Disclaimer: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.

This story has not been beta-read, so any mistakes in it are mine.

"Sher, you know what that brother of yours will say if he gets to hear about this."

Malcolm heard his uncle's voice in the hall, and froze. A trickle of anxiety chilled the bubbles of joy and excitement that had been bursting in his stomach all afternoon.

He, too, knew what Father would say.

He'd been trying not to think about it. It had been easy enough to forget, to concentrate on the coming treat instead. Maddie, of course, was too little to really understand, but she'd caught the fever of his excitement and was running round the house shouting "Bang! Bang!"

He'd have rather liked to do the same, but he was a big boy – all of eight years old – and that sort of thing was really quite beneath him now. So he told her every now and then that she was being silly, but the big stupid grin on his face rather gave him away, so she just gave him one of her great big beaming smiles and ran away again, shouting even louder.

"Oh, stuff what Stuart would say," growled Aunt Sherrie – a remark that Malcolm was quite sure he was not meant to overhear; usually his aunt was careful to accord her brother the proper respect, even though sometimes he noticed her mouth folding in as though she was restraining herself from saying something inappropriate.

They evidently didn't realise he was in the front room, hiding in the dark. He liked dark places, as long as there was just a little light from somewhere to show him his surroundings; and the door to the hall stood just slightly ajar, letting in the glow from the lounge. He was hoping Maddie would run at in any minute, and then he could pounce on her and make her scream with delighted terror.

Both of the children loved the rare occasions when they were left in the charge of Aunt Sherrie and Uncle Edward. Although there were no cousins to play with, their aunt and uncle were astonishingly lax in matters of discipline. He didn't have to call his uncle 'sir', as he did his father. They were not merely allowed, but encouraged, to talk at the dinner-table, as long as good manners were observed of course. And when they went to bed – a whole hour later than usual! – then there was always a torch and a book in the room, and he could read stories very quietly to Maddie till she fell asleep. After which he'd carry on reading by himself for as long as he could, because the books were always so exciting, adventure stories about pirates and space exploration and buried treasure. Not at all the sort of things that were found in his own house, where reading matter was strictly confined to factual topics; though he did find stories about the Battle of Trafalgar really interesting and Admiral Nelson was already on the way to becoming one of his heroes – not, of course, that he would admit that this was at least partly because Nelson was also undersized and prone to illness, like himself, but that hadn't stopped him from having a glorious career in the Navy.

And Aunt Sherrie's garden was wonderful. It wasn't as big as the Reeds', of course, but it was full of so many exciting things: a pond that had frogs and newts and dragonflies (he'd seen a heron there once!), and a shed that his uncle stored all kinds of exciting things in and used as a workshop (Malcolm was allowed to help him use the lathe, if he was very careful), and – best of all! – an oak tree whose ancient, twisted limbs he was actually allowed to climb.

Instinctively he knew that all of this was information that should be kept from his father's knowledge. He did his best to instil caution in Maddie too, but she was very little, and he lived in constant dread of her letting something slip.

And this outing that they'd been promised was the biggest excitement yet. He'd have to be ultra-careful afterwards to make sure she knew it was a secret between them. They could talk about it between themselves, but she wasn't to breathe a word when she went home.

Because if Father found out…

He was terrified of his father's anger. It cut him in a place where he had no defences. He couldn't imagine how angry Father would be if he found out they'd gone to a celebration that was a 'ridiculous waste of public money', and which was a 'legacy of an event that should have been decently consigned to the waste-bin of history years ago'.

He bit his lip. He didn't know whether it would be safer to tell Aunt Sherrie that he'd changed his mind, or that he wasn't feeling very well and didn't want to go after all. Maddie would be disappointed, of course, and probably cry herself to sleep, but she'd forget about it.

Which would be more than Father would.

And the chances were that if the escapade did come to light, then the stays with his aunt and uncle would be a thing of the past. That, he could hardly bear to contemplate.

But Maddie was looking forward to it so much. And – he wouldn't deny it, even to himself – so was he.

Real fireworks!

How often would such a chance come their way? It was the first time he could ever remember that they'd been here on this particular day. It was only thanks to a sudden call from the Admiralty that Commander Reed and his wife had been summoned to Headquarters down at Portsmouth (wherever that might be), and thus the two fledglings of the family had been in urgent need of a temporary nest.

