Thank you for your kind reviews. I am happy that you liked it. I will take Codedrivers advise and ask if somebody would be Beta for me. Even if I feel it is much to ask when I update as rarely as I do, some tidying up probably wouldn't hurt. Oh, and standard disclaimers apply, off course. I Break this story up in 3 because...then I do get an update done this month or something...

Fallen I – Haya Nevara Crusher

Every morning I go to see the captain. The doors of the home that, technically, belong to Wes and I, slide shut behind me, leaving the house empty until I return. I cross the quiet dusty street and follow a footpath under ancient oaktrees, planted long before we came here, long before we where into the plans of the continuum and the federation alike. Even long before a shivering teen was given the right to beam on board the flagship of starfleet and had her life changed.

To me he is always the captain. Although he is some kind of father in law to me and I have known him all those years, when I am alone I can only see him as the captain. Of course I call him by the familiar Jean Luc when I talk to him, or grandad when I refer to him to the girls, but in the moment I leave his and Beverlys home he again becomes the captain. In the end it has to do with respect – and maybe even love. Without him I would have been nothing, and probably dead, killed alongside my mother and so many others at the tragic accident on Venus. Now I am free to walk in the sun dappled shade and wait to see my girls home from university every second week. Who am I, not to consider myself lucky?

I will not go into detail about my mother. Those who have heard about Shira Nevara already knows more than enough and those who haven't... well. My mother was one of the most gifted scientists of her generation and raving mad. She experimented heavily on my sister Dirit, on my father and on me, but where Dirit was kept home all the time and trained as scientist right from the cradle, I was allowed to go to some classes. That changed everything, and I am sure she would never had let me go, if she had known what would happen. One of my teachers made sure I was elected to an exchange program, because of my talent – and love of engineering . So 16 years old I beamed on board the Enterprise to be an acting ensign in engineering. When my mother realized she could not stop what was happening without confining me and my teacher finding out I was gone, she choose another revenge. She told me of my father.

I know I should not have believed what she told me, but when she told me I was still under her control and still on her drugs, so I believed every word of her lies and it took father and I years to close the gap between us. He made my first time on Enterprise much harder, and our silly attempts to keep our relation a secret just made it all even worse. I know that I am lucky in some ways not to look like a Klingon at all, but then, had I looked like K'Ehleyr there would have been no playing games. As I look, most people believes I am a Bajoran or something they haven't heard of yet. So many strange races joined the federation at that time and, seemingly, I was just another. Despite the hardship with my father, I found friends there. Geordie became my mentor, and in his easygoing fashion a friend, and by a natural extension Data and Wes joined my world.

I am socially awkward, but in a way we all 4 was exactly that, and Wes was about my age so we had a lot of fun together and so slowly I broke free from my cocoon. The matter with my father remained unsolved for almost half a year and every occasion we needed to be together was strained. I suppose the captain has figured something out, and he knew my mother as well off course, because he sent us together to a conference on Dema II, obviously planning we would be able to talk things out. What he didn't plan was us crashing on the uninhabited 3th planet in the Solarus system and that it took them weeks to find us. In the end we had to talk to survive, and I came to accept that he did NOT rape her (twice since I had a baby brother, Envan, that she could make me believe is beyond me today) and he did NOT abandon us. She never told him their union produced any children. He had also been extremely young and totally in her thrall, but she did that to people around her. We came back as different persons,although we still had a long way to go, and in many ways we never got the relationship I guess both humans and Klingons want in their close family. We get along well enough, but he is Worf or my father. Never 'dad'. In a way I am probably a disappointment, almost totally a human, but that is not something you choose for yourselves, it is given.

After two years I was called to the captains ready room and he told me it was time to return to my mother and to join the academy. I almost broke down in tears and begged him to let me stay. He fixed me with a stern gaze and said.

-Ensign you don't behave properly at the moment if you wish to become an officer in starfleet. I have noticed such behavior on occasion, and has requested that you must live at the academy and not with your mother, so that you can receive extra help. My good friend Admiral Herez will see to that...

My heart stopped for a moment as embarrassment washed over me, and the he winked! And I understood. He had saved me. I was not going home.

