Chapter 12

Trip, Jon, Hoshi and Malcolm were sitting at a table in the crew mess. They had pushed tables together to make it long enough in anticipation of T'Pol and the children to join them when Phlox was done with his examinations. As they ate their meals of foods they hadn't had in a very long time, Malcolm and Hoshi took the opportunity to ask the questions they've been dying to ask for days. "So, Trip. What's with the tooth in your ear?" Malcolm wondered.

"It's from a sehlat. A huge bear-like creature that tried to kill me. I won. Tooth is kind of a trophy."

Malcolm scoffed at that. "Really? It tried to kill you?" Trip pulled up his shirt to show him the scars. "Oh. Damn! I guess it really did try to kill you. Glad you won."

Hoshi had to ask. "What kind of bugs did you make as pets?"

Jon and Trip looked at each other. "Huh? Bugs as pets? Where did you get that idea from?"

"Your first message. The Captain wanted us to send Porthos and commented that you had your bugs."

Trip laughed. "No, no. Not bugs like insects. That was the name of my rabaroo...Bugs...as in Bugs Bunny, the old Earth cartoon."

"Rabaroo?"

"Looked like a cross between a rabbit and kangaroo, only smaller than a rabbit. Very friendly creatures. You woulda liked them, Hosh. Really cute. I almost brought Bugs back with me, but she's better off on Celestia."

"Celestia?" Malcolm questioned.

Jon shoved a fork full of meatloaf in his mouth. "Name we gave to the planet."

Hoshi and Malcolm shifted uncomfortably. Jon and Trip looked at each other knowing what the subject of the next set of questions were going to be about.

Malcolm was the brave one to ask. "So uh...the children? Who's their father?"

Jon smiled. "We both are."

"Uh...ok so who's the father of who?"

Trip laughed. "We're both the father of all three."

Hoshi and Malcolm were now completely confused and Trip continued. "Ok, so some weird stuff happened down there. Let's just say we don't know who the biological father of any of them are and we don't want to know. As far as the kids are concerned, we're both their fathers."

Malcolm questioned. "So if you don't know who the father of who is, whose name do they have?"

Jon answered. "Charlie is Tucker, just to keep the tradition. Charles Tucker IV. Henry and T'Mir are Tucker-Archer."

"Why Tucker first?"

Trip shrugged. "Rolls off the tongue better."

Hoshi shook her head. "Well it's not that hard to figure out who the father of Charlie is. He's the spitting image of you, Commander."

Jon looked down and Trip felt a little uncomfortable. "Look uh... Charlie's a bit of a touchy subject. Let's just drop that ok."

"Oh. Sure. Sorry I didn't..."

"It's ok Hoshi" Jon said. "I know you didn't mean anything by it."

Malcolm went to the next awkward question. "So, what's up with the rings? Wedding rings? And two bands each?"

Trip explained. "Well...that is kinda the odd one. I mean, well...obviously things got strange...sexually. T'Pol decided that in order to make it less awkward, we should enter a Rehkuh u' veh marriage."

"A what marriage?"

Hoshi explained. "Rehkuh u' veh. It literally translates to three as one. It's an extremely ancient Vulcan custom. I don't think it's been practiced for thousands of years, but at one time it was acceptable for someone to take multiple mates. I'm a little surprised that T'Pol would suggest it, but under the circumstances, I guess she would see it as logical."

"So uh...how does that work? You take turns like every other week or something?"

Jon dropped his head shaking it while laughing. He knew someone was going to ask that question. Leave it to Malcolm to be the one. "It's really up to T'Pol. Whatever mood she's in. Sometimes it's me, sometimes its Trip...sometimes both."

Malcolm's eyes popped out and his jaw dropped. "Both? Are you serious? I wouldn't figure T'Pol to be that type."

"Well, you know what they say...it's always the quiet ones."

"So you're both married to T'Pol then?"

"All three of us are married to each other. Trip and I are married to T'Pol, T'Pol is married to both of us and me and Trip are married to each other."

