Disclaimer: ParaBorg owns 'em, I don't. I do own this story, and a whopping student loan debt. All original characters and content © 2000 Roisin Fraser. Okay to post at ASC or archive, all others, please ask. This one's going live with no beta, so blame me if you don't like it. J

Author's note: This is written for Pam the Feedback Goddess, on the birth of her daughter Nikita. Welcome, little one, to this strange and delightful corner of the universe.

Rating: TOS, G, S/f

Summary: Spock and T'Rela deal with a midnight awakening.

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<…hunger, hunger, feed, wet…>

The impressions are not verbal, but they are nonetheless demanding. "Which one is it, do you suppose?" my wife asks with that instant alertness peculiar to healers and new parents.

I look over at her, sleep-tousled and weary. It has been scarcely two weeks since the birth of our daughters T'Lir and T'Siri. "I scarcely think it matters, since whoever it was will shortly awaken her sister."

T'Rela smiles at me through her exhaustion. It is an exhaustion I share; the mind-cry of a newborn child is impossible to ignore in a house of telepaths. She makes as if to get up, but I stay her action. "Rela, I can check on them at least as well as you can."

One dark eyebrow quirks. "There's at least one thing you can't do," my wife says wryly. "You heard her: she wants to be fed."

I had not thought of that; possibly two weeks of little or no sleep have addled my wits. I have gone without sleep for much longer on the Enterprise, but somehow it is different when it is your child who cries in the night. I cannot say for certain, though; I was not present during much of Sudek's infancy and he was, at any rate, only one child. Sensing my bemusement, T'Rela smiles at me, and we walk towards the room where our daughters are. I note with relief that Sudek's light is out; at least he will get some rest this night.

The sudden flutter of T'Rela's unease vibrates through our bond. It is then that I realize that the mind-cry has grown silent. But I realize something else: there is a low melody from behind the door. T'Rela cannot hear it; like many of the Akaren, my wife is quite tone-deaf. It is a song almost familiar to me from my own childhood, a lullaby perhaps. The memory is hazy, but I remember my mother singing it. Except now it is my son who sings it, to quiet his sister.

Sudek does not hear us when we enter, so total is his concentration. He holds one of our daughters and is slowly rocking the cradle with his free hand. T'Rela's hand grasps mine; though she could not have heard the lullaby, it is clear enough what Sudek was doing. The phrase she murmurs through our bond is the one chanted over our daughters when they were numbered among the Akaren: //What blessings this night has given us. Blessed be the One who caused it to occur.//

And although Vulcan has had no organized form of religion since the advent of Surak, I cannot find it in myself to disagree. We have been blessed.

The End.