A New Life

Posted on Thu Aug 4, 2016 @ 3:37am by Commodore Michael Aravan & Spencer Aravan

Mission: History
Location: Aravan Family Quarters
Timeline: 2391 End of Previous Mission

At the end of his duty shift, Captain Michael Jacob Aravan left the bridge after having turned it over to his Acting Executive Officer, Commander Madalina Weisz and headed for the turbolift. While Commander Weisz was a very effective First Officer, Michael found himself irate, amused and impressed with the woman in various ways, but he could not deny that he was looking forward to when his wife, Spencer, returned to active duty.

Spencer had taken a medical leave of absence when medical problems had been discovered while she was pregnant with their second child. Now their child was five months old and she was still on medical leave, but Michael would never have dreamed of denying her that. It had been a rough pregnancy and now was the time for her and him both to bond with their new child without excluding their first child, Ava.

Michael wished that he could take a leave himself, but as Captain of a Starfleet vessel, the only reprieve he got from his duty was found at the end of his shifts or during a shore leave. The previous mission had been emotionally and physically draining for the entire crew and he had been grateful that Starfleet had given the Triumphant a series of 'milk runs' in delivering supplies, ferrying Ambassadors and Admirals and in general had kept them from the more serious side of things.

As he entered the family quarters, he removed his uniform jacket and set it on the back of a chair before reaching up to remove the four pips on his collar to carefully set them on a stand where they would remain in a small ornate box until he was called back to duty again. He stopped and smiled when he heard the babble of their baby, the excited chatter of Ava and the gentle sounds of Spencer spending time with both of them. He didn't want to disturb what sounded like a special moment, but it was moments like these that reminded him he could be more than a Starfleet officer; he could be a husband and a father.

With a smile, he entered the living room area and came upon the three of them in the middle of the floor engaged in some game. "There are times," Michael said. "That I'm tempted to put holo recorders in here just so I never miss these moments no matter where I'm at."

Spencer looked up when her husband walked in and smiled. "I'm actually surprised you haven't done it already," she said, wrapping her arms around Ava when she chose that moment to settle down on her mother's lap while the baby laid on the floor in front of her flailing his arms and legs. "I've actually been thinking about when I want to return to active duty, but we can save that conversation for later. I'm fairly certain there are two little ones who want to have your attention right now."

Michael went over and sat down beside of them and reached for the little boy and scooped him up. Her words surprised him about her returning to active duty, but he wasn't concerned about that at the moment. "I would have, but I didn't want anyone else getting access to the video of our private lives. How has your day been?"

"Pretty uneventful, really. We walked around the ship a little, then went to go hang out with Piper and keep her company for a bit. I liked it," Spencer said, pressing a kiss to the top of Ava's head. "How was your day?"

"Well, it started out with Weisz calling me Moon Moon and went from there," he said with a chuckle. "Once I found out what Moon Moon was, I told her she better learn to put Captain in front of that or we were going to have issues."

"What... or who... is a Moon Moon?" She looked over at her husband waiting for the explanation to follow.

Rather than explain to her, Michael activated the viewscreen in their quarters. "Computer, display twenty-first century popular media graphic known as Moon Moon." When it came up, he pointed at the screen. "These are many examples of what it is to be a Moon Moon."

Spencer turned her attention to the viewscreen so she could look over some of the images that were displayed. After reading a few, she burst into a fit of giggles. "Moon Moon! That's amazing! I like her," she said, leaning back against the couch. "I won't take that from her, though."

Michael shut off the display and leaned over to give her a kiss, making sure the little boy was in no danger of being squished. "She's something else, I'll give her that much. She's been steady cracking the whip on the department heads if they don't have their i's dotted and t's crossed. I will say that I miss you, though. She'll argue with me on each decision than you ever did."

"She sounds like she's a great person for the job of Executive Officer," she said, returning the kiss. "I did want to wait until later, but it doesn't seem that's going to be possible. I'm not going back to active duty."

He did a double take and looked at her again. "But...you just said you were thinking about when you wanted to return to active duty, Spencer. What brought this on?"

