"Traditions" - Star Trek TOS for tegdoh

Title: Traditions
Fandom: Star Trek: TOS
Characters: Uhura, Bones, Sulu, Chekov
Word Count: 1039
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I'm just playing in Gene Roddenberry's universe.
Summary: How do you celebrate Christmas in space?
Author's Note: For tegdoh with the prompts of "grandchildren" and "snow."

"We could at least," Leonard McCoy grumbled, "have shore leave on a planet with snow for Christmas."

Nyota Uhura laughed lightly. "Only you would find something to complain about on this wonderful planet, Dr. McCoy." She gestured about at the white sands and deep blue waters of the beach they walked upon. McCoy still wore his Starfleet uniform of black pants and blue shirt, but Uhura had shed her regulation dress for a swimsuit, though she now wore a colorful wrap dress over it, decorated with swirls of reds and purples and gold. "It's warm and clear and lovely. It's perfect."

"We're on shore leave, Lieutenant, please, call me Leonard," McCoy said.

"Very well, Leonard," Uhura said. That she could do, but she could never call him "Bones," that was the captain's name for him. "But only if you call me Nyota. And I thought you were from the South. Isn't it too warm to snow there?"

Now it was McCoy's turn to laugh. "It doesn't snow very often, but that doesn't mean when I was a boy I didn't hope it would every year."

"We never had snow and I certainly didn't want it," Uhura reminisced. "I always wanted nice weather on Christmas Eve. We would dress up in costumes made of leaves and flowers and go door to door to sing and dance for presents."

"If you want snow, you should go to Russia," Pavel Chekov chimed in behind them.

Beside him, Hikaru Sulu rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. The Russians invented snow."

McCoy snorted. "I suppose they invited Christmas, too."

Chekov looked offended. "No, but we do celebrate it on the proper day, unlike the rest of the world," he said. "January seventh. Everyone else is wrong."

Uhura laughed and shook her head. "What about you, Hikaru? Did your family celebrate Christmas?"

"Purely secular," Sulu said. "When I was little, I believed in a Buddhist monk called Hotei-osho who would leave presents for the children. He had eyes in the back of his head, so even if he wasn't looking directly at you, he could see if you were misbehaving."

"Just like St. Nicholas," McCoy said.

"Grandfather Frost," Chekov corrected him.

Uhuru found a spot on the beach she liked and stopped, spreading out the blanket she carried on the sand. "All these different customs, yet here we all are, celebrating together on another planet with two suns and four moons and probably doesn't even have a winter solstice." She gestured for the others to sit.

Sulu had been assigned drinks, so he settled on the blanket and began to pull out the bottles of wine, juice, and water he'd managed to get his hands on. The others pulled out the food they'd scavenged from wherever they could: past shore leaves, begging and bribing the ship's cook, black market connections the captain pretended he didn't know about. The only requirement was that the food be real and not synthesized. Uhura had decreed it so.

When everyone had a full glass, McCoy raised his. "To special days with friends and family." The others clinked their glasses to his, murmuring in agreement.

Uhura stretched out her legs, digging her toes into the warm sands. "Do you think we'll tell our grandchildren about days like this?" she asked idly. "Or will it all be salt vampires and Greek gods and mirror universes?"

"Joanna will only want to know about the medical mysteries we've faced," McCoy said absently.

"You have a granddaughter, Doctor?" Chekov asked.

"No, Joanna's my daughter," McCoy said. "She's studying to be a nurse on Cerberus."

"You were married?" Sulu asked curiously. "You've never mentioned that."

"There's a reason for that," McCoy sighed. "And this is supposed to be a happy occasion, so we'll leave it at that."

"We're all married to Starfleet now anyway," Uhura said. "And Hikaru and Pavel are in a race to see who gets to captain his own ship first."

"What about you, Nyota?" McCoy said. "What are your plans?"

Uhura looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'd like to be assigned to some quiet, peaceful station in the back end of space."

Sulu paused, about to take a bite out of a small fruit. None of them knew what it was called, but it was sweet and tasted similar to an apple. He tossed the fruit at Uhura instead. "Liar," he said.

She caught the fruit. "You're right," she smiled, after taking a bite. "I'd be so bored. But I sometimes think about meeting someone and having a family. Until they have daycare on the Enterprise, that is going to be a long time coming."

"That'll be the day," McCoy said. "Can you imagine a horde of children descending on Spock? It might be fun to see him try to logic them away."

"How many children do you think the captain has?" Chekov wondered aloud.

His three companions all stared at him, gaping in astonishment. McCoy laughed first. "The question no one dare speak aloud," he said. "Only his doctor knows if he takes precautions, and his doctor is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality."

"And now we have the real reason why children are not allowed on the Enterprise," Sulu said solemnly.

"You three are so bad," Uhura scolded them, but the twinkle in her eye told that she was teasing.

McCoy's communicator beeped. When he flipped it open, they all heard Captain Kirk's voice. "Sorry to cut your shore leave short, Bones," he said, "but we just received a distress call from the colony on Beta Seren Three. We're the closest ship."

"We're on our way," McCoy said automatically. He flipped the communicator closed and looked at the other three. "Merry Christmas from Starfleet," he sighed.

The others were already packing up the food and drink and blanket. "Duty calls," Uhura said, just a little mournfully as she looked at the water she hadn't had a chance to swim in.

They assumed transporter formation. "Enterprise, four to beam up," Sulu said into his communicator.

"Emergencies are our holiday tradition," Uhura said, grateful she'd had at least a few moments with her friends. The four of them were swallowed by golden twinkling lights and disappeared.