Chapter 59: Here to Stay

A/N: Hi romulanlover, it was a bittersweet chapter, and it was mainly about no one really feeling at home: the Romulans as refugees, and Asha discovering that she's having a lot of trouble coming home and not really feeling at home. Lilou in particular embodies this diaspora, being particularly "outspoken" about her homesickness for Romulus and discomfort with life on Earth.

Alaya Karangalan, thank you for your thoughtful words! Not only is Lilou not understood well enough by Asha's family, Asha herself feels like a stranger. It's a huge disappointment and disillusionment for her resulting from her expectations that the warm welcome she received on Earth would last forever. Christine indeed did not have a good relationship with her family. Asha is very resilient and while it is true that the murders of her loved ones have marked her forever and she will always bear the scars from that traumatic event, she's determined to live life to the fullest and make the best out of her situation, just as she did when she was kidnapped and forced to marry Thorek.

Doctor Metak was unable to join her family, as they had left on the last vessel to Artaleirh (the planet was getting rather full), and so the only sensible option was to take a vessel to Earth in the hopes of rejoining her family later or the other way around.

Also, Merken, Thorek and Christine are no longer alive. They really were executed. I'm so sorry if this seems hard to swallow, especially considering how tough real life is for us all at the moment with the coronavirus. Given the politics and cruelty of the Tal Shiar on Romulus (including in canon), there really could be no other outcome…

However, Vekal has been such an understated and underrated character so far. I wrote him as a background character, and it was quite a challenge to write him in such a manner that he would not draw too much attention. At the same time, it was important to me to highlight the affection and trust between him and Asha. There will be many sweet and funny moments coming up in the next chapters :-)

In the meantime, stay safe and wash your hands!


Once Asha and Vekal had calmed down, Vekal stepped back and looked at her, holding her hands in his. She was older, of course, just as he was. Her black hair was touched with a little grey at the temples, and grief for the two men she had loved had probably had its say in one way or the other – he noted that she was wearing her wedding bracelet and the one that had belonged to Thorek on her arm; but her face, wet with tears, was sweeter than ever, and her exuberance and smile were unchanged. His eyes fell onto her necklace, and he touched the pendent briefly.

"Christine sent it to me during her imprisonment, asking me in her letter to wear it and remember her. She told me that you had gifted it to her after ten years of marriage." She hesitated. "Would you like it back?"

He shook his head gently. "No. It's yours, and I am glad it is so, my darling."

"It does not…hurt you to see it?"

"Not if you wear it."

She nodded slowly and took his hand. "Come," she said, smiling.

He patted Lilou affectionately and accompanied Asha inside the little house. She made him sit down and brought him a bowl and towel for him to clean his hands in the traditional Romulan manner. Then she prepared tea with biscuits for him. The tea contained Romulan spices, and he relished the flavour. She went for a quick wash, undid her messy ponytail and brushed her hair before tying it up again. She changed into fresh clothes and joined her guest on the sofa. Lilou rolled herself into a fur cushion at Vekal's feet and dozed.

"I want to know all about you," she said. "Tell me what happened after our loved ones were murdered. The last I heard was that those assassins were hunting for you. I was fearing so much for you. I asked every Romulan who came here if they had heard anything about you or from you. I thought of you every day."

She drew her feet up on the sofa and snuggled into his outstretched arms. Holding her close, he told her what he had undergone, how he had fled from Romulus with Letant's aid, been stranded on planets with Romulan colonies for some time, then had practically hitch-hiked his way to Earth. He had then been interrogated by the Federation and Starfleet officials and finally been given the green light to contact the Romulan embassy in San Francisco.

"Some Romulans moved to Artaleirh, others chose Earth. Why did you decide on Earth?" Asha asked.

"Letant's aid gave me a letter Letant had written to me. In it, he mentioned that he was going to take you back to Earth. And I had your book with me. It gave me courage and hope whenever I longed to terminate my own life. When I saw an opportunity that would take me to Earth, I knew I wanted to go there and see if you had arrived and were alive and well."

"Now that you're here, please don't go, eneh."

"I am here to stay, my dearest." And he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. They remained like that for a long time until Lilou went to sleep. Vekal left at almost midnight, refusing her offer to spend the night in the guest bedroom, as the place he was staying at was so close by. They arranged a date for her to visit him at the embassy and lunch together over the weekend.

Vekal closed his eyes and breathed in Earth's air. It was fresh and uplifting. He reflected on his life. He had been with three women so far: his Romulan ex-wife, the woman he had committed adultery with and Christine. He had been pushed into experimenting with other lovers before marriage, but he had not thought much of the idea and ignored the well-meaning suggestions. After Christine's execution and his flight from Romulus, he had wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again. He had not been able to stand the sight of his wedding bracelet anymore after Christine's death, and he had put it inside a box, which he carried with him.

Faithful Galan had warned him about the Tal Shiar waiting for him and sacrificed his life for him and Christine, but it had been too late for her.

And while he had wondered in terror about what he was supposed to do, frantic with worry for his wife and closest friends, one of Letant's aides had visited him in his office, led him to a space pad, put him on a shuttle with his belongings, and off he had gone.

He had travelled from one planet to another, looking for one to call home, doing odd jobs, all funds abandoned on Romulus, probably to be frozen and confiscated by the Tal Shiar, but with enough latinum to barter – a generous offering from Letant that had been stowed in the shuttle that had taken him from Romulus.