"I did say that, but when is never going to come," Spencer replied. "I'd just rather be with the kids more that I would be if I decided to go back to active duty, and my health is still not a hundred percent. I think it's best that I retire early. I know it's a shock to you, but you had to know it was a slight possibility. It has been six months."

"Six months isn't long for a medical and maternity leave, Spencer," Michael said softly. "You have an entire career ahead of you. You could command your own ship one day. I know the kids are important, but...." His voice trailed off. She had always been honest with him even when he didn't want to hear it and he knew it was her choice. Her health wasn't the greatest and the doctors at Starfleet Medical had already told them both what the options were and that stress wouldn't help her condition.

"Most women go back to work after six weeks," she pointed out. In fact, Spencer had done that very thing when Ava was born. It wasn't that she wanted to leave her daughter when she was so young, but it was the fact she missed doing her job and what came with it. Now, though... she didn't. She didn't miss a single thing about it. "I don't want to command a ship. It was never my intention to command a ship. I don't miss it, Michael. There was too much stress day to day, and it will eventually kill me. Where would that leave you and the kids?"

He thought of the terrible headaches that he often got in times of stress and could only agree with her. A thought went through his mind about what would happen to her and the kids if he were killed, but he left it unspoken. "Are you going to stay on the ship?" He asked her finally.

"Of course. You know as well as I do that the three of us would be miserable without you," she said. "If you want to use me as some kind of an advisor, I'd be okay with that. I wouldn't be needed twenty-four seven, and might be able to help out here and there. I just... I don't want to get back into the uniform. At least not any time soon. Who knows what the future might bring?"

"You've always been my closest friend and advisor outside of being the love of my life," Michael said. "You're my confidant, the mother of my children and my reason for being, Spencer. You will always be closest to me no matter what and I will support you no matter what you do. Did you want me to contact Starfleet Headquarters with your resignation?"

"There's no hurry, but it would be nice if you would. I really don't think I'm going to change my mind," Spencer said, laying her head on his shoulder as she closed her eyes. "Thank you for being so understanding, Mikey. I love you."

He adjusted the baby boy and slid an arm around her waist. "I love you, too, Spencer," he said. "So...do you really approve of Commander Weisz as the Executive Officer?"

"I like her. She doesn't seem to take crap from anyone, and I think that's a good thing. Of course, it doesn't matter what I think about her, though. What you think about her is what really matters."

"She shoots from the hip, gives a lot of lip, but she's a good officer," Michael said. "And...it does matter what you think, Spencer. I will always ask what you think of a person or decision before I weigh in everything else. After two years of being my Executive Officer, you should know that by now. What do you want to do this evening?"

"Whatever you want to," Spencer answered with a smile. "My day consists of chasing little ones now that little man is trying to crawl."

"They grow so quickly and are so eager to see everything they can, don't they?" he said fondly as he looked down at little Mikey. The little boy gave his daddy a drooling smile before his face scrunched up and went red, then a hideous smell crept up from him and Michael gasped. "By every star in the quadrant, what did he eat?" he exclaimed.

Spencer couldn't help but laugh, which grew louder the second Ava made a gagging sound and pinched her little nose closed. She hugged her daughter to her, then looked to her husband and their son. "I decided to try him on green beans today." Which was also his first time eating 'big people' food. "You get the honor of changing him this time. Go get it, Daddy."

If there was ever a time that Michael wished he could talk and hold his breath at the same time, this was it. Instead of wasting the precious untainted air that he had left in his lungs, he used economical movements as if he were handling a bomb, which by the smell he was and had already started to vent noxious gases, to get to his feet. He headed to the bathroom as casually as he could without causing his son to attack him again and prayed he wouldn't pass out from lack of pure oxygen.

Once he was in there, he quickly stripped the little boy as his eyes watered and spots dotted his vision as if he were a starship that was being bombarded by volleys of photon torpedoes. He cleaned and powdered the little boys bottom while Mikey giggled madly and managed to knock almost everything off the changing station in the process. Finally Michael disposed of the biological weapon the diaper had become and got a fresh one on his son before he ordered the computer to purge the lethal smell and activate an air freshener before he passed out.