Beneath the chair, Malcolm hugged his bony knees and tried to assess the risks. He wanted so very much to see the fireworks. He'd only ever caught glimpses of them – far-distant fiery flowers blooming on darkness where other families celebrated Guy Fawkes Night. He could only imagine what such things would be like close up. And other children at his school had talked of the associated treats – bonfires and baked potatoes and toffee apples, sparklers and Roman Candles and Catherine Wheels.

Aunt Sherrie had said that perhaps, afterwards, under proper adult supervision and if they were very good, he and Maddie might even be allowed to set light to a very small rocket each of their own. Maddie would have to have someone holding her hand, of course, because she was so very little, but he might – just might, and if he showed everyone how very sensible he could be (he was good at being sensible, everyone said so) – be allowed to do it all by himself. Uncle Edward would be right beside him to make sure nothing went wrong, and he'd do absolutely everything he was told to, and wear protective goggles – even if Jamie Vaughan at school said it was sissy. Jamie Vaughan was the sort of Bad Boy whom Malcolm avoided, but you couldn't avoid hearing some of his pronouncements.

"Well, children, are we going to get ready? They'll be lighting the bonfire soon, and you don't want to miss that do you?"

Luckily Maddie's arrival at the gallop from the kitchen, fairly screaming with excitement, provided enough of a distraction from his own far more decorous exit from the front room where he'd overheard what he shouldn't. And the decision was effectively taken out of his hands, because really he couldn't say anything now.

His scarf, gloves and hat were laid ready, impeccably neat on the sideboard. Maddie's, of course, were in various places, and nobody ever did explain why one of her mittens should have been found under the television. That was the sort of question that was always being asked about Maddie's possessions, and very rarely was any coherent explanation produced; certainly not by the culprit herself.

Still, he was used to tracking down the missing items, and he even spotted the mitten under the television quite quickly, so that it wasn't really very long before they were all driving through the night in Uncle Edward's car. This was apparently an antique because it actually had something called an internal combustion engine (Malcolm wasn't quite sure what that was, but his uncle had promised to teach him about it), and made a very loud noise, quite unlike the smooth, almost soundless motion of the Reeds' flitter. Wherever they went in it people came up to stare at it and take photographs. Uncle Edward was very proud of his car, even though it was so very old and Aunt Sherrie told everyone that it cost them a fortune to keep it on the road.

The park where the firework party was to take place wasn't far away. Barely twenty minutes had passed before Uncle Edwards pulled on the handbrake with a croink that sounded like the call of a basso-profundo metal frog, and the car came to a halt with the familiar quiver.

People were already gathering to admire the car. Uncle Edward was always ready to field enquiries, but for once Aunt Sherrie was apparently prepared to leave him to do so on his own.

"Come along, Malcolm, Maddie!" She was brisk and efficient, but her face was bright with excitement, so that Malcolm thought she was prettier than he'd ever seen her. His own mirrored it, and as for Maddie, she was so busy hopping from foot to foot that it was all he could do to fasten the leash to her wristband. She was really a bit old for being kept on a lead like a baby, but in the dark and in a strange place he wouldn't take any chances.

"You must hold on to my hand, Maddie!" he instructed her, keeping his voice very serious. With their aunt holding the other end of the leash and he holding her other hand, he couldn't see any danger of accidents.

"Yes, Malcolm!" Her shrill childish pipe was compliant, but he could tell from the way her wide-eyed gaze went everywhere but at him that she wasn't really listening. He sighed, took a firmer grip of the mittened hand and resolved to keep hold of it no matter what. She was only little, and it was his responsibility to look after her. It was a bit of a bore now and again, because she did such silly things, but that just meant it was more important than ever that he was sensible enough for both of them.

"Here you are, Aunt Sherrie." He reached up and carefully handed his aunt the other end of the leash. "You have to put it over your wrist, it's safest that way."

'What a solemn little oddity he is,' thought Sherrie St Clair, not for the first time, as she took the leather loop and fitted it over her wrist. She looked, as she always looked, for some resemblance to Stuart in the thin, intelligent little face, and found nothing. He had Mary's hair, soft and wavy, but his high-boned facial structure was all his own.

Maddie, though, was a Reed though and through – her sire's stamp was plain enough on her, as well as his often bullish determination to get her own way.

By contrast, her elder brother was as self-effacing as a shadow. Sherrie had seen often enough how Stuart's determination that the boy should be brought up in absolute strictness, as befitted a future Royal Navy officer, bore down on the sensitive child like a burden the thin shoulders could hardly carry. Malcolm was gentle and affectionate by nature, constantly watching over his little sister from the day she was born, but his instinctive need to reach out to his father was cruelly rejected because Stuart saw this as evidence the boy was 'weak'. A weakness that should be stamped out of him as quickly as possible, because a weakling was never going to be given command of his own ship.

