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Set after the Xindi attack. The Enterprise crew get some much needed time off on Earth, and Malcolm finally decided to bite the bullet and return home to see his family.
Fall to Realise the Pride
The recent success of defeating the Xindi weapon, and thinking of all the things- all the people- the Enterprise crew had lost while they had been on their mission to the Expanse, had made Malcolm reassess that which was important to him.
Trip's devastation at losing his sister Elizabeth was still strong, although with help from his friends and the family ties that had been built between the crewmembers on the Enterprise, the pain was slowly being healed.
It had reminded Malcolm of how fragile life could be, and that if one had the blessings of a family, and if one had the opportunity, then one should never pass up the chance of letting them know that one cared.
Thanks to Madeline, Malcolm knew that his parents had recently moved house back to England- Dorset, in a cottage by a cliff, to be more exact. So he had finally bitten the bullet, and gone home for a long-overdue visit to his parents, and hence why he was now walking his way through the mist which pervaded inland from the sea as the night set in to find this cottage. It seemed the sort of night where ghosts would walk, the air was so still. Not peaceful- still- waiting for something to happen, it felt like.
After another few minutes of walking though, he found the home lights beckoning him onwards. The closer he got, the more he could see the shape of a stone house coming out of the mist until he was finally at the front door, knocking.
His mother opened the door, the bland expression on her face blossoming into a surprised but very genuine and heart-felt smile at the sight of her son, so long from home. She let go of the door and before he even had a chance to speak, she'd enveloped him in a hug which he returned happily, relishing the love and the smell of his mother which had brought him so much comfort when he was younger.
"You're home," she whispered, as she loosened her hug, but not her grip on him, and she kissed his cheek, letting him indoors and out of the chill of the night.
There was actually a cottage fire burning in a stone fireplace in the kitchen which they walked in to, and he took a deep breath, sitting at the kitchen table, setting his duffel on the floor.
To an outsider, who hadn't seen the obvious delight his mother had at the safe return of her son, the scene might have looked formal, the son sitting quietly at the table, not saying anything while his mother, back turned to him, found some tea cups from a cupboard; but this had never actually been an overly unhappy home. What it had been though, was a house of misunderstandings and miscommunication, something that plagued the Reed family line. If they had been a different sort of family- maybe like the Tuckers- all of the hurt could have been avoided.
But perhaps better late than never, Malcolm mused to himself.
He looked around the cottage-type kitchen as his mother made them some tea. It was very quaint, with stone floor and even an Aga, as well as all the modern conveniences.
"Is father around?" he asked, as his mother placed his tea cup in front of him and poured the tea into it.
"He's out having a walk." She paused, wondering how much to tell this young enquiring mind. "He's done that a lot since Enterprise left for the Expanse."
She left a lot unsaid with that sentence, leaving her son to fill in the blanks.
After a second or two, she spoke up again, on a brighter note asking after his health and 'that nice Captain Archer' and Ensign Sato, both of whom she'd briefly spoken to by subspace message around his birthday- oh, so long ago, it seemed to Malcolm- and she told him of life back on Earth, deftly avoiding having to talk about the devastation of the south USA, and instead stayed on topics of family and friends.
Malcolm smiled as his mother spoke, and in the quaint little kitchen, he suddenly had the feel that he was being mothered as so many had in the past- a mother's love to kiss the pain away. She had always adored him, as she did Madeline as well, but at this moment in time, he felt a specific desire to find his father- to make amends.
He finished his tea and stood up. "Do you know where father might be out walking?" he asked his mother, who collected the two empty cups to put in the dishwasher.
"Um... try on Dancer's Ledge- it's about half a mile from here along the cliff edge, but wrap up warm and take a torch- the mist can get quite thick." She would have tried to persuade him not to go out, but trying to change the mind of a Reed was like trying to draw blood from a stone.
Having been on a regulated temperature Starship, Malcolm didn't have an overcoat with him, so his mother got him one from the coat rack for him, and a scarf. He put them on, and knew they were his father's as they not only dwarfed him, but the strong smell of 'Fisherman's Friend' mints, the only sweet his father had ever enjoyed, was all over, combined with the comforting smell of a musty cologne his father had worn for as long as Malcolm had been alive.
