ST - Bear

"…Happy birthday Spock," Brown eyes blinked up at their mother's cool smile, her soft pale eyes, her nervousness. She crouched to become eye-level with her young son, who simply tipped his head. "It's your birthday, you know that right?"
"It is the sixth anniversary of the day of my birth, yes, I am aware mother." Why did she chuckle? He tipped his head the other way, though his attention briefly deferred to the hair drifting into his vision. "I believe I need a hair cut, mother." She laughed again and he turned his eyes back to her. She was smiling, and he wanted to smile too, but Father would frown at that. He watched one of her hands come up to wrap her headdress further about her neck, then dropped his eyes to the little box covered in shiny paper. "What is this?"
"Well, on Earth," She shook it gently, and was quietly grateful he took it. "We give gifts for birthdays. Today is your birthday. You ask me this every year, little Spock."
"I have yet to understand the concept," A few easy maneuvers and he removed the box from the paper, then removed the lid.
Tiny plastic eyes stared back at him, set into a soft face of a soft-fabric stuffed bear. Something inside him curled and strained, and he box was forgotten as the bear was removed with all the delicacy of a surgeon. Amanda waited patiently, eyes nearly brimming with tears. There, there it was, the brilliant shine of a child. The innocence she knew Spock harbored, more of it than any other Vulcan child. She cherished those moments, those tiny flickers of her inside him.
He turned the bear in his hands, it's weight heavy, it's fabric soft as the big fluffy towels mother wrapped him in after a bath. A breath he hadn't realized he'd held left him. Chocolate turned up to their mother in unrestrained awe and…mother was sad. She was crying, but she was smiling. How confusing. "…This is for me?"
"I made it." She smiled brighter, tips of her lips wavering. One of her hands came up to cup his cheek; he received only a faint hint of pure elation, but mother was so good at masking. "Just for you. I had one, when I was your age. You only have yourself. He'll keep you company, when you're all alone. When you're in your bed, he'll frighten away the monsters. When you're older, please keep him. He'll keep me with you…a piece of me you'll always have."
"I will always have you mother."



"Spock?" Jim turned around, staring down at the ancient looking creature flopped over his palm, then up at his partner. Spock was setting their books up on a shelf above their TV; Jim had been ecstatic about purchasing the flat Earthside. Inquired, Spock turned with an older book ('Black Beauty' Jim mused) still in hand.
"Yes Jim?"
"Why do you have a bear?" Jim tried not to smile and, true to his name, failed miserably. Spock remained impassive, and yet through their young bond Jim could almost see the vision of a woman with a head dress, eyes soft and sad, with a timid smile. His heart strained and he watched Spock cross the room and gently take the bear. "Oh."
"My mother sewed this for the sixth anniversary of my birth," Spock himself turned the article nimbly with just his thumb, across his palm. "I promised her that day I would not dispose of it."
"…That's…" Spock turned away from him and returned to the book shelf; he laid Black Beauty down flat, and set the bear on top of it, before going back to the book-setting. Jim's smile only grew. "Pretty cool."
"My mother was of average temperature, Jim."
Jim laughed.