'One of these days I'm going to get hold of my brother and bang his thick stupid head against a wall,' she thought, even as she guided the two children towards where a crowd was already gathering in anticipation of the bonfire being lit. 'He'll be the ruination of this lad.'

It wasn't the first time she'd thought that, either. Both she and Edward had raged in private at the way that Stuart ran his family like his own private damned platoon. On the first occasion they'd had the children to stay, a much younger Malcolm had accidentally tipped over his glass of milk at dinner. Instead of the pink of embarrassment, which might have been expected, his face had gone white with fear. There was no mistaking the dart of terrified grey eyes towards Edward, and even Maddie had frozen in her high-chair and let out a wail of apprehension.

That had been the night on which the book and the torch had first put in an appearance in the children's bedroom, a gesture to convince a still pale and subdued Malcolm that he really wasn't in abject disgrace. It had continued ever since, though not one of the parties ever alluded to it.

She hadn't needed Edward's muttered warning to know exactly what Stuart would think about his children being taken to a bonfire party. For some godforsaken reason of his own, her brother had decided that giving the youngsters treats undermined their moral fibre; a decision that ensured they received no Christmas presents or Easter eggs, and that even their birthdays were characterised by a stern adherence to the standard daily routine that would have quite precluded the holding of a birthday party, even if any such thing had ever been suggested. As far as she knew, Malcolm was a solitary child at school, so the question had never arisen in his case; Maddie, though, was more sociable, so it soon might in hers. Sherrie grimaced as she imagined what sort of a birthday party might be held under the glowering censure of her brother's presence. Jelly and trifle and balloons be damned, it certainly wouldn't earn Maddie the envy of her peers.

A food stall beckoned, its hand-painted legend proclaiming that the proceeds were in support of local charities. The trays bore home-made cakes, and iced biscuits, and cans of pop, and ….

The children received the toffee-apples as though they'd never seen such a thing before. Their eyes were round with wonder.

"Brush your teeth twice, as soon as we get home," Sherrie told them, raising a finger to drive home the point. To be sure, with modern treatments cavities were no longer the problem they'd once been with children's teeth, but it still didn't mean that eating such sugary items should be encouraged on an everyday basis. Still, Stuart could be guaranteed to ensure that didn't happen.

Malcolm removed the wrapper carefully, licked the toffee coating cautiously and then began taking tiny, precise bites of it in total silence. Maddie (perhaps it was inevitable) tried to insert the entire confection into her mouth; since her jaws were hinged rather than detachable like a snake's the attempt was destined to fail, but her blissful 'Mmm-mmm-MMMM!" testified to her enjoyment nevertheless.

The tannoy announced that the bonfire was about to be lit. The crowd around the safety perimeter was already quite deep, but Edward arrived at that moment and lifted Maddie in his arms so she could have a good view. That left Malcolm disadvantaged, but although his aunt could probably have lifted him (he was a slender boy, all bones), she knew that he was already sensitive on the score of his lack of height. He might be only eight, but he was an old child for his years, and would perceive such well-meant kindness as an affront to his dignity.

"Here, Missus, let your littl'un stand on this," said a voice in her ear, and a stout plastic crate that had contained pop bottles was set down firmly on the frosty turf. Their unknown benefactor did not pause to be thanked, but walked off, carrying a couple more crates in case others were in need.

Malcolm needed no second bidding. With evident reluctance he let go of Maddie's hand, moved around his aunt and climbed nimbly up on to the crate, steadying himself easily when it shifted under his weight. "Please, si– uncle, may I hold Maddie's hand? Because there may be – there may be loud noises, and explosions and things, and – and I wouldn't want her to be scared."

"Proper little big brother." Edward shared a look with his wife that went figuratively if not literally over the children's heads, and changed places so that Malcolm could once again take hold of the small mittened hand. Not that Maddie seemed to share his anxiety for her peace of mind; on the contrary, she was wriggling with glee at the anticipated treat, in between apparently still trying to swallow the toffee apple whole.

There was a countdown to the lighting. All of the children caught on, and the volume from young and old alike by the cry of "Fire!" was almost great enough to have been heard in London.

