Chapter 11: Double X
Disclaimer: Only the mischief is mine. Alas.
X
"Promise me," Nyota says, "that you won't tell Chekov that I got us lost."
At her elbow, Davara gives her a quizzical look. The young Rihannsu knows who Chekov is. Nyota has seen them sitting together—twice—in the Enterprise mess hall. Perhaps the conjugation for lost is confusing her? The dialect of Romulan Davara speaks is slightly different from the one Nyota knows.
She starts to ask but Davara's expression clears and she says, "Ah, the navigator. Because he is tasked with charting the ship's course. You are constructing a joke."
Nodding, Nyota glances down at her handheld scanner and wishes for the umpteenth time that she had an honest-to-goodness tricorder. Her personal scanner is far too small to have all the updated maps for New Vulcan. From the looks of things—the widespread construction, the traffic detours that shift hourly—the colony is growing and changing so fast that even a Mark III tricorder would have trouble keeping up.
She and Davara are standing on a makeshift walkway that runs parallel to a bustling road. Flitters, ground cars, and large, wheeled terrain movers rumble by. From her reaction, Davara is more enthralled than overwhelmed by all the noise and motion. Considering how isolated she's been from other people, other civilizations, that's a relief. Nyota wouldn't have been surprised if the young woman had asked to return to the Enterprise by now.
More than half of the Rihannsu and V'tosh ka'tur settlers have been transferred to temporary housing on the surface of the planet. The others are still aboard the ship until the High Council decides if—and where—their petition for a land grant will be approved. From what Sarek's told her, some of the Council members are willing to allow the V'tosh ka'tur to return only if they agree to be assimilated as citizens in New Shi'Kahr—where, presumably, they will be under close scrutiny of the fledgling government's security forces.
Others are willing to allow their return if they establish a settlement distinct—and remote—from the capital.
"I'm not sure I'd agree to either of those conditions," Nyota had told Sarek. He raised one eyebrow in such an uncanny likeness of Spock that she struggled to stifle a smile.
"Nor I," he said. "Though I understand why the authorities propose them. The V'tosh ka'tur are not trustworthy."
"They haven't been in the past," she murmured quietly, knowing that Sarek would understand the import behind her words.
They haven't been in the past…but that doesn't mean they won't be in the future.
He looked at her closely.
"It is logical to assume that someone's past behavior is an indication of their usual behavior," he said with a hint of asperity. "And someone's usual behavior is a predictor of how they will continue to behave."
"Of course," she said, attempting to sound conciliatory, "but people can change. It would be…illogical…to assume that things must stay the same."
Pointing out a rare slip in logic was a trump card she used at times in arguments with Spock—a gentle pinprick to his vaunted certainty about things. She'd never dared to suggest to Sarek that his own logic might be in error. Until now.
A shadow crossed his face. Fleeting, to be sure, but a definite flicker of annoyance.
As she watched, his face grew impassive again, either because he had sorted out his own internal musings or because he was able to mask his emotions more effectively than Spock ever did.
"That remains to be seen," Sarek said, the matter closed.
"If your father doesn't believe the V'tosh ka'tur can change," Nyota said later to Spock, "then no one will. Sybok could be wasting his time appealing to the High Council otherwise."
Spock hadn't replied, but he hadn't needed to. She could see the skepticism and disapproval in his face.
Now here she is, caught up in an unwanted bit of Vulcan scheming.
Two days ago Nyota had been getting ready for her shift when T'Pau contacted her over the ship's comm.
"I was told that you were injured recently," T'Pau said without preamble.
"Lady T'Pau," Nyota said, flustered that Spock's clan matriarch was calling. "Thank you for your concern. Spock is not here at the moment, but I can—"
"It is you I wish to speak to," T'Pau said, cutting her off. "Your injury? Is it healed?"
"Y-yes," Nyota stammered. "It was minor. I'm fine now."
"I require your assistance," she said, "in facilitating a family meeting."
Nyota's task, T'Pau told her, was to get Davara and her mother to T'Pol's apartment in the city. T'Pau herself would arrange to get Sybok and Sarek there.
"No matter what the High Council decides," T'Pau said, "Sarek needs to reconnect with Sybok. Their estrangement must end."
"I'm not sure they've even spoken," Nyota added, and T'Pau's dark eyes glittered.
"That is why it may be best," the older woman said, "if the opportunity simply arises."