Michael left the bathroom feeling as if he had just repelled a dozen enemy boarders single handedly armed only with a washcloth and settled back down by Spencer. "You...gave him his first taste...of big people food...in the form of beans?" he asked her, looking at her like he planned a revenge which would be spoken of for centuries.

Spencer couldn't help herself. By the time he made it back to her and Ava, she was still laughing, though their daughter was no longer settled on her Mom's lap. She was sitting on the couch while her mother quite literally rolled around on the floor clutching both of her sides. With tears streaming down her face, she struggled to breathe, which was coming in wheezing gasps. Oh, this was just too good, and talking? That was most definitely out of the question.

He set little Mikey down by a pile of plush toys that would keep the little boy's interest for a bit and went to where Spencer was rolling and began to tickle her sides. "Think that's funny, do you?" he grunted. "You were saving this for a special time, weren't you? You like laughing...it's time to laugh!" Of course, his words weren't said with anger, but the mischievous gleam in his eyes said that she was going to pay dearly.

Pulling in a breath, Spencer tried to roll onto her stomach so she could crawl away from him, but it just wasn't happening. She started laughing even harder, but decided to fight back with some tickles of her own, going straight for his ribs. This was the kind of thing she looked forward to most. The little things like this that made their lives seem normal. Not that they weren't normal, unless you took into account that they lived on a starship in space.

Ava watched her Daddy attack her Mama and got to her feet. With a little battle cry, and a cute one that one she could seem to pull off, she launched herself off of the couch and onto his back. Her little arms moved to wrap around his neck and she hung on like her little body would be thrown off of him at any second. "My Mama!"

Michael started laughing when both Spencer and Ava went on the counter attack and he was very careful not to throw the little girl off while making sure he could still breathe. He rolled on his side without crushing Ava and continued his assault on Spencer. "My Spencer!" he responded to Ava while laughing.

The second Michael settled on the floor, Ava let him go and moved back a bit. "No... my Mama!" She charged her Dad, running as fast as her little legs could take her, then jumped onto him, missing any vital areas that might cause him pain.

Spencer took the distraction as the escape she needed. With a laugh, she started to army crawl away, making her way towards the baby. He was gnawing on one of his favorite toys and watching the melee with mild interest. She was fully expecting a hand to grab her ankle and pull her back, but she braced herself for that very thing to happen. Maybe Ava would offer enough cover so she could get away.

"No you don't," he grunted, then fell over onto his back as Ava got him again. "Oh no! It's the USS Ava! I'm doomed!" he laughed as he let Spencer get away so he could tickle his little girl.

Ava's little body seized up the second her Daddy started to tickle her. She burst out laughing so hard that her face started to get red, but that wasn't the best part. She took a breath and fell back into her peal of laughter, then... snorted.

The snort did it; Michael seized up in a spasm of laughter which stole his breath and all he could do was laugh uncontrollably and let the little girl do whatever she wanted to him. "I...give...up.....you win," he gasped.

Ava caught her breath and collapsed against her Dad's chest with a smile. "Ava wins!"

"That's right... we're always victorious, aren't we, princess?" Spencer asked, scooping the baby up and settling him on her lap. "Daddy doesn't stand a chance."

He hugged Ava to him as he sat up and caught his breath. "You did win, Princess and I know you'll always win. Are you ladies hungry? We know Mister Stinky Pants probably is."

"Yesh!" Ava bellowed, climbing off of her Dad so she could haul her little fanny toward the table.

Spencer laughed. "I think you got your answer."

"Chicken fingers with hush puppies and coleslaw with a big pickle, Ava?" Michael asked as he dusted himself off and got up to head to the table.

"No, Daddy!" Ava said, wrinkling up her little nose. Despite being a much smaller female version of her father with her jet black hair and light blue eyes, she looked just like her mother in that moment. "Fwies! And kepitch!" It was no secret that the two year old had her father wrapped around her little finger.

Spencer got to her feet and grinned, shifting the baby so he was settled on her hip. "Yeah, Daddy... you should know she loves her 'fwies' with 'kepitch'."

He laughed and put the order in with The Black Hole and looked at Spencer. "What do you want, love?" he asked her.

