Author's Note: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.
Please note: This is the last part of my 'Shadow' series. Dedicated to Red River Hog, who has waited long enough!
"Three-thirty, Geraldine. Go and put that poster by the front gate like we agreed."
"But what if someone else sees it first?"
"He's sold. End of. Unless you'd like to tell the Commander about it..."
=/\=
"Come on, Jessa – have you got your coat?"
"Yes, mumma!" The tot pulled it hastily from the peg in the school cloakroom. "Oh – where's my bag?"
"You put it down on the bench when you changed your shoes." Her long-suffering elder brother Charles produced the article in question.
"I knew that really!" Jessa pouted at him.
A very short while ago, their mother reflected, Charles would have stuck his tongue out at her in reply. However, he was beginning to acquire a sense of dignity that sometimes sat strangely on an eight-year old, however well it suited his forty-year-old father. Instead he adopted an air of resignation that made Hoshi Sato-Reed hide a smile as she ushered both of her children out to the waiting flitter.
It had been Jessa's first day at school. Unlike Charles, who had taken a while to adapt to life at Saint Mary's Primary, she seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed her first day, and almost immediately began chattering about the other children and the teachers and the lessons – many of which would probably be wasted on her for a while, as she had already proved to have her mother's facility with languages, knowing the alphabet and already able to spell out a number of simple words.
Charles was probably paying very little attention. He had the facility of retreating into himself and thinking his own thoughts; a little dreamer, his mother thought fondly, not for the first time.
However, he was invariably good at noticing things. And even though she was more or less expecting it, even Hoshi was slightly startled by the sharp cry he let out: "Puppies for sale!"
"Puppies!" Jessa had been ready to wail at this unceremonious interruption of her exciting story, but as the cause of it registered, the creases of displeasure in her face smoothed themselves out like magic. "Where?"
"Back there! Mum, please – please may we go and look?"
Hoshi made herself frown dubiously. "Did it say what sort of puppies they were?"
"Please, Mumma!" Jessa added her mite. "I want to see the puppies!"
Charles' fingers tightened on the back of the empty front passenger seat as the flitter slowed. "Mum, Dad's always said we can have a dog when Jessa's old enough!"
His mother glanced in the rear-view mirror at her youngest child, who nodded importantly and tried to look very grown-up, shoving her doll down beside the car seat out of sight.
"You're not to get your hopes up," she warned. "It doesn't matter how cute a puppy is, your dad won't have a powder-puff in the house."
Her son looked disdainful. "Of course not! We want a proper dog."
Hiding her smile at that most faithful echo, Hoshi turned the flitter and drove back to the house where the cardboard sign was propped against the hedge. "They may not have any left," she warned as she pulled up in front of the drive.
"Then they'd have taken the sign in, wouldn't they?"
"I'm just warning you, just in case."
"Dad's usually the one who thinks the worst every time." Charles grinned up at her, and she reached over and tweaked his nose.
Jessa was almost jumping up and down with excitement as they walked up to the house, but her brother whispered in her ear and she made a visible effort to control herself.
"Good evening!" Hoshi said politely as a middle-aged man answered the doorbell. "I believe you have some puppies for sale?"
"Well, they were all sold, Missus," the man said, but glanced down at the crestfallen children and added, "that's to say, they were, but one of the buyers pulled out this morning. We've just got the one left."
Despair turned to joy on two indrawn breaths. Could anything possibly be more fortuitous?
"What breed are they, please, sir?" asked Charles quickly, almost on tiptoe with hope. "And do you have the parents?"
"We breed German Shepherds, young man," came the reply. "The parents are our own dogs, raised in the family. And I'm glad you asked that question. Shows you know what a responsible owner should look for."
Once again Hoshi was obliged to hide a smile. The boy had catechized his father so often on all aspects of dog ownership that it was sometimes hard to believe he had never owned one.
Responsible ownership was not high on Jessa's list of priorities. "Can we see it, please, please?" she begged.
"We are considering buying a puppy," Hoshi added gravely. "Obviously we need to find the right one, but I assure you we're not just wasting your time."
The man looked at all three of them and seemed to come to a decision. "Well then, you'd better come in.
