A.N
Hmm, apologies due for this chapter... I will apologise for the dialogue between Jonathan and T'Pol, I think it barely misses the classifications of corny.
Also some of the indenting and paragraphs may either be wrong or non-existent. I'm on my dad's computer for the weekend and he doesn't have a word document program with web page facilities. So I'm having to do this all by hand. Apologies for bad grammar (and many possible typos).
Other notes. Of the pairing of Hoshi and Travis. No one said it would be a romantic pairing of these two, or at least I never. I'm still not sure what I'll do with these two, romance or non-romance wise. I know their story, what they'll be getting up to together, I just not how they'll be together during it. That becomes decided as I write them together. But, just as I have stuck with Archer and T'Pol as a couple, despite how unpopular it is with so many, if I like the Travis/Hoshi paring then I will stick with that as well. You don't have to read it or like it, but that'll be how it is. (That and unlike my friend, who by all rights has guided me well through the 'do's and 'don't' of this story (most of which I ignore), I'm not mad keen on R/S (or T/S for that matter)).
And I'll tell you, as my last note; it's mid June over here and still pouring with rain. By July we'll maybe win over a couple of weeks or so of sun, tops. By August/September we'll be drenched in rain and snow again. I thought saying September was dull, but not rainy was being generous. So you can forgive me for the weather mistake, non? (Ironic this is, as Storm is my ultimate favourite X-Man, a fact that bares no relevance here...)
Oh! Watched the advert for Impulse on the Star Trek website. I've already deemed it my favourite episode, lol.
Okay, now onto the chapter.
Telaka
. . . . . . .
-One Week Later-
Travis had news for Hoshi, important news that was above trivial things, that was to interest her and propose to her an idea and offer she perhaps would not be able to refuse. He had told her this twelve hours ago. The only reason why she still was unenlightened as to what this enigmatic news was now was because Travis had left her twelve hours ago to 'tie up some loose ends' and since then she had not seen or heard from him.
It was early morning, around nine on the clocks. Despite how early it was though the mess hall for breakfast was almost on the brink of being peacefully empty, save from having the presence of a few staff fresh off their nightshifts and a scatter of a few others who like Hoshi weren't exactly working for Starfleet right at this moment in time. For the most though the masses of people that were here to train and work had already begun their shifts early in the dark, crisp morning.
Hoshi now had the pleasure for once of sitting in a cool private corner with her buttered toast and her herbal tea and a book on perfecting the different Klingon accents, a rare and recent edition of a short novel that had not sold particularly well, but was kept documented in one of Starfleet's many vast libraries here in the San Francisco base for the training linguists to read at their leisure.
She did not bank on company until mid-afternoon, around the hour of four, when Travis had promised to turn up outside in the lush jade gardens to meet her again and reveal to her the mystery for his grinning apprehension. So until then she was content to take up residency in the familiar mess hall and quietly repeat to herself exaggerations and emphasises on different letters and syllables of hundreds of different words in Klingon until she felt she had perfected what she was practising. To her this was leisure time spent at its best.
The last mouthful of her toast and swirl of her tea disappeared down into a now full stomach. She pushed the chipped saucer and cup away and rubbed sticky crumbs off her slim fingertips carefully before she dared to turn the pages on such a rare book again. Seconds later she was joined by company she hadn't banked on at all.
"Ensign Sato? Hoshi Sato?"
With a start, never noticing the evading presence that had lingered over her for the past few seconds until it spoke up now, she quickly put her book down and gasped up slightly at the face above her.
It was the smile that caught her breath more than anything, a cheery optimistic smile that seemed basked in a modest golden light and which stretched far beyond the realms of any human smile's capabilities. And atop that was a pair of eyes far too amazing and rich in their hue of unflawed, breath-taking blue also to be of a humans, or naturally occurred from a human. In them and in the smile was a youth so fresh and so eager just to be standing and asking of whose presence he was in that Hoshi doubted with scorn whether her sights were actually clasped on an adult and not an energetic ten-year-old.
To tell her more 'what' she was in the company of were the distinct, generously curved ridges down the temples of each side of the pale glowing face and the dark tanned stripes that ran down the middles of a pair of skinny pale arms. Whoever she was being greeted by, she was being greeted by a Denobulan.
