A/N: Everything is fluffy until it's not. We tell the biggest lies to ourselves.

2255.

"Anything, Arzo?"

"Negative, sir."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think we were dealing with lului." They were standing in the middle of a town square market. There were stalls of fruits, vegetables, cloth, rugs, housewares, virtually everything imaginable. Beautiful buildings with curved, ribbed architecture rose around them. The only thing missing was the people.

"I cannot deny the similarities," said Arzo. "I suspect that is why they assigned us. Several other ships have attempted to locate this planet already without success."

"So we're the 'species in hiding' specialists," sighed Lorca, looking around. He ran his fingers across a piece of grey-blue cloth flecked with bits of white and yellow. "I mean, we're good at it, apparently. Two for two now."

It had taken the better part of three months to track the planet's location. Zero radio signals, no satellites, and fleeting sightings of ships across six sectors that always ran, resisted scanners, and never answered hails. Evidence of mining operations, too, in several systems. Just not this system.

The crew called them the Scaredycats. Ran at the first sign of danger. Scattered their warp trails to avoid being traced. Nothing but blurry pictures at max magnification of their ships. Never darted exactly towards their homeworld when they were spotted, which was how Lorca had traced them. When there was one system vector near the middle of their range they never quite seemed to use, it seemed the best system to check out.

Owing to the lack of signals or orbital technology, their planet appeared very nondescript. The Buran's sensors detected life signs in great abundance but low concentrations. They had no cities and instead lived in a series of scattered towns almost evenly dispersed across the inhabitable surface areas, a network of roads running between them. Mapping out the roads and villages revealed an arrangement more like a carefully planned web or a piece of mesh than a naturally-occurring society, but there were signs that the mesh had spread over time. The structures increased in age as you went west and north across the largest continent.

Their arrival in orbit had led to a curious phenomenon on the surface. The life signs initially detected began to vanish, apparently in relation to the Buran's presence in visual range.

There had been some objections to beaming down. Levy's, most notably. "I'm not convinced this is the place the ships are coming from. The conditions on the surface look positively bronze-age."

"This is it, all right," swore Lorca. "I'll bet you anything."

Levy attempted to take the bet. "Two weeks shore leave?"

"Lieutenant, if I lose the bet, not only do you not get shore leave, chances are you no longer have a captain."

Levy scrunched up her face. "Then, your entire supply of fortune cookies against my tennis racket?" What she was going to do with a thousand fortune cookies was anyone's guess.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Benford. "You won't win the bet."

"Sir, we're being scanned!" called out an ensign at the science station.

Lorca gave a tiny swish of his wrist and popped his mouth, giving the effect of returning a volley. "Ace," he declared. Levy hung her head. Lorca took pity on her. "How about a match and we call it even."

"You have got to stop gambling against the captain," said Benford as Lorca started gathering an away team. "Have you won once yet? I'm beginning to think you have a problem, lieutenant."

Owing to the unpredictability of the reception, the away team heavily favored security personnel. Lorca, Benford, Morita, and two more security crewmen, Doss and Havisham. Arzo and Patel rounded the team out, in as much as a five-to-two ratio of security personnel to scientists could be considered at all well-rounded.

Leaving Sural in charge of the ship, they beamed down and the Buran left the system. The life signs then returned to the surface. On approach, they were spotted by a red-clad humanoid who immediately raised some sort of alarm, and the life signs disappeared again.

Arzo crouched down and picked up a handful of dirt. "Sir, I believe I understand what is going on here. The soil has been seeded with topaline."

Topaline was a rare mineral with the ability to disrupt sensors. "Seeded?"

"Yes. This is not naturally-occurring. It must have been intentional. I believe the aliens have all gone underground, sir."

They wandered the town, but there were no signs of any hatches leading downward and no way to scan for the underground bunkers or passageways that they knew had to be down there. Apparently the entrances were well-hidden. The whole place was eerie. They returned to the market.

"What do you want to do?" asked Benford. Everyone looked to Lorca for one of his trademark cunning plans.