"Ambush them, you mean. Not tell them."
"The element of surprise," T'Pau said.
Nyota had started to protest that Spock would know—and through him, Sarek would sense that something was being planned.
But would he, really? Since they've been in orbit over the colony, Spock has consulted two healers about the difficulty he and Nyota are having with their bond. The first healer had been frankly mystified—and dismissive, once she knew that Spock's bondmate was human—but the second agreed to try to help. For each of the past four days, Spock has spent part of his off-duty time on the surface practicing advanced meditation techniques the healer agreed to teach him.
As it turned out, getting Davara and Tri'eska to Shi'Kahr had been easy. Tri'eska wanted to take a flitter to the outskirts to get soil samples and make a vegetation survey—necessary first steps for anyone considering the location for a farm community.
Davara, on the other hand, was eager to see the city itself. Nyota gave Tri'eska the address where they were to meet later, and she and Davara made their way through the clothing and food stores along the street opposite the municipal government buildings.
Before long, the afternoon slipped away and Nyota headed east—or what she thought was east. Within minutes she was completely turned around.
And insisting that Davara not tell Chekov that she has gotten them lost.
They aren't the only people on the walkway, but they are clearly gathering the most attention. Nyota glances up from her scanner as yet another young Vulcan male slows visibly and comes as close to staring as possible without actually doing it.
Davara, of course. The Rihannsu woman is striking, her dark eyes the same color as her hair which she wears pulled back in a low ponytail. To an untrained eye she looks no different from any of the Vulcan women walking past—lithe and athletic, with characteristic upswept brows and pointed ears.
The Vulcans, however, are not fooled. Something in Davara's carriage—the way she holds herself; how her posture is both self-assured and tentative—gives her away.
And more than that. She is a contradiction of strength and vulnerability—with a defensive glint in her eye, a brusqueness in her step—that catches everyone's attention.
No, not everyone. Every young male.
Not that their glances are rude or even intrusive. But they are more than simply curious. Eager, even. Like cats with their ears pricked forward.
"Turn here," Nyota says, motioning to a side street that looks vaguely familiar.
The walkway is less crowded here, a relief in more ways than one.
Apparently Davara has noticed the attention as well. Stepping closer to Nyota as they walk, she says, "Are Vulcan men always so expressive?"
Nyota laughs.
"Not the ones I know," she says when she can catch her breath. "Why do you ask?"
Davara looks around as if to make sure no one overhears her before she answers.
"I was told they feel no emotions," she says, leaning close, "or if they do, they do not show them."
"Oh, they have emotions," Nyota says quickly. "But they do generally keep a lid on them."
Seeing Davara's confusion, she adds, "Keep them private. You know, keep their feelings to themselves."
She looks up and sees that the road dead-ends into a cul de sac. With a sigh, Nyota motions for Davara to turn around and head back up the street.
"This was obviously wrong," she says. "We're going to have to stop and ask someone for directions."
Although she had told T'Pau that her injury was completely healed, her ankle begins to ache—the dry heat, the incline of the road, the pervasive dust scattered by the terrain movers not improving her mood.
"You are Commander Spock's bondmate," Davara says as she comes abreast once more, and Nyota nods.
"Why do you ask?"
"You are human."
"You noticed."
"I meant no offense," the young woman says hastily. "The humans on your ship are like the Rihannsu, with your emotions on view. I am surprised that you would choose a Vulcan bondmate. I have grown up believing that most Vulcans felt nothing, and yet, the ones I see here—"
She pauses, and Nyota supplies, "Are different from what you were taught?"
"Yes," Davara says. "Commander Spock, for instance, is very intense. Very…angry. And sad."
Slowing and looking Nyota full in the face, Davara says, "Forgive me if I shouldn't have spoken—"
"No, no," Nyota says. "He…he is angry. And sad. About what happened to his world. I think most Vulcans are. But they're dealing with it the best way they know how."
"I can see," Davara says, "how the people here are not so different from the V'tosh ka'tur that I know, despite what I was told. Not so different from the Rihannsu."
A ground car slides by too close for comfort and Nyota holds out her hand to shepherd Davara back onto the walkway.
"You could make a life here," Nyota says. "As you say, your people are not so different."
"Perhaps," Davara says.
They pause for a moment at an intersection and Nyota looks around for any familiar landmark. Nothing. The road doesn't even appear on her handheld scanner.
