Title: Hope
Author: Matilda7
Rating: PG
Category: General, UST
Codes: A/S
Discaimer: I don't own these characters.
Notes: Thanks to smurf for beta reading!!
Hoshi stood in the doorway to her darkened cabin, waiting in the bright pool of light from the corridor before facing the emptiness of the room. The only illumination in the small space came from the streaks of white that passed by the window, each one reminding her how far she was from home.
Feeling conspicuous as several crewman walked by, she finally stepped inside, falling onto the nearby bed with a sigh.
It had been a long day, another day that left her wondering what she was doing out here.
"Shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning." Only silence answered her lament.
She rolled over, pulling a pillow under her head. It so was nice to just relax for a minute. They had met another unknown alien race today, the Lansagadora. An extremely antisocial, difficult to deal with species whose communications protocols had almost given Hoshi a nervous breakdown.
It didn't help that everyone assumed learning a new language was so easy for her that it would just happen in a few minutes. She'd had to bite her tongue to keep from reminding Jonathan that she was not a machine, and asking if perhaps he, who seemed incapable of giving a speech in English, would like to give it a try.
Hoshi pulled her pillow over her face, muffling her scream of frustration. Jonathan had kept pacing back and forth behind her, never stopping, making it next to impossible to think. Finally, after she had given him a carefully executed glare, he 'd retreated to his chair to replace pacing with a tapping foot. She screamed into her pillow again at the memory.
After all her hard work it turned out that all their new friends had wanted to say was, "Get the Hell out of our space and stay away." Sometimes it felt like that was the only thing anyone ever wanted to say to them anymore.
She was just so tired of it all. Why bother translating languages when no one ever wanted to communicate with them again? She was beginning to feel like a glorified answering service. Yes, this is Enterprise, what sort of disparaging comment would you like to file today?
To make it worse, once the Lansagadora had moved on, Jon had retreated to his ready room without so much as a thank you. The man was infuriating. She screamed into her pillow for a third time, and then stuffed it angrily behind her head.
The framed photo of her family that sat beside the bed caught her eye, and she reached for it, straining in the darkness to see. In the dim light she could just make out the faces of her mother, father and brother smiling from a lush garden in Hawaii. That vacation seemed so long ago. She wondered what they were doing now. It should still be daytime on Earth, winter in Japan. Perhaps it was snowing.
She missed them so much. Her mother had always been there to draw her out of a funk and remind her that whatever seemed to be the end of the world at this point, tomorrow would be a memory. She traced the outline of her mother's face, that starlit room and memories of home reminding her of a day long ago....
She watched enchanted as her mother's delicate fingers arranged pale white flowers in a vase. The house was warm and comforting, a welcome shelter from the falling snow outside. Hoshi reached up to touch one of the flowers, feeling the soft cool petals beneath her fingers.
"Careful," her mother said gently, "if you touch them too much the color will fade, and they will turn brown. Hold them like this." Her mother offered her one of the slender stems placing Hoshi's fingers beneath the blossoms.
"They look like stars," Hoshi said, her small eyes following the curves of the flower.
"Stars, just like my star." Her mother smiled at her.
"Will my new brother be a star too?" Hoshi's voice was soft as she asked this question, she did not want to share this honor with anyone, especially not the new baby.
"No, that is for you alone my Hoshi," her mother answered. She sat down in a nearby chair and pulled Hoshi up into what was left of her lap.
Hoshi put her head down on her mother's very round stomach. She lay there for a moment feeling the movement of the baby inside.
She was still unsure about this new life; she liked her family as it was. Even at her age though, Hoshi was wise enough to know she had no choice. The new baby would come whether she wanted him to or not.
For now though, it was still just a family of three, and this house with its dark wood and intermixed vibrant colors was still her world and hers alone.
The snow kept falling outside, the coming night stealing some of its brightness. Hoshi snuggled closer to her mother thinking big thoughts for such a small child.
"Why did you name me star," Hoshi asked, her eyes drifting slowly closed. She knew the answer, her mother had told her many times, but she liked to hear it anyway.
Her mother stroked her hair gently, smiling at her often asked question. "Because I had a dream," she said, softly," long before you were born, and I saw you all grown up, far away from here. You were living among the stars on a journey to places you can only imagine now. I knew that you would someday have an adventure that took you far from home, and that you would find where you belong, in the stars. You can be anything you want my Hoshi, but I know your fate is in the sky...."
Hoshi smiled to herself in the darkness. She hadn't thought of that day in years. As she had gotten older the story had seemed more and more like a dream, silly almost, an imagined destiny that had no place in the reality of her life. Languages, that was what fascinated her, not the stars. She was perfectly content to keep both feet on the ground, and it would have stayed that way, except for the influence of one man. Jonathan Archer.
She would have never guessed when they first met the effect he would have on her life. In fact, at their first meeting, she had hoped it would be their last. She had hated him then, thinking he was arrogant and condescending.