He had one, but it wasn't very good. "Bear with me on this," he said. "Remember that big rock with the split in it we passed on the way here? Take Doss and Havisham and go find a good-size rock, split it in half, and bring it back here. Patel, grab some of that navy-colored cloth." Morita stood lookout, not that it was necessary. The aliens weren't coming out. Arzo wandered around, scanning and examining various objects and recording instances of language and technology, which was decidedly more advanced than bronze-age on closer inspection.

After a minute, Patel declared, "I see what you're doing!"

"Well then don't just stand there, give me a hand!"

When they were done, Benford declared it a "preschool art project" based on his firsthand knowledge of the subject. It was a very crude lifesize rendition of a silver humanoid made out of metal pots and pans wearing a red outfit holding hands with a humanoid made out of navy blue cloth with a smiley face drawn in the dirt for a head. A large split rock sat between the two.

They retreated back to the actual split rock. "You've lost me on this one, Gabriel," said Benford, out of earshot of the others.

"It's psychology," said Lorca. "We came, messed with their stuff, but creatively, not destructively, and left a message a preschooler could understand."

"I'm pretty sure absolutely none of that is real psychology."

"Also, it was so bizarre, they're gonna be scratching their heads." Lorca started to snicker.

Benford grabbed Lorca's arm. "Hold up. Was this a real plan, or did you just want us to cart around rocks before the ship came back?" Absolutely nothing on Lorca's face dissuaded Benford from the veracity of this conclusion. Quite the opposite: Lorca started laughing harder. "Seriously?"

"I'm sorry, Jack!" laughed Lorca, almost in tears. It hadn't been intentionally a joke, but imagining Benford and the others running around cracking rocks trying to find the perfect one was priceless. "I mean, it could work. Stranger things have happened."

Benford rubbed his face in exasperation. "I'm putting in for a transfer," he said, but he was laughing, too, and they both knew it was an empty threat.

It did not work, but on their second trip to the surface, they left a communications system with the flag of the United Federation of Planets laid out on the ground in front of it, and on their third, a holorecording with a built-in translator providing a greeting and stating their purpose. Between each trip they left the system so the aliens would emerge from their underground hiding spots and have a chance to process these gifts.

As they returned a fourth time, they got a frantic call from the surface on the equipment they had left behind. "Alien vessel, what do you want!"

"Greetings, unidentified planet. This is Captain Lorca of the United Federation of Planets..."

"I can't believe we annoyed them into making first contact!" laughed Yoon at dinner later that week. This week the featured cuisine was Ktarian. Yoon described the meal as "proof the Ktarians excel at more than just desserts."

Lorca fixed her with a look. "Annoy them? Is that what you think I did."

"Well they certainly didn't seem to like you."

The Hizanites had agreed, by the end of it, to host a small Federation delegation in the near future, provided the Buran went away and never came back. It turned out they were terrified of everything in the universe, but most especially alien conquerors. They had endeavored to hide themselves once they realized they were not alone in the universe. Unfortunately for them, in an increasingly crowded universe, discovery was inevitable. Lorca managed to convince them that their chances were better off befriending the Federation than waiting for someone else to find them.

"Reiko, help me out here," said Lorca.

As usual, Morita had been sitting in quiet thought while Yoon and Lorca talked. "It wasn't just that the captain annoyed them," she said after a moment. "He also let them know we weren't a threat. Leaving gifts and coming back repeatedly. It's what you would do to befriend a stray cat. Just on a shorter timescale."

"See? Reiko gets it."

Morita's face clouded. "But... The people you made on the ground?"

"We had an hour to kill. Had to do something. Call it out of the box thinking. And I have to think it disarmed them somewhat when they saw it."

"I'm sure it did, because apparently you looked insane," said Yoon, giggling.

"My results speak for themselves."

"To results, then!" proclaimed Yoon, and they toasted their glasses of wine. Yoon took an exceptionally large gulp and set her glass down with a look of determination. "Right. Okay."

She seemed to be talking herself up to doing something. Lorca arced an eyebrow.