The rush of flame in the core of the great ragged heap of old planks, broken crates and brushwood was instantaneous. At a guess the bonfire had been doused with some kind of accelerant, for the fire spread with vicious speed, gulping at the fuel with a thousand brilliant tongues. Sparks shot skywards, and the air was filled with the roaring sound of the flames as they fed. Even at this distance, ample for safety, the heat beat on the faces of the watchers.

Sherrie laid a hand lightly around Malcolm's shoulders. He was tense, quivering, watching the fire with a fearful fascination as though he'd never seen such a thing before. Come to think of it, he probably hadn't. Any fallen branches from the trees in the Reeds' garden were probably properly shredded and consigned to a local waste disposal unit, rather than being chopped up and used for fuel in a wood-burning stove of the type that made the late autumn evenings in the St Clairs' garden-house pleasant.

"And now, the fireworks!" boomed the voice on the tannoy, going on to welcome some local dignitary who had the honour of pressing the switch to start the display.

The female dignitary probably had children of her own, because she kept the reply mercifully short. Then, another countdown followed – this one, if possible, even louder than the first.

… "FIRE!"

There was the instantaneous thud of a mortar. The small dark head beside her tracked the flight of the all-but invisible missile unerringly. Then, after an aching pause, there was a huge snapping sound high in the blackness, and the mortar exploded.

Sherrie would never know what made her look down rather than up in that moment. She would say afterwards that she had seen the exact moment when the Starship Enterprise's weapons officer was born: not that of his birth, which was irrelevant, but the moment when the first mortar he had ever seen burst before his famished gaze. Its light spread itself across the narrow dark face like a revelation, the perfect symmetry of its image reflected in miniature in his wide eyes.

He watched every explosion that followed, utterly silent; too rapt in each one even to breathe, though Maddie greeted each with a shriek of joy, waving her toffee-apple at the sky. The ground-based fireworks, as spectacular as they were, were watched an intensity that was markedly less. His whole being was focussed like the beam of a laser on each mortar that was flung into the heavens, his gaze as fixed as that of a pointer sighting game. Not until the very last spark of the closing cannonade had drifted and faded away on the breeze did the thin body beside her relax with a shudder of some intense and deeply private joy.

"Bang! BANG!" shouted Maddie, still waving her toffee-apple. Eddie set her down with a sigh of relief; she was a solid little bundle even without all the wrappings against the cold. Released, she flung her arms around her brother, beaming up at him. "Malcolm, did you see all the great big fings that went bang?"

"Rockets, Maddie. Mortars, actually," he corrected himself. "And yes, of course I saw them." He drew a deep, shaky breath, and looked up again at the now-dark sky. "They were … beautiful…"

Afterwards, in the garden back at the house, the second promised treat materialised. After being told all about health and safety, and under their uncle's careful and constant supervision, the two children were given a packet of sparklers. Their faces were awed in the flaring white light of the ignition point, and even Maddie was too preoccupied to squeal as her hand, enclosed in her uncle's, described circles and arcs that left retained images on her vision. Malcolm, trusted to hold his sparkler by himself, simply watched it, seemingly entranced by the endless flow of jagged sparks that were gone as soon as they appeared.

Last of all, there was a packet of rockets. The first was placed in a stout hollow tube wedged securely upright in a bucket of sand, and both of the children and their uncle donned safety goggles. He'd bought extra-long tapers to make sure no accidents could happen.

"Would you like to light the first rocket, Malcolm?" Edward offered him the lighted taper, after showing both children with an unlighted one exactly what should be done to the curl of paper at the foot of each rocket.

Sherrie was watching her nephew closely. She saw the eagerness that was running through him like a tide drive him half a step forward, but he checked and looked down at his little sister's hopeful face. "I think Maddie would like to go first, uncle," he said politely.

"Then in that case, when you've lit two each, Maddie can come indoors with me and help me with the baked potatoes," said his aunt, smiling conspiratorially at her husband, who knew as well as she did that the packet contained five rockets, not four. "I want a clever little girl to help me with the grated cheese."

"Oooh, yes, Aunt Sherrie!" cried Maddie, who was never allowed to help out in the kitchen at home.

The promise of being wanted to render aid with what was clearly an important and responsible task was so thrilling that she hardly seemed to give lighting the rocket more than the most cursory attention; her mittened hand clutching the lighted taper almost lost in the encircling grip of her uncle's large leather glove, she was drawn to a halt at the maximum possible reaching distance from the waiting firework. Edward went down on one knee, steadying himself carefully with her sturdy body in his protective arm, and helped her to reach out as far as she could stretch. For a painful moment it seemed that it wasn't quite close enough; and then–

"Back!"

