Midnight Lace

          The door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows in all
three floors.  Janice Rand hadn't really intended on making such a noisy
entrance but she had her hands full and the door slipped when she
kicked it with her foot.  Setting the grocery bags down, she flipped the
lights on.  Nyota Uhura stumbled out of her bedroom, "Whazzup?"
          "Ice cream," was all Jan said and threw the communications
 officer a quart of her special favorite.  Nyota was wary and half
asleep but ice cream was nothing to be sneezed at.  "'poon."
          "Just a second.  Where's Christine?" Jan asked grumpily.
          "In bed asleep where you should be, where've you been?"
Uhura asked as she took the spoon offered and went to curl up on the
couch.
          "Hey Chris!" Jan yelled not caring that it was two in the
morning.
          Like a shot, the trained emergency officer was out of her
room and halfway down the stairs before realizing there was no
emergency.  She squinted at Rand who poked another quart of ice cream at her.
Chapel sighed as she peered at the clock.  She'd gotten a grand total of
an hour's sleep; that would have to do for the day if she knew the
reason behind the ice cream.
         Chapel retrieved her own spoon and opened the triple
chocolate fudge ripple with pecans and peanut butter.  Settling on the couch
next to Uhura the two sleepy heads ended up leaning on each other for
support.  For a while they just ate.  Finally Christine was awake enough to
insist, "Okay spill.  Cause if you woke me up just to give me a quart of
ice cream I'm not supposed to eat I might consider killing you."
         The blonde sighed, "What would you two say if I told you I
wanted to have a baby."
          Uhura's jaw dropped, "You're pregnant."
          "No, I'm not," Jan replied, "But what if I wanted to be what would you think?"
          Chapel shrugged, "We're not gonna be the father so why do
we get a say?"
          Nyota Uhura thought a second, "Hold it, you went to a
reunion dinner tonight didn't you?" 
          "Yeah," Rand admitted.
          "And there were all these couples with all the pictures
and stories of their kids, yada, yada."
          "Yeah," she answered and dug into the ice cream. "So what?"
          Chapel sighed grouchily.  So that was what it was
about, "Let me guess, you feel this biological clock ticking away… passing you by… suddenly you realize you're almost 40 and all you have is a warm
commendation to share your life."
         Rand nodded, "Yeah.  How did you know?"
         "I have the same thoughts about once a month.  But I don't wake people up in the middle of the night to eat ice cream."
        Uhura leaned toward her friend, "Jan we've all been
there.  Every time my enlistment comes up I think about getting out, settling
down, starting a family, but then what?  You both know that more than two
weeks of down time and I'm as jumpy as a cat.  It's a nice dream but
sometimes dreams are just dreams not meant to come true."
       "Well what if this isn't a dream?" Rand insisted.  She
knew what they were trying to get through to her but she was stubborn.
         Christine shrugged, "Then go out, find a fella, fall in
love, get married, and start having kids." 
         "In that order?"
         "Well you could go to a sperm bank, pick a tube, have an
implant, and have a baby, but it doesn't have nearly as nice a sound to it,"
the physician pointed out.  "And the tube won't help with two o'clock
feedings."
          "Jan I'm all for babies, as long as they're someone else's
not mine," Nyota said.  "It's a huge responsibility, a twenty year
commitment. Do you really want that?"
          "Oh I don't know.  I just know I felt like such a
failure. Like it didn't matter how many times I'd been promoted or commended
that  the simple fact that I don't have a single little kid's picture
hanging on my wall makes my life pretty much worthless up till now."
          "If all you want is a little kid's picture we'll go buy a
new frame," Chapel answered a little sarcastically.
          "No that's not it.  God. just because you prefer to stay
alone doesn't mean everyone does," Jan ranted.
          That was it.  Two o'clock in the morning and she was being
yelled at in her own house, "PREFER!  I don't think so.  Fifteen years ago
I was going to get married, was going to have a family, a future.  Well,
I'll tell you I don't feel like anymore of a success than you do right
now. Every morning I wake up and no one is beside me and there's nothing
to come home to.  But I come home every night anyway.  Why?  Cause I
don't have anywhere else to go and you guys are the only family I have."