"Gabriel. There's something we want to ask you. Reiko and I have been thinking..." Morita took Yoon's hand. "We were wondering... if you might... Oh my gosh, this is so hard to ask!" She clapped her other hand against her face.

Such conversations, in Lorca's experience, usually went a certain way. In this case, it went a different way entirely.

"We want to have a baby. And because it would be me, and Reiko doesn't have any siblings, we were wondering if you might... consent to be the donor?"

It was very rare for Lorca to be rendered completely off-guard. He blinked rapidly. He couldn't even form any words.

"You don't have to decide now. And if you don't want to, we completely understand, and it's no problem. There are cousins we can ask, there are donor banks. It's just, you've been coming to our table for six years now, and you have all the qualities we'd want our child to have, and you're part of our family. We don't want you to feel obligated, but we had to ask."

"I mean... Wow. That's... and here I thought you were gonna ask me for a threesome."

Yoon shrieked his name, hit him, and laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair.

Morita rolled her eyes and turned to Yoon. "Okay, have we seriously considered what happens if our child gets his sense of humor?"

Lorca had not spoken in several minutes. He was staring out the window, alternately running his hand over his mouth, cheek, and forehead. "I don't know what to do," he said at last. "It's a big honor, but..." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I don't even know if there should be any more Lorcas running around in this universe."

"How can you say that?" said Lalana. "As far as I am concerned, there should always be a Lorca. It is a much better universe with some piece of you in it."

His hand rubbed his temple again. "You don't know. I never told you." His eyes squeezed shut and his face contorted. "Lalana..." He pressed his hand against his face so hard his fingertips went white and he let out a choked sob. He slid his hand down over his eyes. This was one of those rare gestures that lului and humans shared.

"Gabriel, what is wrong?"

He pulled his hand back down over his mouth and managed to open his eyes. They were rimmed with tears. He took a breath. "I..." He wished the holocomms showed her correctly. Even though he wouldn't have been able to touch her, it would have been some comfort to have the sense of presence holocomms provided instead of the flat projection of her face.

"You do not have to say if you do not wish to."

"Okay," he said, but it wasn't a statement of agreement with her offer. He was saying it to himself. He took another deep breath. "Do you remember on Risa? In the Winowa? And the first time." His voice was small, weak, and rasping—entirely unlike him.

"I remember, Hayliel."

"You said you were running to the stars and I told you I was like you, but I'm not. I'm not." Air sniffled through his nose as it began to close up. "I didn't run to the stars. I just... I ran away. I'm always running away. I—I can't. I can't go back." He covered his eyes again. "I can't! I can't!" He began to repeat it over and over again.

He could see it. Her face, his father's hands, big hands, strong hands that knew exactly where to strike. Everything perfect, because it had to look perfect, that was the most important thing, and every bit of it a lie. He'd learned early how important it was to lie, and to keep lying, and to show everyone the face you were supposed to wear in front of others and never, ever, to let it slip. He learned to misdirect, out of necessity. He learned to pretend. And he was very, very good at learning these lessons. He had to be. He had no choice.

And it was all the harder because he loved them both, and knew they both loved him, and if he hadn't run away, maybe they would be with him still, despite everything.

Lalana watched him shake and sob into his hand from her ship, desperately wishing there was more she could do. Lorca had given her everything when she had nothing. She wanted to return that favor more than anything. "Hayliel, listen to me. I was wrong about the human concept of spirit. We are all greater than the bodies we inhabit. Which is why I can say this with absolute certainty. It does not matter that you are running away. It only matters that we are running in the same direction. Because it means I am with you every step of the way."

Her words were almost enough. He fell into quieter, uneven breathing.

There was one more thing she could offer him. It had taken them some time to complete the task the first time, but they had gotten there in the end, and maybe now it was time to begin again.

"In the year 1866, the whole maritime population of Europe and America was excited by an inexplicable phenomenon. This excitement was not confined to merchants, common sailors, sea-captains, shippers, and naval officers of all countries, but the governments of many states on the two continents were deeply interested. The excitement was caused by a long, spindle-shaped, and sometimes phosphorescent object, much larger than a whale..."