"O'Donnell, Tom O'Donnell," he introduced himself in response to Hoshi's politely giving him her and her children's names. "My wife Geraldine's in the kitchen, feeding Thor – he's our stud dog, you should be able to meet him in a minute and then if you like the look of him I'll bring in the pup and his mam. I'm sure you know not to make a grab for the little 'un. Thor's easygoing for a dog, but Sif's just got the one to guard now and she likes to give people the once-over first."
"We'll be very quiet, sir," Charles assured him, and squeezed Jessa's hand hard to make her pay attention.
"If you just come into the lounge and sit down, I'll bring Thor in to show you. Then we'll see Sif and the littl'un." He ushered them through a door into a large, bright room wallpapered in peach. Hoshi took a seat on the sofa there and the children sat on either side of her, stiff with anticipation as their host walked to the kitchen door. "Geraldine, has Thor finished his dinner?"
"Just about," a voice floated in. "Come on, greedy-guts. You can finish it in a minute. Go and show yourself off."
The breeder gave a short, sharp whistle and there was immediately the sound of claws on the kitchen floor. A moment later the door was opened wide to admit a very large German Shepherd dog, who levelled alert eyes and upstanding ears at the new arrivals, and trotted over to inspect them at close quarters.
Jessa probably hadn't really understood how big her father's preferred breed of dog could be, and as Thor stared at her she shrank nervously against her mother. Charles was probably just as nervous, but his thin frame was tense with excitement as he slowly extended his hand, fingers down and closed inward as he'd been taught.
"He's beautiful!" the boy breathed as Thor politely sniffed his hand and then licked it. "Will – will the puppy look like this, sir?"
"And is it a boy or a girl?" Jessa took courage from the dog's placidity and reached out to pat the harsh dark coat over the strong shoulders.
"Well, it's a boy puppy and I reckon there's a good chance he'll look very like his dad. He's a bit dark at the moment, but they generally get lighter as they grow up. Do you want to see him?"
Two heads nodded in enthusiastic unison and he went out to the kitchen, taking Thor with him.
Hoshi looked down at the children. "Be very quiet now," she warned them. "The puppy's mother will want to know you don't mean her baby any harm. Just sit very quietly and look till the man says you can touch."
Jessa thrust her hands under her armpits as though to squeeze them into obedience; Charles clasped his between his knees. "Do you think Dad will come and see, if we tell him about it?" he whispered. "It's a boy puppy, and he's always said we should have a boy dog to look after us!"
Yet again Hoshi was obliged to suppress a smile. "You'll have to tell him and see what he thinks about it."
The mother dog was presumably kept in some sort of utility room, for there was the sound of a second door opening and the man speaking gently. After a moment there were returning footsteps and more claw sounds, and he came into the lounge with a rather smaller German Shepherd walking beside him, looking up somewhat possessively at what he was carrying.
Describing the scene to her husband later that night, Hoshi was to say she had seen the moment when their son's heart flew out of his chest and fastened on the black-and-tan woolly ball of mischief who was set down on the carpet in front of him and immediately pranced up to say hello. The puppy's little black face with its one pricked and one lopsided ear split in an outsize grin as he leaned up to lay huge paws against the boy's legs.
"O-o-o-oh!" breathed Jessa. "Can I stroke him, Mumma? May I?"
"Sif, down. Stay." The mother dog immediately lay down beside the man's foot, and he squatted down to rub her behind the ears. "All right then, kids. Nice and gentle, please, just put her mind at ease."
Charles's hand crept towards the puppy's chin and began rubbing beneath it. Hoshi sat back and let Jessa lean across her legs, while she herself kept a weather eye on the watching dog; it was obvious that the breeder was perfectly ready to intervene if necessary, but there seemed little danger that his intervention would be required. The mother relaxed her vigilance almost at once, and seemed more interested in investigating her owner's pocket for treats than in safeguarding her puppy as he was reverently petted by two love-struck children.
Perhaps a couple of minutes passed before Hoshi drew the interview to a close. She wanted to get home, as dinner was in the oven. The table was already set and she'd arranged her schedule according to the dark plans her husband had laid, but he'd had been away in San Francisco for a week and she wanted to shower and freshen up before he arrived; there was little doubt that the children would besiege him the moment he set foot through the door, but she had dark plans of her own for him when she could get them off to bed. Though even if consigned to bed they probably wouldn't sleep very early, with them being as excited as they were.
