Hello! Here I am, back again! It's been sometime since I've been here, and that was due in large part to Finals, health scares with our dog and starting 6 hours of Korean tutoring a week. Anyway I am back with a new story and this has been beta'd by the lovely MeredithBrody who has been extremely helpful in helping me to find my footing on writing Hoshi and starting my first Troshi fic. I would highly recommend checking her work out here or on AO3.

- Galia

A Tear for the Vulnerable

One

Lavender Coloured Sky

Even after six years in deep space Trip is still surprised at just how quickly things can go wrong, how quickly things can go from calm and interesting to complete chaos.

Ekankar is a nice enough planet, the temperature hovering around 14 Celsius as the sun went down over the planet's high mountains. It was just cold enough to make Trip look forward to a nice warm meal when the landing party returns to Enterprise. He's walking next to Malcolm, hands in his pockets, talking about the Ekankarians. T'Pol is some 30 feet behind them, scanning various plants she hadn't had time to examine.

"So whaddya think Malcolm?" He asks.

"About what?" Malcolm, who doesn't seem bothered by the slight chill in the air at all, asks.

"About the Ekankarans, think they're gonna destroy each other with all this nasty blood towards the chancellor?" Trip shivers a bit, unaccustomed to the cool air.

"Well, Humans didn't, we made it through the early part of the 21st century without destroying one another." Malcolm remarks.

"We came pretty damn close though." Trip points out.

"Perhaps we had to, maybe some species need to nearly destroy each other before realizing that they can't advance without uniting, or maybe they'll be more like the Klingons." Malcolm suggests.

"The last thing the galaxy needs is more species like the Klingons." Trip grins. "The Coalition doesn't need another warrior species on her door step, Romulans and Klingons keep our hands full enough."

"I suppose we can hope for the best." Malcolm mutters, looking up at the lavender coloured sky to where Enterprise can be seen in orbit. "How are you and T'Pol doing?"

Trip glances back at where T'Pol walks. "Better now that Lizzie's health seems to be okay. Phlox says she'll be pretty sick her whole life though."

"Well she hasn't got an immune system." Malcolm points out. "Is there anything that you can do for her? Even 150 years ago we had ways of helping people with weak immune systems."

"Not really," Trip sighs. "If she was fully human or fully Vulcan it would be pretty simple but since she's half, and the only one who is, there ain't nothing we can do about it. Just keep her safe in the sterile environment of the ship for the most part." His and T'Pol's daughter was a big worry in both of their lives but thus far they seemed to be making things work for her.

"Are you sure they Vulcan's aren't hiding something? It wouldn't be the first time they've kept information from us." Malcolm says.

"They ain't got any reason to." Trip says, with a shrug. "This doesn't affect them any more then it affects us, and even the Vulcan's wouldn't hurt a baby because of some petty 'humans aren't ready' theory." Looking back up at the lavender sky Trip can't help but smile, thinking of his little family always makes him do so.

"What are you so happy about?" Malcolm mutters cynically.

"I've got a family Malcolm. A woman I love, a baby girl, something to live for." He grins. "Ya know T'Pol and I have been thinkin' of havin' another?"

"Elizabeth's a little young for you to be thinking of another baby." Malcolm remarks.

"Well not now, in another year or so, when she's a little older, a bit more stable." He sighs. "Doesn't matter when, just the fact that she's open to it makes me happy enough."

It does, he knew Vulcan's rarely had more than one or sometimes two children but when he'd mentioned wanting three or four T'Pol's answer hadn't been the horrified 'no' he'd been expecting. She had considered the question a moment before giving him a 'we should get Elizabeth healthy first, then we'll talk about more children.', not exactly a 'yes' but it was good enough for him.

For one more moment the lavender world of Ekankar is peaceful and quiet, one final moment of serenity as he turns back to look at T'Pol, then he's thrown into a wall as the world catches fire. There's sickening snap of his leg and a sharp pain in the moment between the flash of orange and the world going dark.

Hoshi knows something is wrong before the sensors tell them anything, Elizabeth, who had been sleeping peacefully for nearly an hour in a basket at her station, wakes with the most horrifying screaming cry.

"What the hell?!" Captain Archer jumps from his chair. "What happened?"

Hoshi has by now pulled Elizabeth from the basket and is looking her over urgently. "I-I don't know sir! I've never heard her make that sound before!" For that matter she'd never heard any infant make that sound. The entire bridge is staring at her and the screaming baby, resting Elizabeth on her hip she starts towards the turbolift. "I-I'll take her to Phlox something must b-"

"Sir!" Lieutenant Mikhail says from T'Pol's station. "Sir, there's been an explosion in the surface."

"What?" Captain Archer's attention is immediately drawn to Mikhail. "Ensign get that baby out of here." He snaps, rushing over to the Lieutenant's consol. Hoshi rushes towards the turbo lift, the still screaming Elizabeth on her hip. She quickly presses the button for E deck and starts to rock back and forth on her feet.

"Shh," She whispers shakily. "You're alright, you're alright." She's still unsure of what to do to calm Elizabeth, she'd never known Elizabeth to scream like this and if she ever had Commander T'Pol must have been able to calm her fairly quickly.