Uncertain, but keen to do so the Denobulan stuck out one of his arms, obviously intending to shake Hoshi's hand with her. Hoshi understood that Denobulans often kept bodily contact with others to a bare minimum and so she could only continue to frown curiously and have the decency to extend her own hand for the stranger to shake and express his generous curtsey. He took heed of her quiet confusion and smiled wide and golden again, quickly apologising for himself.
"So sorry, I'm so rude."
He dropped her hand after shaking it thoroughly and the young Ensign soon found she couldn't help but indulge in a smile herself with every polite and apologetic gesture and word he kept uttering.
"I'm Aldon, one of Doctor Phlox's sons, his third eldest."
Instantly Hoshi's eyes widened and clarity swept over her as fast as it possibly could to compensate for the blind confusion of before.
"Oh, wow, you're Phlox's… oh sit down."
She automatically stood up and quickly offered him a chair beside her, which he took with all amounts of honoured joy spilled out across his emphatic face.
"Thank you, thank you."
The two sat and the Denobulan continued to beam on relentlessly, his every word almost breathless with happiness.
"My father has told me so much about the crew he's been working with in his letters, about the curious nature of humans and how fascinating and delightful they are to work with. To finally meet one of you, Ensign Sato--"
"Hoshi."
"--Hoshi, well, I'll call it an honour shall I?"
There was little denying the light, modest blush of pale, dusty pink that painted itself across the bridge of Hoshi's nose. She smiled nonetheless, surprised at how much Phlox had indulged to his son about his company on the Enterprise, and taken by Aldon's sweet, youthful nature.
It was difficult to gauge his age, she found, not knowing particularly well how Denobulans aged, but she wagered he was anything in human terms of between late twenties to early thirties. His eyes were as bright and fresh though as an untainted child's, ready to absorb the world's opulent wonders for the first time.
"Well, I don't know about an honour, but it's nice to know Doctor Phlox has been saying good things about us."
Eagerly, never dropping his smile, never daring to, Aldon nodded. "Oh yes, he's never had a bad thing to say yet. He says you have funny strange habits such as talking and eating at the same time, and keeping beats of lower status in your quarters, but it all just adds to your brilliantly curious nature he also says, and I must confess I wholly agree."
Hoshi put her book in her bag and sat more comfortably to face Aldon better. She also laughed quietly. She was well aware of Phlox's fascination with the simplest parts of the human condition, and found his taken interests in turn curious herself. Many a times she had sat in sickbay watching him work and answering hundreds of his off-the-record questions and queries about her species.
"So, do you know where your father is right now? I haven't seen him since we landed."
In truth she hadn't seen any of the eighty-three crew members since they had landed, save from briefly passing Commander Tucker in the hallways up to Engineering and seeing the Captain darting about in the medical corridors one day. Often she would wonder the halls of Starfleet alone, interested to see what she could see, and take heed of the dramatic and subtle changes that had occurred over the past seven years.
"I have been on Earth for a month and a half now, and in this past week seen very little of my father I'm afraid, but I know that a few days ago he was giving your former Sub Commander, the Vulcan, an overview of the injuries she had received about a week ago."
Aldon said this with all the cheer of a passing comment that at first it didn't register in Hoshi to be concerned at what he had just told her. And as soon as she did understand the context of his words he was ready to move onto another subject, almost without a breath to spare for a break.
"My father says you're a fine young woman with a promising future here in Starfleet. He's seen you conquer your fear of space and enclosed spaces and says you don't even squirm anymore when you watch him dissect one of his experiments."
The blush returned as quickly as Aldon spoke. It was true though that if anything now Hoshi was wholly keen and ready to return back to space with any opportunity that may be presented to her, which was as parallel to her nervous attitude towards space travel on a Starship seven years ago as was possible.
"Well, you know, Captain Archer could convince just about anyone that space travel's the only career to go for if you've got the talent for it. That, or water polo."
Aldon quipped his head to the side in a silent and confused question of 'what?' to which Hoshi smiled casually and shrugged off her unimportant reference to the sport her Captain loved so.
