TITLE:  The Father's Day Project (A Daycare Story)
AUTHOR: Ster Julie
Rating:  G
Code: Spock, Sarek (daycare)
Part 1/1

--ooOoo--

Spock was the last to be picked up from the daycare center.   Sarek found his son sitting patiently on the bench in the foyer, waiting for his ride.

Spock looked up at his father, puzzled.  "Where's Mommy?" he demanded.

"Your mother is still at her appointment, so I am here to collect you."

Spock looked down at the box he carried in his lap and swung his legs as he thought.

"Is Mommy sick?" he asked in an apprehensive voice.

Sarek sat next to the boy and placed an assuring arm around Spock. "No, my son," Sarek said softly.  "This was just a routine check-up."

Spock recalled his own "routine checkups."  They always involved injections and bloodletting and other unpleasantries.  "We need to be extra nice to Mommy tonight, then."

"Are we not always 'extra nice' to your mother, cha'i?" Sarek asked gently.

"We should be extra, extra nice to her," Spock expounded.  "We should bring her a present."

Sarek motioned to the bow-bedecked box in the boy's lap. "Is this a present for your mother?"

Spock pulled the box away.  "No, this is a present for you, for Sunday," he explained.

Sarek was puzzled.  "What is Sunday?"

"Sunday is Fodder's Day," Spock explained.  "We're supposed to be nice to our fodders and give them presents."  Sarek paused to digest this.  "I told them that we should honor our fodders every day," Spock continued, "and our mommies, too."

"So, then, every day would be Father's Day," Sarek concluded for his son, "and Mother's Day as well."

"I 'spose."

"So then, your mother and I should expect a gift from you every day," Sarek said with a twinkle.

Spock's eyes grew large as he considered all the trinkets and cards he would have to make in pairs every day for the rest of his life. "The house would get full of presents real fast," Spock said with mild alarm.

"Well, then," Sarek said as he reached for the gift in Spock's lap, "this one will have to suffice for now."

"But it's for Sunday!" Spock protested.

"But, cha'i," Sarek teased, "did you not tell me that you should honor your father every day?  Does that not make today Father's Day as well?"

Spock nodded reluctantly.  "Yes, sir," he said in defeat.  "But that was 'sposed to be for the one on Sunday."

"May I open this today," Sarek asked, "or would you rather I wait until Sunday?"

Spock could not contain himself.  "Now!" he shouted as he stood on the bench and peered over his father's shoulder. As Sarek untied the bow, Spock continued.  "I tried to make the ta'al, but it broke, so I had to make anodder one."

Sarek removed the lid and moved aside a wad of tissue paper.  Nestled inside was a piece of white porcelain, obviously a cast of Spock's small hand.  On the palm was written, "Someday I will grow so tall/But this hand will be forever small." "You made this?" Sarek asked.

"Uh-huh," Spock replied as he bounced up and down and ordered, "Turn it over!"

On the back of the hand, Sarek saw more verses written in Spock's handwriting: 

Years from now, remember when
I put my small hand in yours
And you led me through life
and put tomorrow in my grasp.

Your son,
Spock

When Sarek could finally find his voice, he asked, "Did you compose this, cha'i?"

"Nah, I just thought of it myself," he answered climbing back down and standing before his father.

Sarek looked at his son in amusement.  "To compose something means that you thought it up yourself, Spock." 

Spock's face brightened as he realized that he had just learned another new word in his mother's language.  "I c'mposed it, all by myself."

Sarek turned the figurine over in his hand.  "What is it?" he asked at last.

Spock was dumbfounded.  "It's a hand, A'Nirih!"

Sarek sat up straight and gave a warning glance to Spock at his tone.  "I can see that it is a hand, child.  What is its purpose?"

"I dunno," Spock answered meekly.  "Maybe it's 'sposed to be like a holopic.  You just take it out and look at it when you want to remember when."

Sarek looked at his precocious child.  Spock's incipient wisdom was a thing to behold.  Sarek returned his new treasure to its box, gathered his son's things and took Spock by the hand. "Your mother should be ready by now," Sarek explained. 

"C'n we get her some ice cream?" Spock asked. "That would be very, very nice for her."

Sarek looked as his son suspiciously.  "For her or for you?" he asked.

"Well," Spock began as they moved to the aircar, "she likes it when we join in with her, so we should get some ice cream for us, too."

"I see."

END