AN: Again another surprising response and again in the best possible sense. Every one of your reviews is appreciated more than any of you probably know so I'm going to honestly thank you for them all.
I apologise for typos etc, there's always gonna be some in my stories, I can't seem to help but have at least a couple floating about. If I remember I'll try fix them.
On another note entirely I came to realise that my Higher English exam is on the 12th of May. You can maybe imagine that I freaked. So until then, before I go on study leave, updates will be rare, because studying will be mounting. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. I will not stop those who want to shoot the system, cause I'm gonna have a go myself.
~Telaka~
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A snippet of the quaint sun soaked morning that followed the giddy rush of last night's wild and head-splitting activities cut silently through a slim crack in a shield of heavy clean white blinds. The slim trail of placid yellow light, nothing more than a flitting string of the outside world, managed with great success despite its size to peel open a pair of exhausted red eyes that still, even in such a late morning hour, longed to close over and sleep again, far into the cool afternoon that was to come.
A wash of panic kept him awake however. Without heed an aching chill ran down Malcolm's back as he came to realise he had no realisation of where he was. He hastily threw off from his stiff body a foreign green dyed blanket and rose warily from a strange, extraordinarily soft, black leather couch. These though offered no rush of memories to his blissfully light-headed mind.
It was eventually the smell of breakfast that saved him. Bacon drowned mercilessly in thick oil, coffee turned as black as it would go, burnt crumbling toast and shrivelled mushrooms all for some unaccountable reason brought him calmly to remember that he was back at Trip's chic, modern tainted apartment – a structure that was a far cry from Jonathan's aged home. The Southern accent that rose above the sound of spattering oil and an angry frying pan confirmed it and Malcolm slowly nodded in his relief to the living room around him and the couch he was on that sat along the side of a silvery floorboard base.
"Bacon and toast alright for y' Malcolm?"
The blond topped head of a somewhat harassed looking Trip suddenly appeared from a glass doorway behind Malcolm with the angry frying pan in one reddened fist and a wickedly bladed carving knife in the other.
"Are you sure that's necessary?"
With a smile that fought not to be too patronising, as Trip was the one with the strained eyes and knife, Malcolm nodded to his tight hold on the black handle of the kitchen weapon and Trip followed his gaze with a scowl of personal contempt towards the plastic and steel.
"Look, ah'm doin' the best ah can. Ah haven't cooked for seven years, ah couldn't cook seven years ago anyway, an' the bacon decided it wouldn't cut with just a damn ordinary butter knife. It cuts with this," he nodded viciously to the glinting blade, "so ah'm stickin' with it."
Malcolm could not argue, although the truth was more that he (as any sane man would) did not want to argue.
"Would you like a hand?"
Trip nodded, assuming the offer anyway. "Wouldn't mind mate."
It was not a successful gourmet morning. It could never have been a successful gourmet morning because for all of what these two men possessed in highly complex skills with engines and weapons they did not posses the talent, and more dominantly the patients with frying pans and each other to make an edible breakfast. Their salvation from starvation instead came from a homely coffee shop one and a half blocks down.
"Ah still don't understand how ya could see the damn soap powder as salt Malcolm. The damn soap flakes are too damn big to be damn salt grains. Aint you ever touched on the art of cookin' before?"
The argument had managed with languished ease to carry on over lightly toasted bagels and creamy black coffee.
"You patronise me over the soap powder? Were you never told that you couldn't cook bacon in washing-up liquid? Or have you always preferred it that way?"
Needless to say many curious and bemused stares hurdled their way across tables and chairs to reach the sleek silver barstool that camped along a landscape window where Malcolm and Trip chose to sit for the rest of the morning that was still to arrive.
Despite the spitting of insults and chides they were much the content friends to be together, rather than by themselves as was destined if they returned to their own homes separately. Neither seemed quite ready to face, at least not alone, the harrowing fact that their sailing days on the Enterprise had retired to days instead spent on the solid gravitational pull of Earth.
Most painfully though, Trip was not ready to face the proof of his sister's decease, which had been dug not anything less than another three blocks away.
"Ah was thinkin' of goin' today."
From a fascinating swirl of thick, calorie-laden cream swimming uncontrollably in the epicentre of his rich ebony coffee Malcolm quickly sprung his clear gaze forward then left to Trip, in which he uttered a quiet "Hmm?" and ashamedly admitted he hadn't quite been listening. Trip tried on him an irritated sigh, but it was easy to tell when Trip was genuinely irritated, and now was not one of those many, many times, so Malcolm simply smiled his way through an apology, before repeating his "Hmm?"