More eye popping and jaw dropping. "So Trip is your..."

"Husband. Yes."

"Well that don't mean the two of you...does it?"

Jon chuckled and shook his head as Trip gave him a nudge with his elbow. "Well there was that one time when we got really, really drunk."

Jon looked at Trip in shock. "Trip! I thought we agreed we'd never bring that up again."

Malcolm's mouth was a gaping hole before he started thinking then smirked. "Ah! You almost had me there. Yeah. You guys are just messing with me, right? Right? You're...you're...right?"

Jon looked at him somewhat offended. "And what if we did...or still do? Does that bother you? Do you feel you can't serve under a Captain that's homosexual or bisexual?"

"N-no...that's not it at all...sir. Your sexually...any ones sexually is none of my business. I don't care who sleeps with who...it's...It's just a little bit of a shock that's all. I mean...seventeen days ago...I would've never pegged you...wait...was something going on before then? Never mind...none of my business. You're not screwing with me?"

Trip couldn't take it anymore and busted out laughing. "Oh Mal! You're just so damn gullible. Too easy man. Too easy. I think I missed this the most."

Malcolm gave Trip a halfway smirk. Kicking himself for once again falling into one of Trip's jokes, this time dragging the Captain along with him. "Ok. You got me. HA HA. So you don't sleep together, just husbands because of this Reh-Reh...whatever marriage."

Trip stuck his tongue in his cheek and thought for a second. "Well...we do sleep together. All three of us had taken up sleeping in the same bed and T'Pol usually gets up hours before we do. So it's not that unusual for us to wake up cuddling. But that's about it. Nothing sexual."

Trip looked over and saw T'Pol coming into the mess with the children as T'Mir ran over to them. "Daddy!"

Trip hoisted her onto his lap. "Hey princess!" T'Mir gave him a hug then moved over to sit on Jon's lap. "What's this? Just passing through? Ok then. See how I rank."

T'Mir grinned at Trip. "Uh-huh." She pointed at Jon's plate. "Daddy. What's that?"

"Meatloaf. Want to try some?" She nodded and Jon gave her a bite. She looked up at him. "Mmm!" Jon gave her the fork so she could help herself.

Charlie walked up carrying his plate and T'Mir's. Looking at Trip's plate as he sat down. "What's that?"

"Southern fried chicken. Wanna try?" Charlie helped himself to a bite and seemed to enjoy it. Trip scowled at his plate of fruits and vegetables. "Let me guess...your mother made your plate for you."

Charlie rolled his eyes and sarcastically asked. "How could you possibly guess?" Trip put a piece of his chicken on Charlie's plate as T'Pol and Henry joined them.

"Fried foods isn't healthy for you, Charlie." T'Pol stated blandly.

Trip rolled his eyes. "He's a growing boy. Let him eat." Then Trip got a shocked look on his face. "Oh my God! I just sounded like my mother." Jon pointed his finger at Trip and laughed at him.

Hoshi thought of something then asked. "Trip, how are you going to explain your unusual marriage to your parents? And the children?"

Trip hadn't thought about that before and took a moment to do so. "Well. Mom and dad love Jon...I think sometimes more than they love me, so I'm pretty sure they'll be ok with it, and once they get to know T'Pol they'll adore her. They're going to be ecstatic about having grandchildren. Three of them even. No. I guess the hard part will be explaining how I've aged seventeen years in less than a month. But they'll get over it." Turning to T'Pol. "What did Phlox say? You were in there for a long time. Everything ok with you and the kids?"

"He said we're all healthy, but he does want to speak to the three of us later. He didn't say why, just that he wants all three of us to be there." Trip and Jon got a sinking feeling that something was wrong and they wasn't looking forward to the meeting with Phlox later.

Malcolm had been watching the children eat. "The kids aren't vegetarian? That's a little surprising."

Trip explained. "Well, we never forced them to be vegetarian. We decided to let them choose. Henry here is the only one that took after his mom."