Oh course, she thought with amusement, that might have been because a girl half his age was tutoring him in French. He'd made her want to scream every time they were together. Her only thoughts toward him involved wishing he would just hurry up and learn French so they could both be put out of their misery.
Finally after several weeks, she'd had it with his attitude. She'd stood eye to eye with Jonathan and let him have it for being such a pain in the ass. The memory made her smile; she could just see how she must have looked. A small, fifteen year-old girl, eyes flashing, as she told the young Jonathan Archer to "shut up and learn" the language that had taken her only a month to speak fluently.
It had been the best thing she could have done. Once he had gotten over his shock there had been a new respect between them, a respect that gradually grew into friendship. They had stayed in communication even after Jon had successfully passed French and moved on to bigger things. The time between their communiqués fluctuated as both pursued careers that took them in opposite directions, but contact was never completely severed.
Jon had been the one to convince her of the possibilities of space, and all the languages waiting to be discovered. His letters to her often described the things he hoped to encounter in his future travels, and he seemed to have always known his destiny was in the distant reaches of space. Over time she found that she too looked to the night sky, and wondered what unknown mysteries lay within the faint points of light.
"An infinite number of hostile aliens," she told the darkness, bitterly.
The sound of her door chiming made her jump. "Come in," she called, not even bothering to get up or turn on the lights.
Brightness spilled in from the doorway outlining the silhouette of a familiar figure. "Speak of the devil," she said with an amused smile.
Jon gave her a confused look. "Hoshi, don't you think you'd be happier with some lights on in here?"
He stepped further into the room, and sat on the bed beside where she lay.
"I like the dark, deal with it." She knew she sounded sulky, but she couldn't be bothered to care right now.
Jon ignored her, commanding the lights to half illumination. He turned to her with an annoyingly cheerful smile.
"Alright, Hoshi, you want to tell me what's going on. I could feel the waves of anger radiating off you on the bridge."
Hoshi snorted. "I didn't think you noticed."
Jon looked at her with a serious expression, but she could see the sparkle of amusement in his eyes. "I think everyone did."
She sat up folding her legs beneath her, placing the picture of her family back on the table beside her bed. She looked down at her fingers, which lay palms up in her lap now, trying to gather her thoughts without the distraction of Jon's searching gaze.
Finally, she sighed. "I'm just wondering what I am doing out here." She rolled her eyes as he opened his mouth to reply. She knew what he was going to say, and she didn't want to hear it. "Before you start you're usual spiel, let me finish."
Jon closed his mouth and gave her a nod.
"I know there are thousands of languages waiting to be discovered...blah...blah...blah… I just get tired of translating small pieces of languages we might never use again. It's been months since we made a friendly first contact. All we ever do lately is apologize or try to placate some overblown alien ego."
"I miss using language to understand the subtle details of a culture, to communicate histories and ideas. I miss studying a language for so long I can see where it came from, how it has evolved, and where it is going. I want to learn more than just the words; I want to understand the turns of phrase and inflections that make each language unique. I want to remember why I love linguistics."
"I know it sounds like the idealism of a little girl but-"
Jon's hand over her mouth stopped her midsentence. He gave her an amused smile. "Is it all right if I talk now?" She nodded. He pulled his hand away, and the touch of his fingers on her lips sent a flush of heat through her.
For the first time it dawned on her, how intimate this was, the dim lights, the two of them so close she could feel his warmth. Jon's familiar scent suddenly seemed to overwhelm her senses and she tried very hard to concentrate on his words and not the inviting curve of the lips forming them.
"I do not think it sounds like a little girl, you are not a child Hoshi." He gaze was intense as it held hers. "I think it sounds like the passionate woman I lo-care about." Hoshi felt her breath catch at the slip of tongue he made- had she heard correctly? She was disappointed when he turned his gaze away.
"I know you haven't been yourself lately, I've seen the change in you." He turned to her again, absently taking one of her hands in his. Warmth spread through her again, at the touch of his fingers. "This hasn't gone as any of us had hoped, well, except maybe Malcolm -they both offered weak smiles at this joke- but we just have to keep trying. Keep building what connections we can so that someday people will be able to talk instead of fight. That is why you are here."
Despite all that they had seen and been through, she could still see the hope in his eyes, and she loved him for it. She thought of her mother's words from long ago... you would find where you belong in the stars. Maybe she did belong on this ship, with this man who had come to mean so much to her, maybe her fate was in the sky.
Perhaps someday she would be able to tell Jon this, but she sensed today was not that day. As if in response to her thoughts, she felt him release her hand as he stood up.
For a moment he paused, and in his smile and the softness of his eyes she read all the things he did not say. Another time, she thought.
"Get some rest, Hoshi." With a final smile, he was gone.
Once the door closed behind him, she commanded the lights off and lay back on the bed again, watching the streaks of light pass by her window. Suddenly, the stars did not seem so lonely anymore.
*****