As a military man, he was a hands-on person and wanted to work for his living as he had always done. Every day when he had woken up and realised that Christine was gone and he would never see her again and hold her in his arms, his heart had broken afresh. And then, he had started to read Asha's book again.

The poems had made him weep and smile – he recognised their context only too well, and one poem had been dedicated to him, for it was called "Eneh", and it had stirred whatever life remained in his numbed heart and drawn fresh tears from his eyes with its affectionate stanzas. Time had shown mercy, and while he had mourned and always would, he had discovered that he wanted to rebuild his life. Maybe his paenhe had arrived safely on Earth. Maybe she had started to rebuild her life, too. He had to know how she was. He had to see her again. And so he had saved up enough money to book a voyage to Earth on a variety of ships: an old Andorian vessel with a foul-tempered pilot, then a Ferengi vessel who had been delighted with the substantial amount of latinum he had given them as payment, and finally a Vulcan ship, whose unsmiling members had listened to his story in patient silence. When the captain had asked him whom or what he sought on Earth, he had replied very simply:

"Asha."

His answer was deemed logical enough to grant him the final stretch of passage to Earth; but they refused to tell him if Asha was indeed residing on Earth. First, they said, he would have to be interrogated by Starfleet to ensure he was trustworthy…and Romulans had the reputation for being one of the most untrustworthy and duplicitous people in the galaxy.

He had been exhausted; not so much from the long journey, but from the force of his emotions. After he had been thoroughly interrogated by Starfleet, he had been informed that Asha was indeed on Earth – she and a small Romulan community, including Senator Letant.

First he had gone to the embassy and been informed that Letant was currently absent, busy with Starfleet discussions involving the mutiny and Borg presence on Romulus; but he was welcome to stay in the little Romulan village, and the staff had given him two addresses: one for accommodation, and the other was Asha's address.

His heart had leapt when Lilou had come rushing out to greet him. And then Asha had emerged. The expression on her face had been worth every tear he had shed and all the pain he had suffered.

There she had been with Christine's necklace gleaming like a star on her chest, but her eyes and smile had outshone the jewellery. He had finally known what peace was when he had held her in his arms and heard her cry and laugh with joy.

He checked the time. He had been waiting eagerly for twelve o'clock and had been very thankful that Earth had one hour less than Romulus. Finally, there was a knock on his door, and when he opened it, Asha was standing at the threshold. Her smile was radiant and her cheeks were flushed. She was wearing a green sari.

"How are you, eneh?" she asked him affectionately, embracing him. He hugged her back.

"I am doing very well, paenhe." He stooped and kissed her forehead. "I see sunshine in your smile, and you are lovely as a lagga. You are well?"

"Yes." Her dimples emerged, and she blushed at his compliment. Some things never changed; and because she looked so sweet as she stood in front of him, he kissed her on the cheek as well. She took his hands in hers.

"Sometimes, I can hardly believe you are really here," she said wonderingly, looking at their clasped hands and back at his face again. "It fills me with such joy to see you, Vekal."

"When I heard that you had reached Earth safely, when your poems sparked hope and the will to live in my heart, I could think of nothing else than to see you again, my dearest one. I brought this with me from Romulus. I studied the climate in your location, and it should do well in a sunny spot."

He handed her a little box. It contained a few plant cuttings.

"From your favourite tree, the Y'gora. It grows very fast. During the Sundering, those who marched beneath the raptor's wing discovered the Y'gora tree thriving on Artaleirh. Before leaving in quest for a permanent home, they took some cuttings with them. I did the same."

Asha embraced him. "Thank you so much!" she whispered, her eyes sparkling with tears. "Can we plant it together?"

"Of course," he said, kissing her forehead.

They had lunch together, strolled around the embassy park and reluctantly said bye when it was time for both of them to get back to work.

Afterwards, they visited each other regularly and went out for long walks. They would also swim together on sunny days, and although it was he who had taught her to swim, he felt like it was the other way around, for she was showing him how to navigate his way through this new strange planet called Earth, strange now even to her. When they began to shop and attend events together, the Romulans at the embassy smiled knowingly. Her friends, especially André, waited in happy silence. Asha's parents had mixed feelings about her going out with another Romulan; they had been hoping that she would switch to a Human if she decided to date. They wisely refrained from commenting, however, and let her be. She had become far more self-confident and wasn't averse to making the occasional acerbic comment when she disapproved of something. She had also developed a new way of snubbing people who got on her nerves with frosty arrogance, reminiscent of the haughty Senator who had fallen in love with her in the Romulan Senate building all those years ago. When her mother gently pointed this out to her, she said: "I'm Romulan. We are known for haughtiness."

Her mother sighed, shrugged and let her be.

Letant, however, was too impatient to wait.

"They need a push," he told André over a glass of tomato juice, a beverage Letant had become a passionate fan of.

"Just leave them alone, Delon. Sometimes, when you push, people can trip and fall on their nose. Besides, it's their business. We really shouldn't pry."

Letant sighed. "Ah, my friend, we lost so much on Romulus. Suddenly, from one day to the next, no time was left. I fear that if they wait too long, they might run out of time and lose each other."

"Fear is a poor advisor," André remarked.

"Or a good motivator," Letant countered.

André laughed. "Bottoms up, Senator."