"Have you had any other enquiries about the puppy?" she asked.
To do him credit, the breeder shook his head with perfect seriousness. "Not today, missus, but I'd be surprised if we didn't find a good home for him shortly."
Out of sight, Charles's fingers gripped into the back of her jacket, while Jessa stifled a gasp of horror with both hands.
"But being as your little 'uns seem so taken with him, I'll make you a deal. If anyone else comes asking, I'll tell them we have a potential sale – to be confirmed by this time tomorrow, or he'll be back on the market. Will that be good enough?"
"Oh yes, sir!" The words broke from the boy in a gasp of relief before his mother could reply. "We have to speak to Dad – I'm sure he'll be interested, I'm sure of it!"
"We'll speak to him when he gets home," said Hoshi, smiling. "If you'll give me your telephone number, sir, we'll be in touch to confirm our interest – or to say we've changed our minds. It's not fair to keep you waiting till tomorrow."
O'Donnell handed over a card, which she pocketed. Even if either of her children got hold of it, it was unlikely that they would realize that a breeder who had a champion dog at stud would not usually advertise puppies on a cardboard sign at the front gate; in the wake of the Xindi crisis, however, Enterprise's officers rarely had to do more than name a favor for it to be granted. Normally Malcolm's prickly pride would have revolted at taking advantage of this – he was still smarting from the knowledge that fate had prevented him playing any significant part in the resolution of the threat – but in the cause of delighting his children he had been willing to swallow his reservations sufficiently to exercise a little underhand tactical cunning when he'd visited the house some weeks ago to purchase the pick of the litter.
Over the course of the rest of the drive home, the sole topic of conversation was the puppy. Even Jessa's loved-to-shabbiness doll Bessie was abandoned and lay forgotten on the car seat, staring reproachfully at the ceiling.
"Is Dadda coming home soon?" the child persisted anxiously, trotting after Hoshi into the kitchen while Charles hurtled upstairs to change out of his uniform. "That man won't give our puppy away to anyone else, will he?"
Hoshi consulted the display on the message board of the home phone. "'Landed on time. Home soon. Hope kids OK. Dad,'" she read out, and glanced at the clock. "He should be here in about half an hour, unless there's heavy traffic on the freeway."
"It's a motorway, Mum. How long have you lived here?" Breathless, Charles bounded into the kitchen. "Can I lay the– oh."
"I finished my grading early enough to get it done before I came to pick you up. Short assignments this time." She handed him the cordial to pour into the waiting glasses.
"Mum, you liked the puppy, didn't you? You will talk to Dad, won't you?" He paused in the act of pouring and looked at her appealingly.
She nodded, as one giving the matter judicious consideration. "He was a cute little thing. But I'll make one suggestion. Don't jump it straight at your dad as soon as he comes in. It's a long trip from San Francisco and he'll be tired. Just let him get showered and changed and eat his dinner, and then relax for a few minutes, and then he'll be ready to listen."
"Softening up the target, eh, Mum?" He grinned at her, a grin so like his father's that her heart turned over.
"I prefer to think of it as giving yourself the maximum tactical advantage." She smiled back at him.
"But Dadda will say yes, won't he?" wailed Jessa. "I want to ask him now!"
"No, listen, Jess – listen!" Her brother hunkered down in front of her and took hold of her wrists, shaking them slightly to make her heed him. "We have to wait till Dad's in a really good mood, and then he'll be more likely to say yes. Let him have some dinner, he'll be hungry when he comes in, then he'll want to sit and listen to us and we can tell him all about the puppy."
A doubtful, jutted lip indicated that this was not the preferred option.
"Do you want the puppy or not, sweetheart?" asked Hoshi, opening the oven to check on the contents. "If you do, you'd better take good advice when you hear it."
The child paled and nodded, clutching Bessie to her chest. "I will, Mumma, I will!"
"Good enough. Now I'm just going to run into the shower, so you two behave yourselves. And mind, if Malcolm comes in before I get down – nothing about that puppy!"