"Yeah. Only after we took him hunting and skinned and butchered a sehlat in front of him. I told you he was too young for that." Jon scolded Trip.

"Hey. First off, Charlie was younger than Henry first time we took him hunt'n and it didn't bother him. Second, it's good for a person to know where their food comes from and how it gets on their plate."

"You know Henry is more sensitive to that sort of thing. We should've waited a few more years."

Charlie had gotten good at reading his dads and knew when an argument was about to erupt. "Hey. I don't care how my food gets on my plate. As long as it gets there."

"See. He gets it." Trip said.

Just then someone had dropped a tray and it made a loud crashing noise when it hit the floor. The entire family practically jumped out of their skins. Someone turned to look and bumped into Trip's chair causing him to panic a little. He pressed himself hard into Jon. Malcolm scrunched his face up. "You know, I notice you keep leaning into the Captain. What's up with that?"

Jon wrapped his arm around Trip as he answered. "Sometimes Trip gets a little nervous about something. It's a habit he picked up on Celestia. I guess I'm kind of like his security blanket or something."

Trip's panic attack passed and he sat back up. "Yeah. I guess being just us on Celestia, all these noises and people...gonna take some getting used to again."

They finished their meal and Charlie nudged at Trip. "Dad."

"Hmm? You done eating? Ok." Trip pulled out a long cylinder shaped purple item from his pocket and handed it to Charlie who put it between his lips.

Jon snapped his fingers and pointed at Charlie. "No. We agreed that would be confined to quarters only."

Charlie pulled it out of his mouth. "Ok. Where are our...um..."quarters" then?"

Jon, Trip and T'Pol looked at each other. Trip made a popping noise with his mouth. "We didn't think about that did we? As I remember, quarters are small for one. Impossible for six. Where's everybody gonna sleep tonight?"

Jon thought for a minute. "Henry will stay with me, T'Mir with T'Pol and Charlie with you. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow. Ok?"

"Ok. So Charlie, you can go smoke in my quarters."

"Um. Dad...where is that exactly?"

"C'mon. I'll show ya. At least I think I remember how to get there."

After they left Malcolm was a little surprised. "Captain? You're really going to allow smoking on the ship? I mean, it is just nicotine? Right? And Charlie? Isn't he only sixteen?"

"Trip was younger than that when he first started smoking. At least Charlie doesn't try to do it behind our backs. Yeah. The purple leaf is nicotine. The other is pink. I told them as long as they kept it in quarters I'd let it slide. Guess I'm going to have to rub Starfleet the wrong way on this one and make it a rule for everybody. As long as it's in their own quarters."

Malcolm and Hoshi had a sudden realization. "Ah! Pink leaf. Well that explains some of your messages and why you sounded so strange. We were afraid you had lost your mind down there."

"I did." Jon shrugged.

"Not going to get me again, sir."

"I'm not joking. I did go a little crazy down there. But it's ok. It's the fun kind of crazy. Trip went a little more over the edge, if you can't tell. T'Pol's doing a good job of hiding it, but her mind went a little too. She actually smiles, laughs and cracks jokes now. Don't you honey?"

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "If you say so, husband."

"See?"

Hoshi had another question. "Doesn't it get confusing with the kids calling you both dad?"

"No. We usually know which one of us they're talking to, and if there is a little confusion, they just let us know. Especially this little brat. Don't you?"

T'Mir looked up at Jon and grinned. "Uh-huh."

"Little brat?" Hoshi asked amused.

"Yeah. She was a brat since the day she was born. She gave us a pretty big scare." He went on telling them the story of her troubled birth.

Malcolm was amazed. "I can't believe you actually played doctor at birthing all three of your children. That's incredible."

"Well, Charlie being the first, we were all pretty nervous about it. As soon as we found out T'Pol was pregnant, me and Trip started reading everything we could about birthing. When the day came, Trip was shaking so much, I thought he was going to shake the whole house down on us. Henry was the easy one, thankfully."