"So, do you work for Starfleet?"
Aldon forgot his confusion as quickly as Hoshi had the Denobulan's reference to the Sub Commander and her injuries of a week ago.
"Ah, I'm on the same Interspecies Medical Exchange as my father is, and I've been assigned to work here for six human months. I'm training to be a doctor to be able to treat in general various different species, just as my father is able to do."
Every time he uttered the word 'father' their was an indistinguishable, unspoilt serving of pride laced heavily into his vast unbroken smile, that grew just an extra few millimetres whenever they referred to Phlox.
"I take it you look up to your father then?"
Aldon nodded eagerly again and Hoshi smiled gently, admiring the high regard the son had for his father. She did not see that very often anymore. Certainly it did not exist so strongly between herself and her own father.
Suddenly, in the wake of a few seconds of silence between the two, Aldon's face lit up faster and brighter than Hoshi could almost comprehend and see.
"Perhaps I can show you some of my work?"
He was close to exclaiming the idea, which sprung to him as brilliantly as his eyes did widen and gleam, shouting it almost for the few dozen left in the mess hall to hear. He made it almost entirely impossible for anyone who respected others' feelings to say no. There was no reluctance in Hoshi to say yes however, and she almost found herself tempted to laugh in good nature at an enthusiasm she had never seen before, not even in the Captain, or Phlox himself. Instead though she nodded, stood and smiled almost as wide as the young Denobulan seemed to constantly.
"If you insist and it's not too much bother…"
"No, no, not at all. I've been working on a cure for the human version of the Denobulan nasal infections and virus of the second winters of Ashtof that one in every two thousand or so who live on that continent catch on our planet in the third cycle of our deepest winter almost every year, with the exception of the late fall of the second moon, two decades ago, of course."
Hoshi had been ready to move forward with the trainee doctor but stopping in pure silent bafflement.
"I believe they call it a 'cold' here on Earth."
Without missing a beat she carried on walking.
. . . . . . .
He was not sure why but Jonathan was more than entirely nervous about leaving T'Pol alone in his apartment for the few hours it would take him to commute back and forth to the vets to collect Porthos after his last bout of treatment. It wasn't she who injected the quiver of apprehension in him though, not necessarily, and what did remained unknown to him as he stood at the open front door in a cool breeze that swept and ducked with skilful grace down the brown corridor he was about to make his exit in.
"You sure you won't come?"
She nodded, entirely sure herself, unlike him. In fact she urged him and encouraged him insistently to leave her and his place for a while.
"It would be best I think if I kept a low profile for now, considering the circumstances of our species' current relationship together, and what occurred from the last time we came across an example of it."
There was no fair retaliation to her argument and he nodded grudgingly, barely, as he faced out once again into the airy corridor and down to the dull steel lift at the cold narrow end.
"Well, if you're sure…"
She raised her palm and made rare physical contact with him, pushing his away slightly at the shoulder as a gentle forward prompt, which he eventually took heed of as he nodded subconsciously again and allowed her without another word to shut the door behind him.
She kept her bearings at the handsome pine door until she heard a light rustle of loose trousers and the taking off of slow but purpose built footsteps down the corridor, to which she nodded and was satisfied that he had at last left.
For a moment after she was unsure of the silence that quickly took hold of the stationary space around her. Although at the most it had only ever been herself and Jonathan that had lived in the apartment together for the week and a half she had been a guest here, it always seemed that in the background there was some great volume of commotion and noise taking place, enough for a crowd of seven perhaps to be making.
Whether it be Jonathan taking charge and making a mess of the kitchen (where he did most of his fury felt swearing), or his constant persuasion to get her to watch a Quentin Tarantino movie to 'enlighten her on the art of movie directing at its best', or even Porthos whining at her feet, testing his luck to see if T'Pol was as generous with affection towards him as Hoshi, there would always be something to tease the ear.
Now there was nothing, save the sanctuary sound of scattered traces of nature in the streets outside and the stiff settlings of the building and its archaic structure of solid brick and gleaming varnished wood.
