Disclaimer: The Usual. ParaBorg owns them, I don't. I do own the creative content of this story and my original characters. Okay to post at ASC or archive, all others, please ask.

Author's Note: This story is written mostly in response to the Mistletoe challenge that was posted to ASCEM. It's in the T'Rela series (my canon) but is perfectly readable as a stand-alone. Chronologically, it takes place in between "Pillars of the Temple" and "The Difference." If you really want to read the other stories, I won't stop you. :O) They're at my website www.geocities.com/Area51/Starship/2151. Constructive comment welcome to [email protected]. Flames will be used to burn the Yule log. ;O)

Summary: A harp, a package, and some bittersweet memories of Christmas.

Rating: TOS, G, S, U

Dedicated to all the soldiers who are away from their families at Christmas.

"Hmmm, let's see. We could transpose this note and I think it might be within the harp's range."

I gazed back at her. Nyota was trying to transpose the music for traditional Christmas songs so that they could be played on my Vulcan harp. Although I have often admired her ingenuity, I wondered if the attempt might be futile. "Nyota, I do not think the ka'athera was ever intended to play 'Joy to the World'."

She smiled. "Well, no instrument was ever made for the music that's played on it. That's why we're rewriting the music. Now, what do you think about this phrase here?"

And so it went on. Preparations for the yearly Solstice Festival on board ship were becoming nearly constant as the date fell closer. The festival honored the variety of traditions to be found on the ship, and I often thought to myself that here, and not on Vulcan, was IDIC at its most inclusive. Uhura and I worked on the Christmas carols from one of Terra's traditions, and other crewmembers, even those from planets which had no winter or no festival to celebrate it, were becoming involved in planning their own celebrations.

I had missed last year's festival. Purely by chance, my shore leave had fallen during the festival, and I had been able to spend it with T'Rela and my parents. It had been a pleasurable experience; although Vulcan has no winter worth mentioning, my mother retained many of her Earth traditions. And so, on a planet which has had no trees for thousands of years, there was a Christmas tree at my parents' house. Where my mother obtained it, I have no idea; her ingenuity, like Nyota's is formidable.

It was during that leave that T'Rela had given me a gift we had thought not to receive; she had told me she was pregnant with our first child when we stood under the mistletoe. Now the solstice has come again, and I cannot be with them. Kaiidth, we say. What is, is. Although the duty that keeps me here is the same duty that T'Rela knew of when we bonded, I still find that I miss them.

"The holidays are the worst sometimes," Nyota said the next evening in the Rec Room, when I was trying to tune my harp. "When I was at the Academy, I couldn't afford to go home. I could picture everyone gathered at my parents' house, smell the food cooking and hear the laughter. It made me so homesick. Did you ever feel that way?" Then she looked at me, and smiled. "Dumb question. You feel that way now."

I did not dispute her conclusion. How could I, with my wife and child at my other home, light years away? I wrapped a new string around the retaining loop on the harp; the previous string had grown loose and frayed over time, making the notes flat. I met her eyes and murmured, "Kaiidth."

Nyota understood the Vulcan word. She smiled at me again, acknowledging what I could not say. "Indeed. Well, do you think this transposition will work?"

I tested the arrangement, drawing the notes out of the harp. "I believe so. Shall we try it?"

Nyota's voice lifted up. "Oh holy night/The stars are brightly shining…" She stops, grinning like the Cheshire cat. "We did it!"

The cargo master's voice rang out over the all-call. "Attention everyone: we've just finished sorting the cargo we received at Starbase 10. Please check your terminals to see if you've received a package."

Nyota keyed up the list somewhat hesitantly. Last year she had received an Terran confection known as a fruitcake from one of her relatives. For reasons I have yet to understand, it had still been intact when I returned from my leave. She sighed. "I bet it's fruitcake. Again."

I looked at her quizzically. "What happened to the last one?"

She smiled, somewhat evilly. "Target practice. Sulu and Chekov had a bet about how long it would take a fruitcake to explode when a phaser was fired at it."

It seemed illogical to me for a confection to be used as a target, but the cake had been rather hard. "Who won the bet?"

She chuckled. "Sulu. Four seconds flat and----boom!----disintegration."

Human concepts of fun have always been problematic, but at least the fruitcake did not go to waste. I suspected that Chekov would have his chance to win his bet again, if Nyota's expression was any clue.

She continued to page through the list. Her hand brushed against my sleeve. "Spock, you've got a package from T'Rela."

I raised an eyebrow. "She has never done such a thing."

Nyota laughed. "There's a first time for everything, Spock. Why don't you go down to the cargo bay and get it?"

The package was not very big, and I wondered what could be in it. I returned to the empty Rec Room; for some reason, I wanted to share this with Nyota, who understood my feelings without insisting that I express them. We were both far away from our families this solstice. As, indeed, was the entire crew.

She came to sit next to me at the table, and watched as I opened the package. Inside was a picture of T'Rela holding our son Sudek, who was smiling into the camera with his mother's violet eyes. "Your son's beautiful, Spock. Takes after his mother, I bet."

I nodded. "He does indeed."

"Yep, but he has your ears," Nyota said, teasingly.

I nearly smiled at that. "He does. I can only hope he grows into them."

Under the picture was a part of a plant: green, with white berries. I recognized it as mistletoe, the plant my mother hung in the doorway last solstice. It is also the plant that has appeared mysteriously in doorways all over the ship, through what means I can only guess. A letter was wrapped around the plant.

I did not read the letter aloud, but Nyota seemed to gather its meaning, perhaps from my expression. Her cool hand touched my shoulder, and I feltl her lips brush against my cheek. "Merry Christmas, Spock."

I smiled slightly, knowing that although my family was elsewhere, I was not alone. My friends are my family as well. "Merry Christmas, Nyota."

THE END.