"Let's ask in there," Nyota says, pointing across the busy thoroughfare to what appears to be a retailer of some sort. Davara nods and without looking back, starts to dart into the traffic.
"Wait!" Nyota says, but before she can run after her, she sees someone rushing ahead.
A young man, his hair so black that it looks blue in the sunlight, grasps Davara by the arm and pulls her back onto the walkway.
"I apologize," he says in formal Vulcan, "but your safety was a concern."
Davara seems dazed—though whether from her near accident or from the attentions of the young man, Nyota isn't sure. She clears her throat.
At once he shifts his attention to her and puts his hands politely behind his back.
"You might be able to help us," she says, showing him her scanner with the address for T'Pol's apartment displayed at the top. "Can you tell us how to get to this location?"
Because she is watching closely, Nyota sees the young man's expression brighten instantly and then even out into something less obvious. Happiness, and an effort to hide it.
"I can do better than that," he says, his tone betraying his enthusiasm. "I can take you there."
Nyota raises her eyebrows in a question. Davara meets her eyes and dips her head.
It's agreed.
"That would be most appreciated," Nyota says. "You two walk ahead and I'll follow. The walkway is far too narrow for all three of us."
X X
The first loss was hard enough. The second was almost unbearable.
Sarek stood at the end of the hospital corridor consciously slowing his breathing, his heartbeat. It would not do to let Amanda see his distress, at least not here. Later, at home when they were alone, he would grieve openly.
Now he was all business and efficiency, making sure that the medics attended to her pain in a timely manner, that she was allowed to rest sufficiently. Having a quiet word if a new healer appeared, giving what Amanda would have called a heads up about her human emotional expressiveness. Better for everyone concerned that no one entered her room unprepared for the sight of her distress—her eyes swollen into slits, her nose raw and red.
One of the specialists saw him hesitating at the end of the corridor and approached him, flimplast in hand.
"The postmortem," the specialist said, indicating the flimplast. "As I suspected. Simple failure to thrive."
The result was not surprising—was, in fact, what Sarek expected. Idiopathic mortality, the report would say. Meaning that the medics didn't really know why the baby died.
Sarek took the flimplast and nodded mutely. Later he might read it. Or he might not. The odds were high that it was similar to the other report, the one detailing the prenatal death of their first child, also midway through term, also with no identified cause.
"The researchers in Gol have had recent success in unusual recombinant cases. You might want to contact them."
Medical intervention—something Amanda had resisted, as if a child conceived with help was somehow a failure on her part. A human notion, or Amanda's personal quirk—he wasn't sure. Either way, he had been willing to try to conceive a child naturally first.
"I shall consider it," Sarek said to the specialist before heading down the hall toward Amanda's room.
She was awake, and for the first time in two days, not crying, though through their bond he felt that the weight of her grief hadn't lessened at all.
I'm trying to get home, Amanda said wordlessly, and he understood that her dry eyes and stoic countenance were a performance only, a ruse to convince the healers to release her. He stepped to the door and scanned the hallway for someone with the authority to sign her out.
They rode in silence from the hospital to their home, the only noise the mechanical whir of the flitter. Amanda kept her eyes closed for most of the trip, and once, when he glanced over at her, Sarek felt his heart give a worried skip. Perhaps she should have stayed in the hospital another day.
But no. Her relief when they got home was palpable, and though she tottered slightly when she made her way slowly to their bedroom, he was glad to have her there.
For the next several days he didn't go into the city to work. He was quick to attend to her hunger and pain. While she slept, he stretched out beside her on their bed and kept a watchful vigil.
When the weeping came—as he had known it would—he hid his uneasiness and sat holding her in his arms, mostly silent, but sometimes murmuring reassurances, aware that neither did much to alleviate her sorrow. At those times he felt most Vulcan, most alien, most inadequate for her needs.
One morning she surprised him by telling to go on to the office, that she was stronger today, and after seeing her preparing tea and flatbread for herself in the kitchen, he agreed.
"You're getting underfoot," she said, waving her hand in his direction like someone shooing a Terran fly.
At lunchtime he felt an urgent need to come home and found her curled in the bed, keening and inconsolable.
"I'm so sorry," she finally managed to say, hiccupping and wiping her face with her palm, and he knew that she was not simply apologizing for interrupting his work or causing him distress, but for failing him in some elemental way.
