no, ma’am, no dipshit

except: everyone in the trek fandom. we love this shit. theres tags for Tarsus trauma up the wazoo. this little piece of grit that much of the actual body of work doesn’t interrogate has become a fandom pearl. its such a good example of fandom doing what fandom does best: picking at something interesting in the source that doesn’t need to be explored for the function of the larger plot, yet makes all the difference in a pure character or dynamic study.

op's tags:

comments:

Jon and Martha find the Kryptonian ship in their corn field, but when they open it the baby is not well. He’s traveled light years, and even at the fastest speeds, it was days or even weeks. What fluid was sustaining him has been gone for some time.

They work a farm. They know what a sick baby looks like.

They take the baby inside anyway. It’s far too late for anything to be open, so they break out the milk replacer for the livestock. The bottle they find has had a goat kid sucking on it, but they wash it good, because what other choice do they have?

The baby doesn’t take to the bottle well. He barely eats.

They both know a lack of appetite is a death knell.

“I can’t watch a baby die,” Martha says. She’s done it before. She and Jon struggled to have kids. The closest they got — well. It’s a hard memory for them both.

“I know, love.” Jon’s a good old country boy. He grew up being told it’s a man’s job to take the burden. He’ll take it now. “Go to bed. I’ll stay with him.”

Sure, they both know Martha won’t sleep, but at least she won’t have to see.

Jon takes the wee babe out onto the porch. He tries to poke more milk down him. Rubs his chest, bounces him, pushes the bottle past his lips, every damn thing he can do. The hours are long and hard, but he would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.

The baby continues to fade.

The eastern sky starts to lighten.

“I’m sorry, little fellow,” Jonathan whispers. It’s not long now. He can feel it in his bones. He’s held plenty of animals as they died. He’s waiting for that long last exhale. “Sorry you came all this way and this is your welcome. Can’t even enjoy the sunrise.”

He told himself he wouldn’t cry until the boy was gone. Wasn’t fair, that his last moments would be a man crying instead of comforting him, but Jon does his best to do both at the same time. He cradles the poor little thing even as his shoulders shake.

The sun breaks over the horizon, and light floods the porch. Jon closes his eyes against it and his tears.

It’s a hiccup that is the first sign something changed. Then the wiggling.

Jon nearly drops the baby in shock.

When he looks down, the little boy sure hasn’t died. He’s got this rosy little glow to his cheeks and his eyes are bright. He’s throwing those little hands around like he’s trying to figure out how they work, but he seems to be trying to reach for the sun.

Jon just stares at him until the baby gets frustrated enough with his clumsy limbs that he opens his mouth to tell the world about it.

The baby’s cry is so powerful Jon falls right out of his rocker. It’s a miracle he doesn’t launch the poor thing.

Only thing he can think to do with a screaming baby that’s about to take his eardrums out is shove that bottle right in that open mouth.

The little boy shuts right up and clings to the bottle for dear life as he drinks with a fury.

When Martha comes stumbling out wild-eyed in her jammies, Jon’s sitting on the porch with a grin as bright as the dawn despite the fact his ears are still ringing.

vastly overlooked moment in amok time: spock talking abt how vulcans go crazy during pon farr, saying that kirk will find it distasteful

In the future it'll become so unstable Miles will be able to pop the joint in and out at will.

Look, I knew Gene. We talked many times about the idea of Jim and Spock being lovers. He had no problem with it at all.

But you know what he did have a problem with?

Zippers.

He was adamant that by the 23rd century humans would have a better solution to fastening their clothes than zippers and buttons. And I mean, he felt passionately about this.

Passionately.

It’s because of this that those first gold shirts the crew wore in Where No Man Has Gone Before got scrapped in favor of shirts that didn’t show the fasteners. And also why the cast were sewn into their environment suits while filming Tholian Web and could only use the bathroom at lunch before being sewn back into costume til quitting time.

And it was the reason for Gene speaking quite sharply to me once—the only time he ever did — and I hung my head and felt like a kid in trouble with her dad. He read a slash story of mine and got on my case for writing zippers & buttons into the undressing scene. Really kind of chewed me out.

I’m surprised by your surprise.

The response to this post has made me realize how long it has been since Gene died. So most of you did not know him. (If you did, raise your hand. I know some of you are old enough.)