream, half-growl and used the same tone to tell Leonard she loved him and say goodbye. Not the best sign-off, but certainly a memorable one. Leonard was happy that next year they'd be celebrating together, and Joanna had no opportunity to cut the call on him. She was stuck with him—though he remembered that doors existed and teens enjoyed slamming them. Leonard wasn't sure which 'goodbye' he'd prefer.
Leonard had several hours to psych himself up for the gift-giving. He told his friends that while he would have given them to them during Hanukkah, Spock's wasn't quite finished, and he wanted to give them their gifts on the same day. Since Spock and Jim joined him for Christmas dinner and usually gave him presents then, it worked out. As he pulled the last pie out of the oven and set it on the counter, Leonard couldn't decide whether he wanted Spock to figure out the scarf.
After the dinner, which Jim happily scarfed down and Spock politely enjoyed, Leonard went over to the tree-shaped air freshener—an inside joke he'd had with Jim since their academy days—and picked up the presents from underneath. "I know it's not much, but I made them both an' I hope y'all will enjoy it."
Jim squished his and tore into the packaging, pulling out a command gold scarf with silver deltas on either end. He stretched and squeezed it, running the fabric through his hands, before nodding and looking up with a grin. "This is great, Bones! You actually made this?"
"Yeah, Jo and I took up knitting together." Leonard tried not to make it obvious when he put all his attention onto Spock, who was much more careful with the wrapping than Jim was. His face was unreadable, though Leonard got a sense that he was slightly perplexed. "Obviously I did somethin' more…creative with Spock's. I know you like abstract art."
Spock's brows furrowed as he looked over the scarf, which was connected together at the ends. The 'infinity' style, as Joanna—and the several knitting books she sent him—called it. He was silent, and Leonard couldn't tell what he was doing, but he looked like he was inspecting it row by—
"There are three-hundred sixty-five rows. Based on the stitching, the first row started here," Spock said as he pointed to, sure enough, the first day's row. "Assuming each row corresponds to a day, these four in January represented when I was in sickbay, as with these others in the same colors." He pointed to most of the lemon yellow chunks, then pointed to the rest, "And these were when I was sent on missions off the Enterprise."
"You figured it out that fast??" Leonard didn't know whether to be impressed or annoyed. Both? Both.
"I do not yet have a sense of what the colors represent, but I will." Spock set the scarf down with the smallest of smiles. "I thank you for the practical puzzle gift."
"Uh, sure," Leonard mumbled as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"The scarf sure is pink toward the end, Bones," Jim teased with a far-too-knowing grin, though he let Leonard off easy. "What does command gold mean, Bones?"
Leonard flicked him on the way to the kitchen to get their annual hot chocolate and bourbon. "It means I was annoyed."
—
Leonard's door chimed at oh-four-hundred hours, and he bolted out of bed, jumped into a pair of pants, and threw on a shirt in a matter of seconds. "Lights to seventy percent, open door," he ordered as he rounded the privacy partition into the open living room. "...Spock?"
"The scarf. You use thirteen colors, most of which I can ascribe to a specific emotion." Spock caught himself and looked like a deer in the headlights for it. "I apologize, may I come in?"
"Uh, sure. You know this could have waited until morning, right?"
"It… If my postulation is correct, it cannot." Spock did not sit but moved closer to Leonard, scarf in hand. "May I share my theory?"
Leonard yawned and pulled out a chair, resting his head on the small table where they'd had dinner nearly twelve hours ago. He had to do something to hide how much his heart was thudding in his chest. "Sure."
"This yellow, the one I pointed out earlier, represents an emotion akin to apprehension or fear. You used this color on days where I was injured, incapacitated, or away on a mission of moderate to severe danger." Spock pointed out each one, of which there were many. "Is this correct?"
"Yep. Lemon yellow was for nervous."
"And the gray—"
"You don't have to talk about that one if you don't wanna."
"The death of my mother and the destruction of Vulcan, my mother's birthday, and the anniversary of the Khan…incident."
"Sadness. Next." Leonard didn't want to talk about them, either.
"One shade of purple was used once, on the first day, perhaps relating to the idea of this scarf. The other shade of purple was frequently used on days that I won our—"
"You did not win them!" Leonard said defensively. "I just stopped feedin' the fire, that's all."
Spock…smirked? Spock smirked! It was small, but it was there. "I see. I surmised that this color represents vexation."
"Violet is for creative, orchid purple is annoyance."
"This blue-gray shade tends to occur before or after missions and is nearly always used after incidents that require my use of sickbay." Spock lifted an eyebrow and thumbed through a few rows of steel blue. "I can only assume it is akin to nervous, perhaps stressed."
