CHRISTMAS BY THE LETTERS

Author: EmGee

Feedback: Good, bad, short, long, early, late. Bring it on!

Title: Christmas by the Letters

Rating: PG-13

Series: Star Trek Original Series, au, Trefoil universe

Pairing: Kirk/Spock/Claire

Summary: Just another day of holiday preparations for Kirk, Spock, and Claire.

Comments: Written for my own alphabet challenge on the IDIC list. ABC/ZYX (in other words, alphabet front to back followed by back to front), with identical words used to start the sentences in each half. No sex, and no violence (unless you count what Kirk does to the . . . well, read it for yourself!).

Disclaimer: Claire Kendall is my own creation. The two good-looking guys are the property of Paramount. I'm just borrowing them for a little holiday merrymaking. Paramount can have them back when I'm done, safe and sound.

Archive: ASCEM, BLTS, WWOMB



CHRISTMAS BY THE LETTERS
by EmGee

At precisely 0800 hours on the Saturday morning before Christmas, Claire Kendall sat at desk and contemplated her holiday gift list.

Because of an unusually heavy volume of work, she had postponed her shopping -- although, if truth be known, she frequently left this task to the last minute -- but the approaching deadline had finally captured her attention and she was beginning to panic.

"Christmas is only four days away," she said to herself. "Doing this all at the eleventh hour is never any fun. Every year I say I'll start earlier, and every year I'm sitting here instead of relaxing in the living room with Jim and Spock and a cup of hot mulled cider. For heaven's sake, won't I ever learn?"

Gazing down, she let her eyes rove over the list, hoping that some random firing of synapses would result in a brilliant gift idea for someone. Had she heard Spock say something about wanting to plant some heirloom fruits and vegetables in the garden? If she called their neighbor Patsy Sheldon, maybe Patsy would agree to coax some unusual items from her brother. Joey Sheldon worked at the Genetic Diversity Project labs and was always bringing home seeds and plants for his own garden anyway; she put in a call to Patsy, who agreed to have her brother contact Claire.

Knitting her brow, she moved on to Jim. Long-range planning would have been helpful here, she acknowledged with a sigh. Mediocrity was simply not an option, particularly because he was always so clever with his own gifts to her. Not even being halfway across the galaxy could daunt him. Once, Jim had given her a series of private fencing coachings with the legendary Gilles Lafayette, who was officially semi-retired and unofficially extremely reclusive; he hadn't taken on a new student in almost ten years. "Persistence, and ingenuity," was all Jim would say when she asked him how he'd managed to arrange it, and via subspace to boot. Questions directed at Spock had yielded an only slightly less mysterious answer, and she had dropped her inquiries, reasoning that perhaps some things were better left unexplored.

Rare books would be welcome, she knew, if somewhat predictable, and she spent some time trying to decide if 'welcome' outweighed 'predictable' in the overall scheme of things.

Spock, the smells of apples and sweet spices wafting about him, appeared in the doorway while she was dithering. "The tree has been installed, Jim has strewn the ornaments about the living room, he is playing Handel at top volume on the sound system, and I fear that he is about to begin to produce," and his face bore a trace of alarm, "cookies."

"Unless that cup of cider in your hand is for me," Claire said darkly, "you can turn around and leave right now, and deal with the mad cookie baker, the scourge of kitchens everywhere, all by yourself."

Vulcan stoicism warred with amusement, the latter revealing itself in a faint smile as Spock said, "Christmas is four days away, I see no brightly wrapped boxes waiting to be deposited under the tree, and you are displaying uncharacteristic irritability, all of which signs lead me to the conclusion that you have not yet begun your Christmas shopping."

"What about my cider, Spock?" she demanded. "'Xerxes' Triumph,' by the way, isn't by Handel, but by the neo-Handelian composer Ping Yee, and God alone knows why Jim likes it as much as he does; just about everyone agrees it's a thoroughly boring, derivative, cliche-ridden piece of music. Yuletide carols would be much more in keeping with the spirit of the season," she said, looking so far removed from the spirit of the season herself that she could have been cast as a very plausible Scrooge in the community playhouse's annual staging of 'A Christmas Carol.'

"Zither arrangements of traditional melodies would be most pleasing," Spock agreed as he handed over the spicy cider, knowing that Claire hated the sound of that particular stringed instrument.

"Zither music, not likely," Claire said with a bit more cheer, getting into the swing of the game that she had come to think of as, "My Absurdity is Bigger than Yours!". "Yuletide melodies sound ever so much better on Irish bagpipes. 'Xerxes' Triumph,' come to think of it, would sound better on Irish bagpipes - at least it can't sound any worse than what's coming out of those speakers now. What do you say we arrange for that tape to get lost."

"Vulcan standards of honesty would compel me to confess the cause of the disappearance, should Jim ask," Spock said.

"Unless you don't actually *know* what happened to it," Claire said. "The mysterious disappearance could be timed to occur while you're elsewhere."

Spock frowned slightly, his usual expression when pondering any kind of problem. "Rare indeed are the occasions when I am successful in concealing the truth from Jim," he said. "Questions will certainly be asked, repeatedly. Persistence on his part is assured, given his inordinate fondness for the music. Once he has resigned himself to the fact that the recording is missing, will he not simply download another copy?"

"Not if I can help it," she said, an idea for Jim's gift dawning in her mind. 'Mediocrity can't be what attracted Jim to that piece of music -- he must enjoy the Handelian style,' she thought. 'Long, boring stories set to music aren't my idea of a good time, but if that's what Jim likes, at least I can be sure he listens to the best of it and not the worst.'

"Knitting up your own gift plans, Spock?" she asked, suddenly aware that she hadn't seen any of *his* brightly wrapped boxes yet, and at that moment her comm unit chimed. Joey Sheldon, she saw, looking at the announce screen -- Patsy, true to her word, had called her brother immediately. "If you'll give me a moment here . . ." she said, looking significantly toward the door, and Spock nodded and withdrew.

Had Joey been given a month's notice, he couldn't have come up with anything better than the yellow pear tomato seeds, pea plants, Concord grape vines, and the honeysuckle he agreed to throw in for good measure. Gazing at the stars on a warm summer night would be even more pleasant with the scent of honeysuckle in the air, Claire thought, much happier now that her most difficult gift problems were solved. For now, she would put the rest of her list aside and see what she could do to help Spock cope with a Jim run amok in the kitchen.

Every Christmas ornament in their collection was, indeed, strewn around the living room; equal chaos reigned in the kitchen where every pan, bowl, spoon, and measuring device that they owned was out on the counter, all covered in sticky dough. "Doing your usual holiday 'let's completely destroy the house' routine, I see," Claire said as drily as Spock ever could, her words softened by her smile at the sight of Jim up to his elbows in cookie dough with a look of delight on his face and a smudge of flour on his nose.

"Christmas brings out the worst in me, I guess," Jim said, unrepentant, "and I can't imagine why the two of you put up with it."

"Because you enjoy it so much, and because it's hysterically funny that the most organized man I know -- well, all right, the *second* most organized," she said, looking at Spock, "can't manage to cook anything without getting bits of it everywhere, and because, despite your slovenly kitchen habits and your truly horrible taste in music, we love you."

At those words, Jim's smile broadened as he said, "Then I guess you won't mind that as soon as I finish the cookies, I'm going to make -- eggnog!"



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