The clothes hung on him, and as Mary put the scarf around her son's neck, she realised that he looked so young and small in his father's coat. She turned away, glad she hadn't seen him looking this innocent before he'd gone away to the Expanse- she would never have been able to let her son go, duty or not.
Malcolm didn't realise her thoughts, as she had had many years of being a Reed to school her features into a non-readable expression, but she did watch as her son nodded and smiled at her before leaving the house in the direction she had pointed at, mindful of the cliff edge.
*
Malcolm didn't have to go far- the half a mile might have been an exaggeration, or his father might have been slowly wandering home in the dark already. Either way, Malcolm came across him out of sight of the house,where his father had stopped and was looking out over the sea where the mist, conversely to what his mother had thought, was beginning to dissipate.
His father turned when he heard someone walking towards him. If he'd been surprised at seeing his very own prodigal son return home, he didn't show it.
"Welcome back son."
"Father," Malcolm said, acknowledging and stopping next to the older Reed, looking out to sea as well where Stuart had returned to gazing out over.
There were several minutes of silence between the two, neither knowing what to say to the other, and both hoping the other would sat something first.
Having been away from home with the Navy so much as his children were growing up, Stuart had never really got to grips with being a father before he realised that his son and daughter were grown up, and as such, he had no idea about how to interact with them.
Did he treat them like children, or refer to them as adults? He remembered how his father had treated him like a child, even when he'd been a teenager because of the same problem- Reed men, spending all of their time at sea and rarely seeing their families, just didn't generate relations with their families- especially their offspring. As such, Stuart had resolved to treat his children as adults, but he had to admit that in doing so, he hadn't developed a bond with them- when he had returned home on leave, and he saw the children in the short time when his leave was simultaneous as the children's holidays from boarding school, he'd treated them as he would have done his subordinates.
He knew that, now he was retired, but he could never tell his children- he wasn't able to express it to them, not even Mary. He had a suspicion though that his wife already knew- she had a sixth sense for things that he would be trying to say, but could never articulate. That was why he loved her- she understood him. He just wished he could do the same for his children, in particular his son, who had left so abruptly and had barely said two words since attending Starfleet Academy- years ago, now, save for the perfunctory messages saying he was still alive.
"I want you to know, son, that I've never not been proud of you son." It was a frank and quietly-said admission on Stuart Reed's part, and it stunned Malcolm. Once again, neither said anything for a long while.
"You're proud of me?" He asked, incredulously, also quietly- a whisper.
"Always have been. Always will be." The older replied, regretting that there was so much surprise in his son's voice.
But why wouldn't he be proud? Malcolm- his son!- had stood up for himself and what he believed in, had gone at it whole-heartedly, and made a name for himself, rather than following in a long line of Reeds. Stuart realised that in doing so, his son was stronger than many of those who had come before him, Stuart included. His heart burst with pride, although there was no actual way that he could possibly express it to anyone, especially Malcolm.
Instead, he brought his hand up to Malcolm's shoulder and squeezed it, leaving it there.
The way that Malcolm turned his head to look his father directly in the eye, with another surprised look and something burgeoning an accepting smile made him see that his son understood him entirely.
They say that pride comes before a fall, but it seemed to him that what his son had thought was his fall from grace had actually been one of the times that Stuart was most proud of him.
*
Mary Reed looked out of the kitchen window as she shut the curtains, looking at the two men in her life returning home and she shook her head. Sometimes those two were as thick as two short planks, but she loved them to pieces.
"Reeds," was all she said, eyes rolling heavenwards.
*
It was late at night now, on the same night, and Malcolm was sitting in the dark kitchen, his parents had gone to bed now. He had a mug of hot chocolate that his mother had insisted he drink to 'rid the bones of a chill'- although when she wasn't looking, his father had dropped a couple of drops of whisky into the mug, not saying a word, but the look that passed between father and son was more warmth than Malcolm was going to get from the drink.
He sat, alone but happy, staring into the dying orange embers of the kitchen fire. The two of them had, in typical fashion, barely said anything to each other, but that had been all they needed to develop the beginnings of an understanding, and now he was older than when he'd left home, Malcolm could appreciate more how his father had acted as he did all those years ago.
They would never be the incredibly jolly family that was Trip's home, but here there was a different kind of love, and for the Reeds- for once- an understanding.