"Ah said…" there was a hesitation and Malcolm guessed correctly what was to come, "ah was thinkin', thinkin' of goin' to the," Trip's neck all of a sudden appeared to develop a nasty itch and he scratched the nape with light fever as his gaze grew restless and jumpy, with his voice evaporating in volume slightly "goin' to the cemetery, this afternoon. Y' know, it's been five years, an' now that ah'm here," the itch spread to his elbows, "well ah can't put it off anymore."
With a pale flush across his hot cheeks he finally fell silent and stared pointlessly forward and beyond the window at the grey pavement along the rushing street outside.
"Put it off?"
Shame quickly snaked across his downcast blue eyes as his thumbs battled relentlessly with each other and his feet scuffed the white lino floor below. He shrugged but it was a silent 'yes' they emitted. On a heavy sigh he then spoke to the waiting Lieutenant.
"It's hard, y' know. Ah was so vamped up on gettin' some revenge for maself off the Xindi that… ah almost seemed to forget why ah was doin' it. Ah kinda 'forgot' Lizzie was dead. An' then it hit me a few years back an'… ah was scared to go see the one thing that be able to prove it to me again. So ah never went to the grave, ah just sent some photos down with ma regards and carried on runnin' about with the Enterprise, just bein' ma happy Southern self. An' ah even forgot a few times again, 'cause ah knew ah'd never have t' go down an' see that damn grave, but now," he laughed weakly, "now ah've ran out of excuses to pretend she's still hopin' about behind me, tauntin' and laughin' at me with every damn step ah take." He swallowed with great effort. "So, ah gotta say goodbye now."
Malcolm thought he was going to get to see Trip cry, but either pride or numbness kept any shed of salty water back from his orbs as he once again faced his company and smiled a sweet, sad smile.
"So, y' comin'?"
Although tempted to both laugh and state 'do you even need to ask Commander?' Malcolm simply copied the sweet, sad smile and nodded full heartedly, with utter unquestionable sympathy.
"Of course."
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The morning brought on its wake, not just the private, tender moment between Trip and Malcolm but also a tuneless whistle to the front door of Jonathan's settlement and then from a rusty singing voice the murder of an ancient song.
"Oh suicide is painless"
Very slightly T'Pol cringed.
" It brings on many changes"
She found temptation urging her frantically to block her sensitive ears.
"An' ah can take or leave them if ah please"
As the 'please' was dragged out and slaughtered mercilessly by a blissful screech from the very depth of the accusing throat the Vulcan's head warily perked up from its position craned over one of Jonathan's many prized books. She eyed the door carefully from where behind it the source of the blatant noise came then sat back slightly on the cream woven couch as the entrance swung slowly open.
"Yeah suicide is –" suddenly there was an amazing silence, and then a wary, "Oh. Hello…"
A pair of cool grey eyes met T'Pol's docile brown ones, cocked to the side slightly as they absorbed the sitting sight of her, and then as they darted to the side of her face to catch an all too brief glimpse of the top of one pointed ear behind a head of neat auburn hair, narrowed slightly and the body they belonged to tensed slightly more still.
"A Vulcan?"
T'Pol stood, but not to lean forward in greeting. She found herself confronted by the same manner of distaste and revolt in this stranger's eyes as she had seen in a hundred humans' eyes before him, and tens of alien races before that.
"You'd better have a damn good reason for –"
"Richard?"
Both sets of unflinching orbs turned gracefully together on a third body, who stumbled and squinted in the fresh yellow light of the living room. The grey-eyed man instantly lost interest in T'Pol as Jonathan's face morphed into a dazzlingly wide smile as he greeted him and step forward to embrace the emerged stranger, allegedly called 'Richard', full heartedly.
"Been a while, no?"
After taking the blow of a hearty pat on the back with a spade for a palm Jonathan pulled away and took in the refreshing sight of his younger cousin Richard.
"You don't tend to change much do you?"
For the compliment Jonathan received another brisk slap on the shoulder this time and Richard in turn sighed deeply, continuing to indulge in a toothy grin and constant shaking of his bemused head, as if denying himself the reality of Jonathan's physical presence.
"I wasn't expecting you back so soon. Figured you and your explorer buddies would be hosting a sleepover back at Starfleet or something." On that note Richard then turned his sights back to T'Pol and Jonathan with him. "However…" T'Pol was tempted to frown, but simply didn't. "And again I say, hello…"
The distaste was back, but only lingering quietly in his eyes and loose twitching fists, lying low, and only intentionally showing for the Vulcan to see. Jonathan either hadn't noticed or chose dutifully to ignore it, but his introduction was nonetheless cheerful and unaware.