There was little for her to do now. The afternoon had reached its mid-life, the clock rounding slowly towards a sunny four o'clock. Of Jonathan's vast collection of books she had now read a fair few, and of his even greater span of movies she found no interest for them. She was neither tired nor hungry nor had any desire to go out or to meditate. She hadn't even the dog to walk. In affect, to put it in very human-like terms, she was bored with nothing to do.
On Jonathan's coffee table sat a copy of 'The Picture Of Dorian Grey'. On and off she had been reading it for the past few days and was only a few chapters from the end. She found Oscar Wilde and his work intriguing, for a human, and so deemed him well enough to save her from a complete afternoon of nothing but sitting or meditating.
Carefully she settled herself on the cool of the cream couch, her legs tucking neatly under her torso and her body leant against one of the cushy arms as she took up the copy of the book from the table in front of her and began to read.
It would perhaps only save her from doing nothing of interest for a few minutes, fifteen at the most, but she found it illogical to churn her way through the entire novel and leave the last few chapters unread. It would have been finished by last night had Jonathan not insisted on taking her out with him for groceries, despite her lingering wariness to venture into the public crowds of humans right now.
Outside in the dim corridor there was a rattling of footsteps. It was another sound commonplace in this set-up of apartments (as well as every other she wagered) that T'Pol had gradually gotten use to hearing, to the point where she would take no heed of the once distracting echo of noise. She had discovered that few humans, more particularly males, were light footed in their saunters.
Her eyes began to skim the yellow pages of the book when the clutter of footsteps from heavy boots stopped after thundering what she could only guess the entire way down the corridor. They sounded close by any standards anyway, and Jonathan's quaint apartment was the second last of a row of twenty.
Rather tentatively her slim, long-nailed fingers turned the fragile ageing pages of the story. A billow of the book's musky scent shot up T'Pol's nose but she ignored it as she read on. Outside in the corridor she could hear the beginnings of a grumbling protest come from whom she could again only guess to be the boot-wearer, perhaps locked outside his own apartment. The habit of humans losing something as essential as the key to access their own homes baffled T'Pol somewhat, yet then again so did most commonplace human habits.
She tossed another pages and the muttering grew louder, more agitated and much sharper in tone and volume.
Then suddenly as T'Pol flicked her fingers to turn another page an almighty hail of vengeful thundering fists came down on the front door of Jonathan's apartment that shook the very walls around the wooden frame and even a little of the roof.
T'Pol did not jump at the abrupt explosion of noise or start in fright but she did draw all her attention quickly away from the novel and to the shivering panel of wood that sat fifteen feet from her immediate right. Slowly she placed the book down on the coffee table and then warily she stood up from the couch.
Not a clue came to her as on what to do. She knew humans and understood them far better than most any of her kind she knew did, but when it came down to their brasher, more unpredictable natures she still was stumped at most of the 'whys' she so often found herself rhetorically asking.
Neither was she still very sure of common social behaviour in humans and she did not know whether abusing someone's front door to such a degree that the wood began to show signs of breaking, as her caller was doing, was considered an acceptable way of gaining someone's attention or was indeed an act of violence on an inanimate object.
And whether she was allowed to answer the door in someone else's territory was also something she was unsure of, but at this moment in time tempted to do.
There was a thing on the door called a 'peephole' that T'Pol knew about and knew was for the security of being able to see who you were opening up your door to without whomever it was at the other side ever seeing you. She thought to use it to her advantage here.
Although humans were now generally a peaceful race, not engaging in war for decades, T'Pol knew a collect amount of individuals were still prone to the lust for violence and with a mind disturbed enough to want to hurt or kill without actually being provoked to do so. She could only assume in thinking to the extreme, from the violence of the pounding on the other side of the entrance to the apartment, that her visitor could be as volatile in whatever way as some of these individuals.
As she rose on the tips of her feet to place her eye to the peephole T'Pol began to consider if it was really entirely necessary that she answer this caller, no mater how urgent he sounded to get in.
She could make out very little from the distorted picture the hole offered her save the figure of a rather young looking, gauntly structured and grey-haired man. His face remained low enough so that all she could really catch of his features were a set of fierce hazel eyes and a rather distinct, evenly shaped nose. She even dared to consider that there were resemblances between this man and Jonathan.