He took off more time from work, knowing that his colleagues were baffled that he did and not caring that they were.
A week later a border skirmish broke out on Denari-Elisis and Amanda insisted that he go—insisted that she was looking forward to peace and quiet for a change—an old joke between them.
"Your sister could come stay with you while I'm away," he said, packing his bag the night before the delegation was scheduled to leave. He toyed with the idea of contacting Cecilia on his own and arranging a flight for her.
"Can't," Amanda said. "I'll be too busy when Sybok gets here."
"I got in touch with T'Ria yesterday and canceled his visit."
He happened to glance up then and was astonished that Amanda's mouth had fallen open, that tears were springing to her eyes.
"How could you!"
"It seemed logical to wait until you were feeling stronger," he hurried to say.
But Amanda was past hearing him. She alternated between loud sobs and furious profanity—or at least Sarek assumed that's what the unknown words were.
"You had no right!" she wailed. "We don't get to see him enough as it is! He looks forward to these visits, and now he'll think I don't want him here!"
Sarek was completely dumbfounded. Amanda's reaction was not just unexpected, it was illogical. Her physical health was subpar. Her stamina was lacking. Occasionally she was so distracted that Sarek had to remind her what she had been doing.
Surely taking care of a 9-year-old boy was more than she could manage.
"You get in touch with T'Ria before you leave," she said, punctuating the point with a raised index finger, "and tell her you were mistaken. You tell her that she's to put Sybok on the transport as we planned and that I will pick him up at the station."
Not bothering to argue with her, Sarek made the call.
The next day when he hefted his travel bag and prepared to leave, Amanda put one hand on his cheek and said, "I'm sorry about last night. But you don't understand. I need him. Especially now."
The entire trip to Denari-Elisis, Sarek kept his awareness turned toward home, sending Amanda all the comfort he could. He knew when Sybok arrived because he felt Amanda's mood lift immediately—not that her sadness disappeared, but the happiness she felt with Sybok shifted her sadness from the center of her focus to somewhere at the edge of her conscious mind.
For a week he was consumed with the intricacies of Denarian politics and the very real threat of war.
But underneath, his attention never wavered from his family.
When the immediate crisis finally passed and the warring parties agreed to serious mediation, the Vulcan embassy sent a second delegation for a long-term assignment and Sarek returned home.
Although he had left his personal flitter at the transport station, he half hoped that Amanda and Sybok would be waiting for him there. Foolish to wish for something so illogical, he thought, making his way from the shuttle to the parking deck where his flitter was locked.
A measure of how much I miss them, he thought as he drove through the streets of the city.
The same fantasy—or a version of it—reared up again as he drew close to home. He could imagine the two of them waiting outside for him—Amanda standing pale and smiling, her hand lifted in affection, Sybok at her side, his head tucked down respectfully, his hands at his side.
The image was so clear that when he drove up and saw them standing on the front porch waiting for him, he felt a surge of pleasure, as if his faith in his vision had been vindicated.
Except, the vision wasn't exactly as he had imagined it. There was Amanda, looking too thin despite the thick Vulcan robe she wore, her face alight with more joy than he'd seen in some time, her hand waving large arcs at him, her balance oddly off-kilter. And Sybok at her side, his expression somber, almost wary, as Sarek unlatched the flitter door and stepped out.
But as he took a step closer, Sarek saw the reason Amanda was tipped to the side. Sybok was holding her free hand with both of his, as if he was afraid that she might dart away.
Rather than looking annoyed at her captor, Amanda glanced down at him with undisguised affection.
"Welcome back!" Amanda said, laughing.
"Hello, Father," Sybok said, looking at Sarek shyly. "Mother and I are pleased that you are here."
Only later—and only when Amanda prodded him—did Sarek realize that this was the first time Sybok had ever referred to Amanda as Mother.
"Don't you see why that matters?" she said that night as they lay entwined together in their bed, Sybok sleeping soundly in the room they kept set up for him down the hall. "If we never have another child, I can bear it now."
In fact, Sarek didn't quite see—not the way Amanda wanted him to. What did it matter what Sybok called her? What were words, really, except tongue and teeth arranged around a puff of air?
Real words were soundless, were felt rather than spoken, were too large and ponderous for mere sound but rumbled through the bond he felt with Amanda both when he was awake and in his sleep, when they were touching and when they were apart.