"Richard, this is my former Sub Commander, T'Pol. And T'Pol, this is my kid cousin Richard."
After a brief silent second of intense scrutinizing stares Richard's only response in the end was, "My dad's on his way up Jon, with more groceries."
Jonathan promptly bit his lower lip gingerly and smiled nervously, although it was a weak, ill smile as a flicker of uncertainty emitted across his thoughtful eyes.
"If my presence is no longer welcome here Sir, then perhaps I should leave you and –"
"No, T'Pol, it's alright. It's just..." he hesitated, then frowned then realized the obvious – that he was in his own home. T'Pol on his consent had every unquestionable right to be here with him. So he spoke with the authority that had been trained into his voice. "Richard's dad, my Uncle Edwyn, he was my dad's brother, older brother. He's, not entirely keen on the Vulcans, for the same reason as I was, but he's just going to have to deal –"
"Jon," there was a smear of light laughter in Richard's amused voice, "You know fine well your friend here isn't gonna stand in good steed with my dad, at all. Heaven help her even if Uncle Paul's to come across her as well. "
The idea seemed to humour Richard in some way, with the corners of his mouth fighting not to rise as he continued to eye T'Pol cagily. "Cause you know he'd be to the Vulcans what Hitler was to the Jews, if he could."
T'Pol's brow in response was high, although her gaze annoyingly flat and directed at Jonathan in the next gliding turn of her head.
"Perhaps I should leave, considering the history I have read on this said Hitler…"
Jonathan frowned, he closely came to scowling with wicked venom, but his own dark brow was focused solely on Richard, even though he addressed T'Pol. "Please, T'Pol. No one has to leave, you're here on my invite and Edwyn and Paul are just going to have to…" He eventually had to trail off.
The handsome oak door that had been left lingering ajar swung open violently on its hinges again as a man of greying features with paper bags of milk and fruit sauntered casually in, his own even grey eyes bright, inquisitive and without hesitation as soon as he sighted her, locked aggressively on T'Pol.
"A Vulcan? Jonny what have those years in space done to you?"
T'Pol's curious brow was beginning quietly to deflate and a look of quiet dejection - mirroring the one she had worn in realizing her kind and kin were not there to greet her back at Starfleet - trickled slowly into her downcast eyes. Jonathan took a stance in front of her, protectively.
"Good to see you too Uncle Edwyn." Every inch of the politeness in his voice was forced. "Now how about a genuine friendly hello from you to my formed Sub Commander T'Pol?"
The thought appeared to disgust the elder man, and he made no subtle attempt to burry the more generous amount of distaste he seemed to hold for the Vulcan race. Breath was drawn in his throat to prepare a counter to his nephew, or more so to T'Pol, when a sweet Northern accent strolled through the doorway, the body it drifted from soon following in airily.
"Edwyn dear, you forgot the chops – Oh my…"
T'Pol had begun to appreciate the reason that forwarded the dread that so often came with the infamous act of 'meeting the in-laws'. Jonathan was beginning to appreciate how unjust he had once been to the Vulcan kind, and Richard, now shamelessly smirking in much the fashion a rogue eleven year old would, came to appreciate the bringing of the raw, bloody pork chops. He was fully aware of the side fact that all Vulcans were strict vegetarians and caught heed of the quiet distaste in T'Pol's eyes as the pink meet was laid with a sickening thud on the counter.
It quickly no longer became a novel amusement to Jonathan to have the relatives over, even after such a stretch without laying his sight on their familiar faces; his mood towards them turning as hostile as theirs quietly was for T'Pol. Through tight-gritted teeth he uttered a short 'Hello Angela' but made it clear in his dark curt nod that unless they began to spill warm welcoming smiles and hearty hand shakes with his guest they would not be staying for very much longer. And although they seemed to be expecting it, he would be making no excuses for them, and no fool of T'Pol.