This was enough eventually, after feeling her eardrums curl painfully under the blaring noise of this constant banging, to prompt her to open the door to the caller.
There was surprise from both as T'Pol carefully opened the door, when the young grey-haired man stumbled forward ungainly into the pleasant cool of Jonathan's apartment and the silent, hard staring wake of T'Pol.
"Can I help you?"
There was little doubt now in T'Pol that this man was related to Jonathan in some way, perhaps another cousin, as the resemblance, although not obvious was clearly evident in his critical eyes and flaring nose. He was also sporting some looks that almost mirrored exactly the same ones Jonathan had flashed T'Pol when first he had laid his once spiteful eyes on her seven years ago.
"So, this is the Vulcan."
There was a constant heavy intake and exhale of breath from the man's slightly curved nose that reflected his disgruntled and restless nature. Although his body and face were young his voice held a pitch of fault in it, something that marked him as either older than his years in mind or slightly mentally removed from others. Either way T'Pol allowed herself to assume he was not entirely in a correct frame of mind.
There was also the lack of freshness that should have glowed from someone that looked to be only in his mid-twenties. It was clearly and sadly absent and had perhaps been replaced right now by the obvious hatred and disgust he emitted on every syllable he uttered.
"Jon home?"
T'Pol's instincts begged her to take a step back but instead she kept intact her poise and her will to stay where she stood, inches from the musky scent that billowed steadily from the breath that escaped the man's nostrils.
"I'm afraid not, but he will be back later. Can I take a message for you?"
She might as well have uttered every cuss under the shrivelled suns of Salanacon she could to his face with no shame or care for the utter putrid look of detest and wretched hatred he gave her back.
"No Vulcan takin' no message for Paul. Ah'll wait."
And it seemed he would be. He brushed T'Pol aside with the pleasure of tipping her balance slightly and moved to the couch where he sunk down and sat without moving, his eyes glazed and fixed stubbornly on the blank wide screen television in front of him.
Paul. She allowed one sentence to ring sharply and clearly through her memory now as she heeded the name - "Cause you know he'd be to the Vulcans what Hitler was to the Jews, if he could."
Although this was an exaggeration, she was sure by Richard, it would be an exaggeration for a reason, and she knew enough of a one Adolf Hitler and the Second World War of Earth to know that the exaggeration expressed some level of utmost hatred in the man.
The door remained ajar and swung lazily back and forth on the breeze that continued to sweep the outside corridor. Knowing of nothing better to do for the moment with no solutions on how to contain the situation coming to mind, she simply went to shut it, figuring it was airy enough in the apartment already.
"Don't, move."
Slowly her left foot landed back on the floor as she came out of mid-stride. She turned cautiously, never quite hearing such a dangerous and smooth tone in a human before. The phase pistol he held at a languid arms length served to emphasise it.
His crude eyes remained trained on the blank television, darting back and forth as if there was something of amazing speed on the screen to watch, but all there was for now were the black and grey reflections of Paul and to one curved side a stationary T'Pol. She refused, however, to be fazed by him.
"Are you Jonathan's uncle?"
In the reflection of the screen T'Pol watched his hazel eyes narrow to wrinkled slits, and again he seemed to lose more of his youth to the strange, crazed air he possessed.
"Y' know too much, y' speak too much an'- hey, where're yer blinkin' ears? Have 'em out where ah can see 'em hon'!"
T'Pol raised her arm jerkily with her brow unsure, drawing her own attention to her head of shoulder length hair as Paul did. She touched tentatively on the curtains of hair that kept her torn and scarred ears out of sight.
"There is no harm that my ears can do to--"
His phase pistol hummed gently as he fooled about with triggers and catches. "Do it."
With every inch of reluctance she eventually did, quickly brushing away the coarse hair at the sides of her head and exposing the tattered tips of her once finely structured ears. Paul turned around slowly, shifting noisily on the couch. His face lit up with the youth it was missing as he locked his sights onto the permanent damage.
"What clever bugger did that then?"