The paper fizzed, and Edward retreated, carrying Maddie with him. Seconds later, the rocket swished skyward, the children's enchanted gaze following its flight. As it spread its canopy of stars across the dark clouds high above, the little girl let out a breath of happiness; but her brother was once again silent, utterly absorbed in the moment.

Next it was Malcolm's turn. Although Edward accompanied him, he was felt old and responsible enough to hold the taper by himself. His face was grave in the faint glow from it, giving his watching aunt a foreshadowing of his adulthood. He bent to the firework, his whole mien less that of a boy lighting a firework than of a priest bending to his breviary.

There was no false bravado. The instant the fuse-paper glowed, he retreated beside his uncle; but still his whole body was braced, and his gaze followed the rocket starward as though his whole soul was flying with it.

As the fourth rocket lavished its green and gold glory across the sky, Maddie tugged eagerly at her aunt's skirt. "Now, Aunt? Can we do it now? Pleeease?"

"I think that's a wonderful idea. We can have them ready by the time the boys are finished tidying up."

The baked potatoes had been in the oven all evening. By now they would be soft and fluffy all through, ready for the melting butter and grated cheese, which was standing by in the refrigerator.

After they'd both carefully washed their hands, Sherrie placed her little niece on a stool at the kitchen table with the bowl of cheese in easy reach. Plates were already warming, and the dining table was laid ready. She opened the oven door.

Just as she drew out the tray of foil-wrapped potatoes, she heard from outside the faint hiss of the last rocket taking flight. She paused for an instant, touched by the finger of prescience.

It was probably inevitable that children raised in the almost joyless atmosphere of the Reed household should be overwhelmed by the sight and sound of their first fireworks. Nevertheless, she'd never before seen her nephew's soul standing in his eyes as it had this evening. Something had resonated deep in that self-contained child that she felt instinctively would never quite fall silent again.

She glanced out of the window. Edward and Malcolm were standing side by side, the fair head bent down to the dark one as they gravely discussed some serious technical matter about fireworks. She knew, with a grinding ache of angry sadness, that never in his life had Stuart shared anything with his only son; that the chances were that it never would happen, and that the boy would grow up sealed in his isolation like a coffin.

'Not if Eddie and I have anything to do with it,' she thought resolutely. The fates hadn't seen fit to bless her own marriage with children, but there were two here who were desperately in need of a little loving kindness. With a little care and cunning, surely some pretext could be devised for getting them over here on a regular basis. It wasn't as though they'd be missed, after all.

Not for the first time, she wished that Mary had had the sense to say no to Stuart's proposal. At one time she'd thought that there was some depth behind that meek, colourless front, but as the years went by the woman had just … faded, till sometimes one was hardly sure she was there at all. Hardly surprising really, she thought, slicing with unnecessary venom through a baked potato as though wishing it were her brother's head; Stuart was enough to wear down granite. One of the things she loved most about Malcolm was that he showed not a single sign of his father's ill-nature, but was one of the sweetest, most biddable children she'd ever encountered…

She paused for just a moment, and shook her head. No, that was out of the question. Mary would never in the world have had the guts to pull that off.

The back door opened. The frosty night air spilled into the warm kitchen and their menfolk came with it, pulling off coats and gloves, and inhaling the smell of hot food gratefully.

Sherrie looked again at Malcolm. Small and slight where Stuart was broad and sturdy, the fine bones of his face showing not the smallest resemblance to his father's. Even his eyes were all his own, the colour of storm-clouds.

She was well aware of the tricks and chances of genetics. It might well be that this was some such freak of genes, conceivably enabling a heavy English hunter to sire an Arab colt. Doubtless Stuart was aware of the fact too, and cited it whenever he looked in vain for his own stamp on the weakling son with which his wife had presented him.

But Mary…

A slow smile curved Sherrie's mouth as she placed the potato halves under the brimming spoon of grated cheese that Maddie was holding.

She'd never ask, of course. But she was free to indulge her speculations.

As she watched Maddie carefully spreading the cheese on the steaming potatoes, she mentally lifted a glass of champagne to her faded, ineffectual, spiritless sister-in-law, who perhaps hadn't been quite as spiritless as they all thought.

I suppose I'll never know for certain – but here's to you, lass, if I'm right!

The End.

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