"Surprise me," she replied as she made her way over to the table to settle down next to Ava. With dinner still a ways away, she grabbed a banana from a bowl and peeled half of it, then handed a piece of it to Ava. She just so happened to look down at the baby who was eyeing the food and opening his mouth to get it. "We're going to let Daddy feed you. See how much you get in his hair."

Michael ordered Chicken Fettuccine and a salad for Spencer and a triple decker bacon cheeseburger, fries, coleslaw and a German chocolate cake for dessert for the family. Finally, he took the banana from Spencer and settled little Mikey in his lap. "At least I'm off duty," he said as he broke a tiny piece off and offered it to his son.

"Just make sure you mash it before you give it to him, or he'll end up choking on it," Spencer said. "And watch for his teeth. He bit me earlier, and almost drew blood. Like a little leech."

"I know, love," he said as he mashed the little bit between his fingers. "All babies to nomming stations. Mouth open, teeth armed, stomach ready!"

"I know you do. Sometimes I forget we've done this before," she stated. "It seems like it's been a lifetime ago with how big she's getting."

Ava continued to munch on her banana happily while her baby brother went in for the kill. He ended up putting Michael's finger in his mouth to get the banana off, and promptly bit down on the fleshiest part like a little piranha.

Michael winced and pulled his finger back a second too late as it went into little Mikey's mouth and got bitten. "See...this is why we have a med kit in all of the quarters," he said. "Can you get a dermal regenerator for me, beautiful?"

"He couldn't have gotten you that bad," Spencer said, getting to her feet and moving over to them so she could look at his finger. "Let me see it. If it needs the dermal regenerator, I'll get it, then put the banana into a bowl with a spoon so he can't bite you anymore."

He mashed the rest of the banana up in the bowl and shifted his son around to make it easier to feed him. "No more biting, Mikey," he said. "You're not Klingon." He held his finger up for Spencer to see the tiny tooth marks that Junior had made in his finger.

"He didn't break the skin, so you should be okay. Almost, but not quite. You can make out his two little teeth, though," she said, grabbing a towel to carefully wipe her husband's finger. With kids, she was used to cleaning them off like this, so it was no surprise she was doing it to him. Old habits died hard, and she didn't even seem to catch on yet.

Michael laughed when she wiped his finger. "I could have done that, Spencer," he said. "But thank you." He looked at his finger. "I guess I'll have to take up piano since he didn't bite my finger off."

At that time, the food from The Black Hole materialized on the special table which he had set up for custom deliveries and the smell of the real, delicious food began to fill the air from the containers it arrived in. "I know it's lazy," he said. "But it saves time for Piper and Gage to not have to send runners to deliver the food in person."

"I'm used to doing that with the kids," she said, giving him a sheepish smile before she looked toward the table where the food just materialized. "Wow... talk about room service. I would have gone to get it, though. Ava and I could have made the trip easy enough."

Michael laughed. "You've done more than enough," he said. "Besides, I consider it a perquisite of rank to have such things."

"You just want to be as lazy as you possibly can be when you're off duty," Spencer said with a smile. "I'm onto you."

"You got me," he said. "Guilty as charged. Piper said that I was the laziest man she's ever met and Gage seconded her on that. I became a Captain so I wouldn't have to do more."

Spencer grinned. "You're not very good at sarcasm, either."

"It's all true," Michael said. "I may not be good at sarcasm, but I'm a fantastic liar."

"You're something else, you know that, don't you?"

"I try," he said as he loosened his shirt collar and reached for his triple decker bacon cheeseburger. "You're something else, too."

"I have to be so I can keep up with you," Spencer pointed out.

"That's why I married you," Michael said as he continued to feed small bites of mashed banana to his son while eating his burger. "You're better than any Yeoman could ever hope to be."

"You're smart, too, but I'm no one's Yeoman, sadly. Once the word gets out, I'll never put back on the uniform."

"I said you're better than a Yeoman," he pointed out. "In or out of uniform, you'll always be my Number One."

"I better be," Spencer said.

With that, the family settled down with their meal, bantering and talking, making plans for the future and playing with their kids.