She did not answer, and for all the illogical and irrational intent there was in this man he knew he would not get an answer for that. It no more spoiled his joys.
"May I suggest you put the phase pistol down and perhaps we can talk?"
Slowly she was moving to the tact of negotiating, seeing no other way that she could rationalise with a human such as this. She also had to distract him she felt, hopefully from what she wagered were violent intents.
The irony of the situation rose to her attention for a brief moment, of how she had stayed in to avoid the dangerous prejudice of humans, but she brushed it hastily to the side and kept her will and her attention focused on Paul.
"I wish you no harm or insult, I am simply a guest in your nephew's home."
Her eyes itched to flicker over to the kitchen where she knew in one stiff drawer Jonathan kept his own phase pistol for general peace of mind. It would be beyond risky and illogical though to reach for it, as she would have to make a sprint of several dozen feet to get to it. She figured Paul could shoot her torso a fair few times before then, and she had suffered that abuse enough to want try everything available to avoid it happening again.
A nasty grin spread slowly across the width of Paul's dry cracked lips. He sneered at her pleas of negotiation. Quite clearly he cared neither way whether she was a guest in his nephew's home or the owner of it, all he let roll around in his mind was an insane, dark hatred, diluted in no way, which pointed solely at T'Pol who for now was representing the whole of the race he despised so much.
"Guest. Don' like that word much. Just means you're here 'cause he's bein' polite to ya, nothin' more. No way's ma boy Jonny gonna want a Vulcan 'guest' in his home. Not now, not eva."
The phase pistol began a dance between the man's long rugged fingers, his chipped and battered nails scratching lightly at the silver metallic surface and picking at its many crevices and holes as he twirled it aimlessly in his loose hold.
"Ya gonna leave now?"
A blank stare emitted from T'Pol's gaze and Paul turned on her again, frustrated at her silence.
"Well?"
"No."
"On ma death bed ye aint not goin'. Where's Jon?"
She had never met a human quite like him. "He's out, and will be back later. I was not informed when."
"Well scoot, ah aint lettin' the place be infested by leaf eatin', no smiling no carin' space alien trash. Go!"
T'Pol was unsure if it was wise to hold her ground but not an inch of her willed her to move. She continued to provoke her guest's slim patience as so.
"I will not leave"
From the depth of his throat he growled. "Right."
Paul got up, his pistol held steady and balanced finely in his left hand. With the raw wave of hatred and determination that ran through his dark hazel gaze T'Pol saw caution and talk as no plausible option now. So before giving him the chance to gather enough sense to figure how to shoot straight she lunged for the kitchen threw herself down behind the pine worktop units and wrapped her hand tightly around the handle of the stiff drawer where Jonathan's pistol lay dormant. With a ripple of strength down the taut muscles of her arm she yanked forward the stubborn box of wood and it flew over her head just as shots of burning red plasma began to skid across the worktops.
Her own weapon, in the fierceness of her pulling the drawer from where it sat, soared across the kitchen's laminate floor towards the end of the rows of units, and so she lunged forward quickly on her knees before it escaped from her valley of shields. The nose of the pistol poked out from behind the units just before she was able to rescue it and as quick as T'Pol could apprehend that he would react Paul spotted it and shot recklessly at it. One small rogue beam skated over the top of her hand and seared the skin from her knuckles, painting a spattering of her dark green blood across the brilliant white lino. There was an ear piercing cry of victory from Paul before T'Pol grabbed the gun, immediately ignoring the pain, and threw herself backwards and up against the units again, tucking in as far from the shooting range as was possible.
She had fought off Klingons, Salan, Suliban and Xindi, to name only the worst of many; how a human had managed to win such an upper hand so quickly baffled her beyond expression and always would.
She allowed herself to be puzzled only for a moment though as suddenly the apartment was drowned in a chilling silence. The shots had stopped with the wild laughter of sick pleasure. There was no movement of clothes, no footsteps, no shuffling on the couch. Not even a heavy breath from his nose rattled the air of the room. And it was all so sudden.
Almost too tightly T'Pol's uninjured hand wrapped itself around the slim black handle of the phase pistol. Her index finger tensed on the trigger and she checked that it was on stun.