"You know, I just got up,"
He finally prompted with his softly grinding teeth the door to them with a cause to call a sudden leave of absence, and neither one of the trio seemed too upset to take it as they realized with expected shock that the Vulcan's presence was prevailing over their own,
" And I have a lot of work to do at Starfleet later,"
A series of bitter 'of courses' and 'sure thing Jon' hailed from their unsettling smiles as they slowly began to take leave, stamping into his carpet perhaps the shortest, most awkward visit Jonathan had had to this small apartment yet,
"Perhaps another time?" His hazel gaze quickly met T'Pol's; "Maybe we'll make it to dinner next week,"
She was acutely aware that he was humouring them, as he had done with her so many times before. Still though they nodded and carried on smiling and blindly agreeing until the split moment they were gone. The thick twisted tension thereafter quickly slipped away under the crack of the door with them.
Jonathan turned in one fluid twist, with baskets of apologies teetering ready over his lips, back to his guest who stood tucking neatly behind one ear a snippet of shimmering auburn hair. When the snippet was curtained back he laid his sights on the ear that had been below, and words left him for a long chilling moment.
He had never been entirely sure, for he did not keep records on T'Pol's appearance, on whether she had deliberately grown her hair to the length it was now - just above her shoulders - after the attack on Salan or not - that at that time she had simply gotten the notion to grow her hair a little more, or that she was hiding the lasting reminders of those days.
It was of enough length now to covers her ears with no great difficulty. The two had always remained heavily scarred after that attack, and since her hair had grown in, they were rarely ever in plain sight.
There wasn't a time when she did show her ears on those infrequent occasions that Jonathan didn't inwardly curl to see the indents of silvery white along the sensitive olive rims and the tiny permanent tears at the utmost tips of the delicate ears that in effect gave her four points. It was the delicacy of the skin and structure, Phlox had patiently explained during one of the days where Jonathan had contently watched T'Pol sleep off her ordeal, that made them impossible to heal without some lasting damage – in her case deep, numb scars.
Today, as sometimes they did, they made him feel a drowning wash of guilt. His family for the most part were to blame for the seer of the emotion right now, but memories of that event and so many others surrounding it made him feel in debt to the Vulcan, in depth to such a level that he could never fully pay her back just to make up for the apparent jerk he had been on countless headstrong occasion before.
He hadn't meant to stare but he had and quickly with a graceful few flicks of her slim fingertips she covered the ear again.
"It seems the family... did not like me."
His head fell as he smiled sadly, smiled with painted remorse, and laughed bitingly at the door. His hands lay neatly on his hips and he sighed fiercely through his nose. Finally, still lacking a vocal response he took his hand to his nose and rubbed it gently, before massaging his cheeks and eventually facing T'Pol once again.
"No, no they don't." Another more challenging smile entered his thin lips and jumpy eyes. "And if you take any of it to heart, well…" Porthos had sauntered in through the bedroom to the kitchen, seeking out his late breakfast, "you'll be sleeping with him tonight."
Her eyebrow rose to question the bizarre threat silently. He seemed set on the idea. With a frank nod he smirked at her subtle expression.
"That's an order Sub Commander."
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Starfleet's main building on a regular day boasted a level of noise far surpassed any office building or child infested household in the entire stretch of America. Yet it had several odd corners to itself that presented an entirely different front – a cool, calm and serene few corridors that were lined with doors that led off to cosy bunks and familiar quarters and one magnificent spectrum of a library. Rare few were in the library, or the bunks, come the eve of this morning however.
Even these quiet corridors seemed still to ring clear with the giddy echoes of party attendees and their frantic larking across the skid marked dance floor and sturdy tables of the untamed but priceless affair that had been all of last night and a generous fraction of the morning. The ringing for the most part came from delicate battered eardrums that had only just managed to scavenge their way through the night. Hangovers contributed to the constant hum and agitated mumbles from those who hadn't a clue what they were uttering topped off the aftermath of music and screams from the party.
Two faces familiar to each other contributed greatly to this band of the regretful drinkers. Despite facing each other close to every day for the past seven years however, when their shoulder's collided on a trip down and back from the community bathroom of the corridor they could only mumble a curt sorry to who they each thought was a perfect stranger before they carried on. It took several heavy footsteps on each person's account before their dizzy, fumbling minds cottoned on, and they stopped and turned together in perfect synch.
Amazingly despite a constant bombardment of sharp jabs and throbbing hammers in every moving muscle of their bodies they each managed a genuinely pleased smile as they reunited again where their shoulders had met.
"Hoshi, are you hung over?"
It seemed Travis couldn't help himself and his characteristically charismatic smile teased the young red-eyed woman in the gentlest sense as she too accused a grin at him.
"I don't need to answer that," she nodded to the young Helm's officer's forehead, "not to you anyway. When did you get that done?"
