Ma and Pa

Lolita held tightly to Robor Tapyn's hand as she pressed the door chime to her parent's home. She knew that this was not going to be easy.

The door slid open and her Ma welcomed her in with a hug and chatter about how long it had been, and didn't she look smart in that uniform. Lolita hugged her Pa and then made the dreaded introduction.

"Ma, Pa, this is Tapyn, my fiancée."

"Nice to meet you son," Pa said, staring curiously.

"Why don't you take a seat and we'll fix you a drink," Ma said, already pulling Lolita into the kitchen.

Ma bustled around the small cooking space, and Lolita noticed that they still hadn't got a replicator like she had been suggesting for the last nine years. Pa pushed the old-fashioned door to, and peaked at the young man in the living room through the gap.

"What's wrong with his nose?" he asked.

Lolita sighed, here it came. "There's nothing wrong with his nose, Pa. He's a Bajoran."

"What's that then? Some kind of religious group?" Ma asked, cutting lemon slices thinly.

"No, Ma. He's an alien. Remember I told you about aliens," Lolita said tolerantly.

"He doesn't look like an alien," complained Pa. "He doesn't have a bumpy forehead and all that hair."

"Those are Klingons. Not all aliens look like that."

"Remember Pa, she told us about that," said Ma, getting glasses out of a cupboard and filling them with ice. "There're those devil men too."

"Vulcans," said Lolita.

"And the bug people," continued Ma.

"Andorians."

"Humph. He doesn't look like any of them, if they even exist," muttered Pa as a tray of biscuits was pushed into his hands.

"Maybe he's just got a bad cold, dear. He doesn't have to be a ... what did you call him?" Ma asked, picking up the glasses of lemonade and indicating that the door needing opening.

"A Bajoran, Ma. He's a Bajoran, and he's very healthy," Lolita assured, holding the door.

Tapyn turned as they came smiling back into the living room. He had been examining some strange 2D images of the family. They weren't paintings or holograms and he was struggling to figure out how they were made.

"You have a very lovely home," he said, careful to enunciate the words properly. Lolita had told him that her parents didn't have a universal translator built into their home, so he had learnt a few useful phrases in Terran. She had also been coaching him so that he would be able to understand some of what her parents said, even if he couldn't reply fully.

"Why thank you, T-" Ma struggled over his name.

"Tapyn."

"What an unusual name, son. How did you come by that?" Pa asked, setting the biscuit tray down and settling into his favourite chair.

"It is a family thing," Tapyn said hopefully.

"So, how'd you two meet?" asked Ma, her eyes shining. She wanted to know all about this man who had captured her little girl's heart.

"We were working together on D-" Lolita started, then remembered that the words 'space station' were likely to spark another confusing conversation and re-started, "We were working together. We had lunch a couple of times, and then, well, he asked me out."

xxxxx

Tapyn sat quietly, drinking his lemonade, as the conversation wound on between Lolita and her mother. It appeared to cover a wide variety of subjects, jumping from one to another seemingly at random. He tried to ignore her father's sidelong glances at his nose by looking round the room, or keeping his focus on his drink.

But eventually Pa leaned over the arm of his chair and asked, "You a fighter?"

"No, sir," said Tapyn quietly, wondering how many Bajorans of his age who weren't in the service of the Prophets could say that.

"Broke your nose falling then?"

Tapyn risked a glance across at Lolita, but she was deep in a conversation about hair with her mother.

"Yes sir," he decided to say. A clumsy fall was less confusing than trying to explain with limited Terran that he was an alien. When Lolita had told him about her parents' 'alien-blindness' he had laughed but Pa's insistent mindset that he was human made him see how difficult it could really be, especially for someone with as many alien friends as Lolita.

Pa nodded sagely and mumbled something about the drink getting some people that way. Then he asked, "What d'you do at the station then? Our little girl's always been tinkering with some machine or other, only natural-like that she'd end up working up there in the mountains. You a tinkerer too?"

"No, sir," Tapyn said, thankful that the man had mentioned machines, otherwise he would have had no idea what Pa had meant.

"Then what d'you do, son? Not one of them commander types? We've heard stories about them, going off picking fights." Pa shook his head. He was a farmer, and knew in his bones that no harm would come to you if you took no harm out into the world.

"No, sir," Tapyn said. "I am a ski-entist."

"A what now?" Pa leaned in, scowling again at that strange nose. Must have been set mighty strange for it to end up all folded over and over like that.

"A ski-entist," Tapyn tried again hesitantly.

"On, you mean a scientist, one of them academic types." Pa said, "That's quite some accent you've got there."

"It is a family thing."

"Well, sure. Accents run in families, like houses or names. Don't they Ma?"

"Yes, dear," Ma responded automatically, never taking her attention away from her little girl's wedding plans.

xxxxx

The afternoon wore on and Tapyn managed to navigate the conversation without too many hiccups. His limited Terran didn't affect things after a while since Pa was very garrulous once he was started on a topic.

Finally the day came to a close and the engaged couple made their goodbyes. The door slid shut behind them with a quiet shush, and they walked out into the sinking sun light.

"That went well," remarked Lolita.

"Your father thinks I'm an academic with a broken nose who likes the Yankees and mayo on his hot dogs," said Tapyn in a bemused tone once they had reached the shuttle over the hill. "Anyway, what is 'mayo' and why would I put it on a warm pet?"

"That's not too bad," Lolita said, ignoring the question as she went through the pre-launch procedures. "At least he doesn't think you're a Red Sox fan."

"And your mother thinks I have a cold. She kept offering me herbal remedies when you were out of the room."

Lolita stopped firing up the engines and took Tapyn's hand, "I think you're the healthiest guy in the quadrant and I love you." She gave him a kiss. "Thank you."

"I love you too." Tapyn returned the kiss, and they took off from the planet.

"So where to now?"

"My sister's." Lolita smiled. "At least she lives on Earth rather than this colony outpost. How Ma and Pa ever managed to get here without seeing space is beyond me."

"Maybe they closed their eyes and wished themselves here," Tapyn said, slightly ironically.

"Well, they are from Kansas."

xxxxx