I stayed at the academy two years, and I actually enjoyed my time there. Though I did not carouse like many of the others I found new friends and I talked with my sister Dirit as often as possibly on a closed canal she had gotten her hands on. One of our more interesting guest teachers was K'Ehleyr who did a few lectures on relations between species. In many ways she was all I had ever wanted to be. Beautiful, fiery, brave, intelligent. It was as if she had gotten the best from both worlds – and I had not. But she seemed troubled and withdrawn, and at that time I did not know what it could mean when a woman places her hands on her abdomen all the time, or at least when she thinks nobody watches... Sometimes I think about what might have happened if I had told her who and what I was, but I didn't. Anyway, Enterprise returned to earth and it was time for me to join them again.

The captain greeted me in his ready room. He seemed pleased to see me again and really pleased about my grades. And then he insisted that I should visit my mother before we left.

- Trust me ensign, it is not good to leave things behind like that. We take our risks and we pay the price when we have to, but we have to try to make some kind of peace with ourselves...

-But Sir... I hated the insecurity in my voice... I am afraid that if I go back...she will make me...not wanting to return...

-Your life is your own ensign! He stated firmly. As if anything was so simple when my mother was involved.

-Sir...You don't know my mother. If I go back to her alone, she will never let me go!

-I know of your mother ensign Nevara, and you are not going alone. Lt J'or and Data will accompany you to Venus. You will send your mother a message to let her know about your visit at 900 hours tomorrow. Lt J'or will pose as your friend and Data as your boyfriend.

I could only stare in horror as he calmly delivered what I felt as a sentence of doom. I had never considered the possibility that my captain could be raving mad. But now it seemed very likely.

-Mrs Nevara can not affect mr Data in any way, and as for miss J'or... His lips curled slightly

-Dismissed ensign

Two hours and a strained lunch with my father later I stood at Ten-Forewards wooden doors, afraid to enter. As I peeked through the doors I saw what I had expected to see. Geordie, Data and Wes at their usual table. But they were not alone. SHE was there. I knew from messages from Wes that she was their friend now. Surea J'or. Basically a rogue from a backward, silly colony. The stories Wes told about her behavior in her first months was scandalous at best and almost unbelievable, but what troubled me the most was the idea that she had someway taken my place. My place. I who never had friends before resented deeply that I could loose them because of her. I did not as yet understand the flexibility of the human heart, and that love and friendship shared just kept growing and expanding. With a deep breath I pushed the door open.

Wes bolted from his chair and ran to me and hugged me. Geordie followed. I was floating in their embraces and the warmth of friendship. Data tried a hug as well.

- Welcome back Haya. I have been working on my emotional responses to various situations. Did I get this one right?

-Oh yes, Data... I laughed and wiped a tear from my eyes

-I'ts so good to see you guys again... I realised that she now stood next to the table. Waiting. She was not tall, but... solid. Her hips was broader than beauty required and her breasts also somehow malproportioned to the rest. She had obviously not given in to those little cosmetic corrections most women in her situation would have used, and she didn't seem to care if it showed. I haven't done anything with myself either, but basically I don't know where to start, and today it doesn't really matter at all.

I looked at her face and found her nose to be rather sharp and not really feminine, and then our eyes met. I had never seen eyes of that strange waterclear shade of gray before, and her eyes was the only place I saw it, until I went on leave with her one day and visited the Scandinavian peninsula at wintertime. There, at the coast, the exactly same color existed in the sullen waves of the north sea. Almost as if her people had taken their beloved homeland along in their genes and preserved it through generations, so that one of them, one day, could return to the coast they left from.

She offered me her hand in greeting and I took it. For no known reason I was sure she would become my friend.

We met next morning in the transporterroom. My stomach churned at the idea of going home, to face those familiar walls again, and, even with two chaperones, I was not sure I would ever return to the ship. I believe that I seemed pale, even under my light brown skin, and Surea gave me supportive smile as we stepped upon the platform. Data looked puzzled as always

-Would you like me to hold your hand? He inquired

-What!

-I have made studies on human behavior, and back in time it was customary that a couple would hold hands when their plane took off. Since transportation is the modern equivalent of old-fashioned air travel, and we are supposed to mimic a couple romantically involved, I would be happy to hold your hand, ensign Nevara...

-You'd better call her Haya if this is gonna work at all! Surea pipped in. I rolled my eyes ceilingwards and felt the slight tingle as the beam took us.