Personal Log: Charmaine Charles, one week after last entry

I am so glad to be back aboard the "Errant." I never thought I would say this, but I am so glad I live aboard a starship. It is so lonely staring up at the sky, the stars and realizing how insignificant you are, how small, how alone you are in this vast universe. It was even worse staying with the Doctor while she visited her family and knowing I have no family to visit. All my relatives are dead or living on some planet so far away it almost seems as if they are. I wonder how hard it was for Ra'let to be there knowing how far away he was from his family. That brings me to something odd. Well, first let me explain what happened in the correct order.

I had to say good bye to my mother first and let her yell at me and of course I had to yell back at her. Now, that I am back among humans I realize how odd it is to yell at people to show affection. I certainly did not yell at the Captain when I accidentally ran into him. He was very kind though and forgave me though he did look at me kind of funny as if searching for something.

Anyhow, then I ended up on the transporter with the Doctor, Timmy and Ra'let. The Doctor is very pretty. She has pale skin, red hair with a sheen to it and bright, dark blue eyes. She is only thirty, but already chief medical officer. I like her for she is very kind and she does not treat me as if I am a Cardassian in my own right, which is how most people treat me ignoring the very obvious evidence that I am in fact human.

Timmy has really shiny black hair and these twinkling green eyes. He has the sweetest smile. I get butterflies everytime I see him, which is unfortunatley not often. I wish i was sick more, but I have an annoyingly good immune system. Darn it..... Ra'let on the other hand is kind of plain I guess. He looks almost washed out actually. Like his mother had washed him with bleach when he was a baby or something. He has black hair, but it is dulled like charcoal. He also has these really dark brown eyes with a hint of green in them, which I notice when he bothers to look at me. He has very fair skin, so fair it almost looks translucent in the dimmest light. He is also really thin, though very, very strong as most Vulcans are it seems and has really long fingers.

I wonder what I look like to Timmy. I suppose I am to young to be of any interest to him, but I do wish I was prettier. If only my muddy eyes would make up their mind to be either green or brown. Oh, well.

Anywaaayyss, we beamed down to this park in Los Angeles where we headed directly to a hotel to book two rooms. I am staying with the Doctor and Timmy is going off to stay with his Grandma. I think it is cute that he is such a devoted grandson.

Ra'let is staying in the adjoining room to our own which may be a bad thing in his opinion as I tend to mumble in my sleep and the walls of the hotel are like paper.

Well, the next day the Doctor asked Ra'let to keep and eye on me while she went to visit her family. Technically, she is not supposed to do that, but I guess she trusts Ra'let. Well, of course she trusts Ra'let; everyone trusts Ra'let. I wonder if it has something to do with his being a Vulcan, people always trust Vulcans. If you are logical, can do this weird hand sign and never smile people seem to trust you. I don't understand it.

Ra'let seemed slightly uncomfortable to have to watch over me, though I can't say how I knew because his face never changed expressions and he simply gravely (as always) accepted his charge of me and took me to the park.

I asked, "What are we doing here?"

He just sort looked at me and then said rather slowly, "I wanted to visit here again. I…visited here when I was younger."

I looked at him meeting his dark eyes. "You visited Earth?"

He nodded slowly. "Yes, I have been here many times."

I felt my face tighten. Ra'let had been here before? It did not seem fair somehow that Ra'let had been able to visit so many times when I had only been able to go now. How ironic that it was the alien that visited Earth and not the human.

I had looked around then: I had never before seen anyplace so green. Earth was just as beautiful down here as it had been in the sky. I sat down beneath one of the trees and sighed with absolute contentment…which was only slightly disturbed by Ra'let's restlessness. He stood there by me and his eyes seemed to be trying to organize and catalogue every bit of the park and his whole being seemed to vibrate with an unconscious need to explore.

"Terrence! Would you stop being so hyperactive! You're making me nervous." Ra'let glanced down at me with what I was sure was the Vulcan equivalent of irritation. He HATES it when I call him that, which is of course exactly why I use it. I am not a saint after all.