And rumbled through the bond he felt with his son—a bond he had not felt so strongly until now, as if the leash of blood and electricity he shared with Amanda yoked him to Sybok as well, which, he realized with a start, it surely must.
X X X
T'Pol slips her fingers around the curved handle of the cast iron teapot, a replica of ancient Terran teapots of Japanese design. As she always does when she uses it, she admires the sleek lines, the subtle decorative deltas carved on the surface like the Starfleet logo turned on its side.
"That's why I picked it out," Trip told her all those years ago. A gift on her 67th birthday. Or had it been her 68th? Lately she has trouble keeping details like that straight. Normal aging. Inevitable. But annoying, nevertheless.
Trip would have remembered. Something would have helped him—his engineer's training, perhaps, or the pleasure he got from teasing her about her age. His love of details. His love for her.
It has taken her many years to be able to think of Trip without pain. Even so, she rarely uses the teapot but keeps it boxed up with her other mementos of him.
Today she makes an exception.
As she prepares the tea, she watches the young Vulcan sitting across from her in the small sitting room in her apartment on New Vulcan. Like the rest of her living quarters, the sitting room is sparsely furnished—her choice. She and her guest sit on the two parallel wooden benches facing each other. Separating the benches is a low, narrow table. On one end is a cluster of lit candles. On the other are the teapot and two empty cups.
As the tea steeps, the scent changes slowly from acrid to mellow. When a faint hint of something floral wafts up, she says, "It is ready," and lifting the pot, she pours the tea.
"Welcome to my home, S'chn T'gai Sybok," she says, taking the first ritual sip. She watches as he picks up his cup.
"I am honored, Lady T'Pol," he says. "But I am not a S'chn T'gai. When I require a clan designation, I use my wife's."
T'Pol is too old and steady to show her surprise. Instead, she takes another sip and curls her fingers around her cup, warming them.
"I see," she says. "And your father? Does he know your feelings about his clan name?"
"My father," Sybok says slowly, looking over the top of his cup as he holds it in front of him, "does not believe that I should have feelings about anything."
This may be more difficult than she anticipated.
T'Pol feels as flicker of annoyance at T'Pau for asking for her help.
"You are uniquely positioned to understand the situation," T'Pau had said when she asked her to meet with Sybok as a representative of the Elders. "I will speak to him when he is called before the High Council," T'Pau explained. "If you speak to him first, he might be more receptive to what we have to offer."
T'Pol had protested otherwise but T'Pau wasn't easily dissuaded, still as stubborn as when they met more than a century ago.
"You sound angry," T'Pol says to Sybok, setting her cup on the table.
Without looking up, she can tell that she has offended him. A slight rustle of his robe, his boot scraping across the flagstone, an intake of air. Sarek is right to be concerned.
"Please forgive me for my loss of control."
He says it simply, his voice almost flat.
But he means it. When T'Pol looks up, she notes the earnestness in his expression. This is a young man who wants to be taken seriously, who is savvy enough to dial back his irritation when it suits him. Someone who could be a born leader, or a dangerous influence.
"You need not apologize to me," she says. "I understand loss of control better than you know."
She watches a flicker of curiosity in Sybok's eyes. Stifling a sigh, she adjusts her robes. Suddenly she's almost overwhelmed with weariness.
Another symptom of aging, or perhaps one of the many artifacts of her experimentation with trellium-D? Difficult to know.
"Lady TPol," Sybok says, leaning forward, "why am I here?"
"Your clan matriarch," T'Pol says, and then pausing briefly, continues, "or if you prefer, your father's clan matriarch, asked me to speak to you before you meet with the High Council. To answer your questions. To offer any advice I might have."
Picking up her tea cup, she adds, "Not that you are obliged to take it."
"Your advice would be welcome."
"Would it? I assume you are used to charting your own path."
Sybok gives the ghost of a smile.
"Every path is easier with guidance from those who have traveled it before."
"Your apparent devotion to Vulcan tradition is admirable," T'Pol says. She gives Sybok a hard glare to make sure he understands that she is being ironic. He does. He laughs out loud.
"Nevertheless," Sybok says, "your advice would be helpful."
T'Pol picks up the teapot and refills Sybok's cup before she settles back onto the bench.
"You should take the offer the High Council is prepared to make," she says. "Abandon what you started as V'tosh ka'tur. Learn what others before you have discovered, that logic is more useful than emotion, particularly now, when all of Vulcan is at risk of extinction. We were on the brink before, in Surak's time, and logic saved us."
