Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize.
A/N: This might offend a few staunch TOS fans, but I wanted to explore another aspect of a certain character. Let me know what you think!
Until I Knew
San Francisco, Earth: October 25, 2296
Ensign Rhea Franklin sat down on the bench to wait for a shuttle and put her bag beside her. A young Andorian woman was already on the bench, although the blue of her skin wasn't as intense as most Andorians' Rhea had seen.
Friendly by nature, Rhea asked, "Are you going to New Berlin or New Sydney?" Not for the first time, she wished that the founders of the lunar colonies had chosen slightly more original names. Those were the destinations of the next two shuttles, and it was too early for anyone to be there for the shuttle to Mars.
"New Berlin," answered the Andorian tersely.
"I'm going to New Sydney. My older sister's getting married in two days just outside the city." Rhea enjoyed talking with other passengers. That was one thing that transporters could never replicate.
"I won't be staying in New Berlin. There is a transport to Andoria that leaves tomorrow morning."
Rhea had seen that look before. The packed bags, the slumped shoulders, and the aura of resignation – it could only mean one thing for a young adult in San Francisco. "Leaving the Academy?"
The woman's antennae twitched. "Yes. How did you know?"
"I've seen at least a dozen people do the same thing. Half of them never get beyond this station." She didn't mention that she had been one of them, four years ago.
"I will not be in that half." She looked staunchly ahead, as though turning would unleash a force she preferred to keep bottled up.
Rhea was about to reply that everyone who was in that half said that they wouldn't be, but the woman before her said it with such conviction that Rhea did not doubt her. "Why not?"
"I cannot stay here."
"Either you're homesick or you think the workload is too much." Rhea had heard it many times before. She'd felt it, too.
That just made the other woman angry. "You presume to know so much, and yet you cannot see what is right before your eyes. Do I look like an average Andorian?" Her antennae swung forward, and Rhea was taken aback.
"Well, your skin is lighter, but-"
"Precisely. My skin is lighter because my father was human. It's entirely possible to have an Andorian-human child, you know. It's just not common."
Rhea hadn't expected that. "Oh."
"I am leaving because I cannot bear to remain in his world anymore. He was never involved in my world, and maybe that is why I cannot be in his."
"Your father was in Starfleet?"
The woman laughed a bitter, ironic laugh. "Oh yes. My father was Starfleet in many ways."
Rhea wasn't sure that she understood, but the woman continued. "They deify him here, but they do not know what I know."
"I take it you're not on good terms with him."
"It's hard to be on good terms with a father you never met. He's dead now, so I suppose that I will never have that." The woman seemed to need to tell someone her story, now. "He offered credits to support me. My mother refused them. She wanted him to be involved in my life, but that he would not give. Maybe he could not give it. I often wonder if he ever thought of me, if at night before sleep came he would try to imagine what I might look like." A tear ran down her pale blue cheek. "I thought that Starfleet might offer me a chance to find peace with my father, but I see that I was wrong. He is too great here. There is no room for me, because I know another side of him."
Rhea put her hand on the woman's trembling left hand. "I'm sorry that you didn't find what you were looking for."
Her antennae perked up a bit. "I am not certain that what I am looking for exists." The shuttle to New Berlin pulled up, and she stood up, changing her tone abruptly from sad to angry. "It is time for me to leave. Next time you read a biography of the great James T. Kirk, remember me."
"He was your father?" Rhea gaped.
An angry, wounded look and a bit of antennae motion were her answer. "Now you see why I cannot stay here."
Rhea nodded. "Have a safe trip."
"You as well." With that, she boarded the shuttle and was gone. Rhea realized that she did not even know the woman's name.
Four days later, Rhea was back in San Francisco. After her shift ended, with no threat to the security of the Admiralty, she walked over to the small garden on the east side of Headquarters. Nobody else was around.
The Tellarite piurks were blooming brilliantly, surrounding the granite statue with a gorgeous ring of yellow flowers. Rhea looked at the statue of the man whose fame had surpassed even Archer's.
"Kirk," she said, "The truth has a way of coming out. For all you did, you were a real bastard."