"Ax'nav, I am surprised you yourself are so quiet. I expected you to be jumping off of every tree in the park and begging to feed the squirrels or some such illogical thing."

I attempted to frown at him, but my thin fourteen year old face never seems to be able to pull it off effectively. "I don't see how you managed to visit here so many times. I have never been able to come until now." Ra'let's face as he looked down at me was as smooth as a Vulcan meditation stone and I reflected that that was probably the Vulcan's worst quality: their assumed superiority which drove any other sentient race up the nearest wall.

"Stop looking at me like that, Terrence. You know I hate it!" Ra'let looked away from me then and if he had been human, I would have assumed he was hiding a smile, but as I could not attribute a smile to a Vulcan I was at loss as to what expression he was hiding. Probably his meditation-stone look. "

Come, let's go. I would like to explore."

I noticed then that he had never answered my question.

We ventured cautiously around down town L.A, always on the look out for "shady" characters as the doctor calls nearly everyone who is not of Starfleet.

Ra'let told me that once upon a time it could be dangerous to explore parts of L.A., but by the twenty third century the city had been drastically updated and cleaned. I somehow felt slightly disappointed. I would have liked to see Ra'let use the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to defend us.

All the same it was enjoyable exploring the part of L.A. we were in.

At one point Ra'let seemingly absent mindedly led the way down into a residential neighborhood and stopped at a small cream colored house bordered by a short fence. Ra'let turned to me then and for an instant I thought I glimpsed vulnerability in his face.

"A friend of mine lives here. I would just like to say hello. Would you mind waiting here for a moment?" I nodded mutely. He walked up to the house and knocked cautiously. I did not get to see who answered the door because as soon as it opened Ra'let in an atypical show of lack of courtesy pushed past the person and into the house. I waited for a few minutes, but Ra'let did not call for me and so finally a little tired of waiting I started walking towards the door and stopped, nervously a few feet from the door. I noticed the door was cracked slightly open and I could hear voices through it. Curious, but also a bit ashamed of my eavesdropping I listened for a moment.

"No. I can't. You don't understand. If they knew the truth…" Ra'let was saying. I leaned forward curiously. I could not catch the other person's voice, but Ra'let answered in a tone I had never heard before. "This is my burden given so kindly to me by you. You knew what it would be like for me. There have been enough examples! How can you be so blind?"

Silence and then Ra'let said. "I must go. I will try and visit again when the doctor can watch after Charmaine."

There seemed to be another question because Ra'leta answered quietly. "I am, but that changes nothing. Good bye. I hope I will see you soon." I quickly drew back incase he thought I was spying on him, which I wasn't. I was just curious. Curious enough to spy. Fine. I was spying.

Ra'let came out, his face as unchanged as if the surprisingly emotional conversation had not happened.

"Are you ready to go, Charmaine?" He asked coolly.

I nodded dumbly and obediently trailed without talking after him back to the hotel.

The doctor met us back there with a smile and took charge of me, sending me to take a bath. She had a slight fear of germs I think and to her; L.A. was a breeding ground for disease being full of people and pets. It was around ten o'clock when the doctor had fallen asleep that I snuck out of my room and hesitantly knocked on Ra'let's door. I was worried lest his silence to me all evening had been due to the fact that he thought I had been spying on him, which I hadn't been…sort of. He opened the door slowly and leaned against it while I glanced up at him nervously.

"Hi, Ra'let. I was just wondering if you were all right." Ra'let looked down at me quizzically; at least I think that was the expression on his face.

"Ax'nav, you should be asleep." He told me in tired voice.

"You are not mad at me, are you?" I asked in a small voice. I felt about as old as a toddler, but it was good to get it off my chest or what was one day going to be a chest. Hopefully. Something passed quickly across his face, but he answered calmly if tiredly.

"Ax'nav, why would I be mad at you? I am not even capable of being mad. You know that. Please, go back to the doctor. You shouldn't be up." I nodded slowly, relived and then on an impulse reached out and hugged him for a second. It was like hugging a stone, but then that was what I expected. I released him quickly and skipped to my own room.