"Hey, you actually used the right word this time!" Leonard teased as playfully as he could for being half asleep.
"The darker orange often appears when we are competing for lab space and other resources, though it seems to have resolved since we decided to share more projects." Spock came closer and finally sat down at the table. "Agitation?"
"That's prolly a better word, but the word I had was impatient."
"Your two shades of red—one used when you 'won' our debates and the other when you were positively furious with my actions—were quite obvious." Spock flipped to a few of the second blue colors, the sky blue shade he loved. "This blue was used during days of contentment when outside forces did not give us undue stress or danger."
"Peaceful. God, I could use more of those."
"This shade of yellow was used on calm days we spent time together in a positive fashion, though nothing particularly meaningful happened. Am I correct in thinking that this color means happiness?"
"Yeah, yeah it does. I call it sunshine yellow, though that's not what the yarn maker called it."
"This chartreuse was used more in the latter half of the year, particularly when you began using this pink shade." Spock pointed to the first pink line. "I ensured that you ate lunch this day by bringing it to you." He moved to the next one, "When I arranged time for a family visit for Joanna." Another, and another, all the times Spock did small things for Leonard. "This one was when I invited you to lunch, and this was when I invited you to dine alone with me. This day—your birthday—I gifted you antique medical devices, which Jim informed me you collected. I surmised that the chartreuse represents hope, is this true?"
Leonard blushed and nodded his head.
"And the pink—"
"Pink can mean any number of things!"
"Leonard, this shade of pink is used on the days in which I had actively attempted to court you."
Leonard stared, gobsmacked. Did Spock… feel the same… Did courtship mean the same thing on Vulcan? Leonard's head started to spin, and it wasn't just because he was tired. "Hold on, hold on." Spock. Courting him. While Leonard was pining away, thinking he'd be a loveless old coot? A glass of water was set in front of him, and it snapped him out of his trance. "You, uhh, you were courting me?"
"Perhaps I was too subtle," Spock said as he pushed the water closer.
Leonard understood that hint and took a sip. "Uh, yeah. I don't… I had no idea, Spock. You were doin' things that human friends do for each other when they want to strengthen their friendship."
"Vulcans do not typically form friendships in this manner, but we court this way. Simple, practical gifts that show our intended that we are mindful of their needs and preferences. That we would be…an adequate mate." Spock finally sat across from Leonard and set the scarf on the table, though he did not let it go. "Am I correct that the pink represents…endearment?"
"It, uhh, might… mean what you meant."
Spock lifted an impatient eyebrow. "Leonard."
Leonard crossed his arms, mindful of the glass, and rested his face on them. He had to hide his blush one way or another as he reached one arm across the table and extended his fore and middle fingers.
"And you are aware of what this gesture means?"
"Yeah." Leonard moved his hand closer, and Spock met Leonard's fingers. Leonard got a sudden influx of affection-excitement-nervousness-contentment. It was all the assurance he needed to lift his head up—though still blushing—and smile at Spock. "So that's why this couldn't wait 'til morning, huh?"
Spock blushed this time. "I do apologize for my haste."
"I'd have done the same, darlin'." Leonard took his hand back and stretched, groaning as his back popped. "But unless you plan on joining me, you best get goin' 'fore I fall asleep on ya."
"As you have returned my affections and courtship since May sixteenth, Earth standard—" Spock must've finally caught on that Leonard hated the stardate format. Good man! "—if you are amenable, I would prefer to join you."
Leonard's blush went through several shades of red, and several temperatures, before settling on a mildly temperate tomato. "Uh, yeah, you can… borrow my PJs."
Spock changed, Leonard turned up the heat and changed into shorts, and they both got into the bed. They were touching lightly, much like they would on an away mission in a cramped tent. It wasn't the most romantic, but it made Leonard comfortable knowing that Spock wasn't expecting him to go all in just 'cause he'd been carrying a torch for the man. Leonard was so comfortable that he quickly slipped into a light snooze when he was abruptly woken up by a contemplative Spock.
"The salmon orange… you used it once. The last row. What did that color represent?"
Leonard rolled toward Spock and patted him on the shoulder he found his nose pressed against. "Optimistic."
"That I would return your affections?"
"Mmhmm, yeah. I thought about lemon yellow but wanted to end the year on a high note." Leonard yawned and rested his hand on Spock's abdomen, right above his heart. "Didn't actually think you would, though. Wishful thinking more than optimism."
Spock traced his fingers over Leonard's hands and sighed. "Thank you for your present, Leonard."
Leonard grunted.
"How eloquent."