Whatever 'that' was, was apparently new to Travis and without another word he made for where Hoshi had just left, the bathroom, attempting a run but only managing a half-hearted limping trot. He would quick enough discover the object of attraction though.
In the time it took him to hobble to the bathroom, to rub the bleariness out of his eyes and to fully comprehend what was on his forehead Hoshi had come to realise that she was the one who had possessed the black marker eight hours ago and the one who had found a great deal of unreasonable humour in writing 'Captain Travis' in her elegant but for that night shaky handwriting, as way of boasting the ambitious future they both saw ahead for themselves. Those bold dreams, however, seemed painfully far away with a cup of welcoming coffee at the moment.
Travis returned from the bathroom, taking a walk back towards Hoshi, his lungs apparently exhausted from his little outburst of energy. There seemed to be anger flaring up in his rich brown eyes but the next second it was diminished with a wave of a smile over his dark lips. He passed Hoshi without stopping, only shrugging.
"I can live with that."
Before he had completely disappeared down the corridor though he quickly called over his slouched shoulder, "Meet me in the mess hall in half an hour, okay?"
He didn't turn back round but he knew she had nodded wholly to the request.
Pitiful little of the lulling silence that evoked the halls of the sleeping quarters carried on through to Travis and Hoshi's meeting place that was the vast expanse known as the mess hall of Starfleet. Vast could however be considered as something of an insulting understatement as the place was almost beyond words in terms of it size for a dinning hall. Every inch of this phenomenon though, to justify the ridiculous area of immaculate white lino it covered, seemed worth its value as the place teamed with the hungry and this morning the hung over.
To the couple who stumbled in half an hour after their reunion it was closely like returning back to an estranged part of their home – a loved part that offered more to them than just Starfleet's finest meals.
Memories of rookie days spent with fellow Helms and comm. officers competing and learning and generally participating in the best years of their late childhood and fresh adulthood years came back with the familiar giddy rush of cooking food and excited babble that marked a stamp of character of the place.
Flirting and studying, recovering from vicious exams and preparing for worse to come while still managing to laugh at the whole affair and waste hours of free time simply with their feet draped over tables and arms around each other, all in one happy jumble rolled over their minds and they realised what they had forgotten they missed the most – their first training years at Starfleet.
"It's like we never left."
Travis was off on that whimsical note and Hoshi quickly stepped behind his heal as they headed to where the scent of strong reviving caffeine drifted from, beckoning as an irresistible painkiller to what was a regretfully wild and utterly unforgettable night. During their short trek they did not go unnoticed.
Of the half a thousand so that roamed through these walls of breakfast and chatter, every so often a member of the Enterprise would be standing, never alone and never in a small crowd. Eyes that lit up fiercely with admiration and smiles that had lost control, or jaws that went slack and whispered what they could not believe flanked them all as the individuals seemed without modesty or lack of detail to recall to the young and learning what wonders, horrors and legends they had happened to come cross in the endless regions of velvety black space. Although doubtful of it Travis almost swore to Hoshi he had witnessed an autographed napkin pass from a young Ensign to a younger still girl, a first year engineer.
Still undecided on the surrealism of these shows Hoshi and Travis took their coffees and their cereal quickly and found, much to each of their surprise, a quiet uninhabited corner where they could bask in cool shadows and hear each other without accelerating their voices.
"I think we're celebrities."
Travis, his mouth locked closed with frozen milk and sharp crispy cornflakes nodded vigorously in agreement, smiling slightly before milk began a random dribble down his chin. He swallowed and nodded again.
"Are you surprised?"
Hoshi had to think for a second through the comforting steam of her creamy coffee and in the end had to admit that yes she was. Travis seemed to enjoy with great content watching each crewmember's fifteen minutes of fame. Hoshi was characteristically wary.
"You'll learn to love it."
She fought not to choke slightly as she caught sight of Travis's wide, excited eyes bouncing from one jittery crowd to another, calculating the activities of each fan and each celebrity and what they had to say and do for themselves. He seemed to be waiting even for his turn and with much shameless anxiety and passion.
His, and her moment came very quickly.
A young smartly painted, promising looking Helm's officer caught sight with his wistful pale green eyes the casually clothed figure of Travis with his breakfast and his partner. It escalated from there.
Travis uttered one cheery statement to a bemused Hoshi before the trainee with many behind him made it to their corner terrain.
"Just remember, you'll always be the first comm. officer that ever made it through the Expanse and you'll never be allowed to forget it."
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So, like I said, updates may be rare but I'll try my best to have the next part up a.s.a.p…