          Janice was immediately sorry she'd snapped at her
friend, "Chris, I'm stupid.  Just forget it and go back to sleep."
            The rumpled physician shook her head, "Like I could
sleep now. Jan it's not that I prefer this life, it's just that when life
hands you lemons you either add sugar and make lemonade, or you purse your
lips up and don't get over how sour it is.  I had a choice when my future
disintegrated in front of my eyes; I could either stop living at
the age of 25 and spend the rest of my physical time in this body miserable
or I could keep going. Now, I admit that for the first four years I
didn't go very far but I got up every day and took a step out the door.  But
those steps led to the Enterprise and a life I never would have
imagined.  Now I don't know what I was thinking when I insisted that my life was
over because I wasn't going to be a wife or mother like I'd had in mind.  After
all, if I'd been who I was going to be we wouldn't be here.  I'd be a soccer mom with four kids, two dogs, three cats, and an assortment of fish
as well as a husband who spent most of his time in a laboratory.
I'd also probably have a bad case of what ifs because I'd wonder what life
was like after the kids were grown or if I'd never had them at all.  So I
guess what I'm trying to say is how long do you dwell on your dream?  If
it starts to outweigh your reality then maybe it is time you go sign
up at the sperm bank.  Until then be thankful your reality let's you
dream."
          Janice looked over at Nyota who shrugged, "Ditto.
Couldn't have said it better.  Honey we've all oohed and aahed over the baby
pictures, but do you really, really want to deal with all the puke, poop, and
pee?"
          The blonde recalled, "Oh yeah, I forgot."
          Chapel groaned, "Oh good GOD!"
          With a massive swing she took the couch cushion she'd been
leaning on and smacked it up against her friend with a thunk.  Jan
was stunned a second and then realized that the look of challenge in
the doctor's eyes meant.  Uhura's pillow wacked her next and she found
herself attacked on both flanks.  Quickly she grabbed a large bolster
pillow to fend off the blows.  The ladies were laughing so hard as they
fought they were crying and squealing with delight.  It became so raucous they
almost didn't hear the astonished voice of their male roommate, "Ladies?"
          They stopped in mid thump, caught in the act of goofiness
beyond their years.  Spock was in his night attire, the long white pants
and undershirt a strange contrast to his normal Starfleet black and
red.  He appeared as perfectly groomed as usual in the middle of the night
which annoyed Uhura as he stepped over to them, "Is there a problem?  It
sounded as if there was an intruder."
          "Nope, no intruder, just having an old fashioned pillow fight to
get rid of frustration," Chapel replied.  She too noticed the perfect
hair, "Spock, don't you ever have a hair out of place?"
          He was perplexed, "I do not understand?"
          The pillow didn't hurt as it struck but it did muss his
eternally passive expression and those perfect bangs went askew.  It was a
blow for all and they cheered, "Hooray!"
          The Vulcan was almost amused.  They weren't sure but the
look he gave them was the one he reserved for underclassmen who had gone
astray in comportment on his ship.  It immediately put a damper on the girls'
expressions.  By the aim he could tell it had been Rand who had thrown the
pillow.  "Ms. Rand do you consider this appropriate conduct for a
Starfleet officer?"
          She straightened, "No sir."
          "Yet you were a party to it," he pressed.
          "Well, we weren't really thinking of ourselves as Starfleet officers at the time sir, just three friends, women with common feelings," she tried to explain calmly.
          "Ah," Spock replied and noted the empty ice cream quarts.
"Perhaps you can use the energy to work off the calories you have
consumed tonight." With that he turned and headed back down the stairs to
his suite.
          The others were a bit mystified.  Chapel began, "Do you think he
meant…" whatever she was about to say was muffled by the cushion hitting
her square in the mouth.  With a growl she returned the blow, "YOU!!!"
          Downstairs Spock could hear the fight resume.  He'd been
roused when Janice arrived and through the open ventilation system and his
superior hearing had been able to pick up the jest of the
conversation.  While he had to admit he had never been in the position of the
ladies when it came to deciding between a career and a family he did know what
they were talking about when it came to ticking biological clocks and was equally as certain that a pillow fight would do nothing to help resolve it.