Hoshi rushes out of the turbo lift and towards T'Pol's quarters, ignoring the looks being given by various crewmen. As she's entering the override code to get in a team from sickbay rushes past her, they don't seem to notice her or the screaming baby and Hoshi pays them little attention.

Entering the quiet room she turns on the lights and sits down on the neatly made bed, if she didn't know the Commander she might think that Trip and Elizabeth didn't live here at all, it's spotless as usual. The only sign that anything has changed is a picture on the night stand, Trip is holding Elizabeth and T'Pol stands stoically next to him, judging by Elizabeth's smaller size it was several months old. Hoshi reaches into the night stand drawer, looking for anything to calm the child, first she produces a note book, the careful records of everything from how long Elizabeth ate for to her daily weight, that wouldn't help her now. Then she produces what appears to be some sort of monster doll 'Trip' she thinks, that wouldn't help her either, she sets it on the bed next to the notebook and finally pulls out the IDIC amulet.

Unsure if it will help but if nothing else it may be able to buy her a few quiet moments to think, Hoshi drapes it over the baby, keeping a careful eye on her to ensure she doesn't chew it or choke herself with it. The IDIC seems to quiet Elizabeth's crying slightly, Hoshi lays her on her back on the bed and quietly rubs her stomach, whispering softly to her in Vulcan, unfortunately this doesn't seem to calm the sobbing any more.

Reaching for the note book Hoshi consults it quickly, for the most part it was just times of how long she nursed, slept and bath water temperatures, but finally she found something useful. A small, somewhat uncharacteristically sentimental note about Elizabeth liking to be held next to T'Pol's skin and whispered to sleep. Hoshi stands up and goes to the drawer, the top drawer is uniforms, the second baby clothes but the third is where she finds the brown robe T'Pol could be seen wearing when off duty. She walks back over to Elizabeth and picks her back up, draping the robe over the two of them she continues to whisper softly to her.

It takes so long for Elizabeth to quiet that Hoshi is no longer sure if it was the comfort of her mother's scent on the clothes or exhaustion that finally puts her to sleep, but eventually Hoshi is able to put her back down on the bed. She sets her down on the robe and frowns, do babies this age like to be swaddled? Do Vulcan babies ever like to be swaddled? She'd seen T'Pol keep Elizabeth tightly wrapped against her skin but never swaddled. Since Elizabeth doesn't seem to care either way she decides to just leave her and keeps her eyes on the baby as she goes over to the comm system on the wall.

"Ensign Sato to Captain Archer." She says quietly, as the comm line on the other end clicks on she can hear what sounds of chaos but after a few seconds Captain Archer's voice comes through.

"Yeah Hoshi?" His voice is strained, upset, what ever's going on can't be good.

"I got her to calm down sir, do you want me to return to my station?" She asks, still keeping her voice low and turning the comm down as she speaks.

"No, no you stay there with Elizabeth, I'll call for you when we're ready. Archer out." He's gone before she can ask any more questions.

With a sigh she settles on to a chair next to the bed, it feels wrong to sit on the family bed, as a child she wasn't even allowed in her parent's bedroom after the age of four and no one outside the family ever went in there. Still feeling strange and intrusive she picks up The Teachings of Surak from the night stand, and opens to the first page, it takes a moment for her brain to transition fully to Vulcan but once it does she moves through the book with relative ease.

It's almost an hour later when she looks up next, Elizabeth is still sleeping but she can tells he's beginning to grow restless, hungry if Hoshi had to guess. It was getting late too, nearly 6 o'clock now, T'Pol would've by now fed Elizabeth so Hoshi gets up and begins to poke around for a bottle or some applesauce. After a few minutes she locates a cooler under the bed, and produces a bottle of a yellow substance she can only assume to be Vulcan breast milk, she opens it and frowns, it's got a thin waxy film on the surface. Unsure if it's gone bad or just needs to be heated up Hoshi decides to err on the side of caution – the last thing she needed was Elizabeth getting sick and T'Pol finding out that it was because Hoshi had given her something she found in a cooler under the bed and wasn't even sure was milk.

As she picks her up, Elizabeth's blue eyes open. "Morning Baby Girl Blue Eyes." She whispers, it was Trip's nickname for her, unlike usual Elizabeth just sets her head forlornly on Hoshi's shoulder, looking far too defeated for a child who isn't yet past her first birthday. She's preparing to go to the mess hall to get applesauce when the comm line opens again.

"Archer to Ensign Sato." The Captain's voice is even more defeated than last time.

Tentatively Hoshi presses the call button. "Yes sir?" Her voice is shaky, she can tell what ever she's about to hear it's not good news and Elizabeth's reaction, or lack thereof was starting to make some sense.

"You're going to want to come down to sick bay, bring Elizabeth, Trip'll want to see her when she wakes up." He says solemnly.

"Sir, she hasn't eaten and it's almost her bed time." Hoshi rocks back and forth on her feet gently for a moment.

"Phlox can synthesize some milk for her, just get down here, that's an order." It doesn't sound like an order, it sounds more like a halfhearted plea, which only compels her to move faster as she walks out of the door.

And there we have it, chapter 1. I hope to have another chapter up this weekend but I desperately need to work on Synesthesia as well (I know people are waiting and I'm really sorry).

As usual if you liked it please leave a review, and I'll try to respond to them when I can.

- Galia