She expects Sybok to argue with her and she waits. Instead, he sits quietly on the bench opposite, his tea cup cradled in one palm.
"The High Council is willing to overlook your recent transgressions," T'Pol says, "if you are willing to offer recompense. Service to the colony would be a start. There are many possibilities for meaningful work here."
"As long as we agree to follow Vulcan traditions," Sybok says suddenly.
"Every society has rules," T'Pol says, refusing to be baited.
"But Vulcan society requires we be something other than we are," Sybok says, his voice rising.
"You imagine," T'Pol says slowly, "that by embracing emotions, you are somehow different from anyone else."
"And so we are."
"You know better than that. Your father may not discuss his feelings with you, but that doesn't mean he doesn't find value in them."
"How can he find value in something he doesn't acknowledge?"
"Acknowledge to you, perhaps. If he maintains his privacy, how does it harm you? You, on the other hand, insist on imposing your emotions on others. That is what Vulcans find objectionable."
"Keep silent about what we feel. That is what you recommend?"
He says it as a challenge, as if what he is saying is ridiculous. T'Pol nods.
"That is exactly what I am recommending. And don't be so quick to dismiss the role of logic in your lives. It can be a great help."
She can see that she is losing him. He sets his cup on the table and puts his hands on his knees, like someone getting ready to leave.
"Sybok," she says to call him back, "you said you would listen to what I have to advise. Listen closely now. More than the other elders—more than anyone on the High Council—I understand why the V'tosh ka'tur have sought out emotion. I, too, have done the same."
She has his attention now.
"My time with humans," she says, "on the Enterprise. It was…instructive. And frustrating. At first I found their easy access to emotions tiresome. Difficult to endure. But in time I adjusted."
He's watching her closely, quietly, and in one of those moments that have defined her life, she makes a decision to share more than is comfortable.
"At one point I took actions to make my own emotions easier to feel, to express."
She looks down at the teapot—imagines Trip placing it in her hands.
"I know Vulcans don't celebrate birthdays," he had said. "But you're not just any Vulcan."
At the time she hadn't questioned his meaning. He was contrasting her to the other Vulcans he knew—"prickly bastards," Trip called them—Ambassador Soval and the ruling elders of the High Command.
But in time she knew that Trip was saying something else, too—not just about her, but about them.
You aren't just any Vulcan. You are mine.
"What did—" Sybok begins, but she waves her hand and he falls silent.
"I ingested small amounts of trellium-D," she says. The admission still brings heat to her face. "I took illegal and dangerous drugs that allowed me to act out those feelings that I had been taught to repress. It was…liberating."
Sybok's eyes widen, and she hastens to add, "And I almost destroyed myself in the process. As you will destroy yourself, if you don't temper your passions with logic."
Sitting up, he says, "Even if I agreed with you, I do not speak for the others."
"And yet," T'Pol says, "they followed you here."
"If they listened to me once, they do not anymore."
"You are mistaken. They told the High Council that you are their leader."
She sees at once that she has surprised him.
He opens his mouth to respond but the door chime stops him.
"Enter," T'Pol calls out, and the exterior door swings open.
"I was told to come for Sybok. The Council is ready."
Sarek, looking like an older version of his son. Until now T'Pol had not marked their similarities.
Standing up slowly, she motions for him to enter the room.
"The Council will wait while you sit with your son for a cup of tea," she says. She glances from Sarek to Sybok and sees something pass between them, like an electric spark jumping across a gap. Earlier Sarek had told her that Sybok had severed their connection years ago, had tamped down their bond so completely that he no longer felt his presence anymore. Could he have been in error?
"Another time, perhaps," Sarek says.
"It wasn't a request," she says. "T'Pau insists. And besides," she says, as the door chimes again, "here are some people you need to meet."
And then to Sybok she says, "Your reinforcements have arrived. It's time to be a leader in more ways than one."
A/N: The women are the real movers and shakers in this chapter…hence the title, a teasing reference to female chromosomes.
Thanks so much to everyone for continuing to follow this story. A special thanks to everyone who sends a review. You keep me writing!
And thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for her suggestions. She's been busy polishing part 2 of her original Loki fiction, "I Bring the Fire," and will have it up on Amazon soon. Part 1 is already there!