Her ears may have been torn to shreds but the inner structures of them were as finely tuned to hear even the most delicate of noises as they had ever been. She kept her breath at bay in her dry throat as she listened. No human could go completely unheard. He would have to give her something.
He sneezed, and as the sound shattered the false lull T'Pol leapt up from her crouched position with spectacular speed and threw herself forward as Paul's phase pistol destroyed the tiles around the place she had sat on only seconds ago. His weapon was set on kill.
She shot to her legs to stand. The gun was thrown in front of her, positioned at his head and as he climbed off the worktop to straighten himself up T'Pol hollered a "Don't move!" and commanded with the danger that flickered in her eyes alone that he freeze.
" I suggest you leave, before I am either forced to shoot you or Jonathan comes back home and does so himself. I am his guest, his friend and his colleague; I have little doubt he will hesitate to do so."
She was unsure of whether he was actually listening or whether he had abandoned heed of everything she was saying now. His gun was brought to rest though on the worktop before he crept around the units and slowly, menacingly advanced on her, his dry, cruel smile brought back to play on his thin lips again.
"Ah may come from the house of the whacked darlin', but ah know ma nephew, an' ah know when he hates somethin' as much as his good Uncle Paul does. Ah know that if he did ever liked you it's only 'cause you remind him o' somethin', someone, or he's forgotten what scum you originate from. But when he sees the bigger picture again, he'll turn on you fast as a wild dog would."
As he spoke he dared himself to inch further and further closer to the one now holding the charged weapon and the one who had the most reason and right to fire. He lusted to come nose tip to nose tip with her, and knew she wouldn't shoot unless he gave her reason to, as was the Vulcan way. He had such initiative and wisdom and a shrewdly true insight into other people's minds that many thought it was such a terrible waste of psychology on a man who didn't know how to tie his own shoelaces or distinguish his left from right.
Right now he felt he was able to sense, almost touch even the confusion that radiated from his Vulcan friend, and he wagered also that he was detecting hurt and angst from barely visible emotions.
Now he did have his distinguished nose tip at her face, only centimetres from the bridge of her own olive nose. "What did y' think maybe he'd love ya? Y' Vulcans are an amusin' lot. Don't make me like ya anymore though."
And on that sour note his large bony fist swung and landed in T'Pol's eye socket faster than she could block. It was the only hit he got in though before he foolishly tried to take another swing for the thrill it injected into him and found himself instead half way across the kitchen with a bloody nose.
"Get out."
He was fast in stumbling back to his flat feat with an ungainly smile and a smooth, taunting laugh that shivered up from the back of his throat. A sliver of blood escaped his flared nostrils and created a spatter diagonal with the spray of T'Pol's own green fluids from her burnt knuckles.
She quickly reached across the worktop and took his abandoned pistol, disabling it with her injured thumb. Jonathan's gun stayed warm in her good hand as it generated a quiet steady hum and stayed with its nose pointed to Paul's torso.
"I will not shoot if you leave."
He was still laughing but it seemed almost to himself now as he muttered quiet cusses and spite under his smiling lips as well.
"She says she wont shoot, but they said they wouldn't retaliate. Three boys dead, because they said they wouldn't shoot. But it's okay, 'cause she won't smile and laugh about it at least. Wont cry either. Makes it even better."
If she hadn't exceptional hearing she mightn't have heard his chilling whispers, but she did and she only urged her prompt for him to leave further. She began to step forward, forcing him, his whispers and his smile to back into the front door, which remained ajar.
"Come on girl, shoot me, shoot me so we can show Jonny together what a bad, bad darlin' you are."
She pushed him firmly to one side to access the door handle and as her arm braced against his side he grabbed her wrist, again faster than she could see to stop him and harder than she expected.
Something fresh entered his hazel gaze as he did so - greed, a kind of greed that she had never seen before in any of the crew she had been a member of and worked with for the past seven years.
Perhaps it frightened her, she wasn't sure, but she made haste to seize her wrist back and open the door wide, the pistol still held so tight that her fingers had slowly became a bone white.
With all manner of caution she took a steady step back and gave him free passage of the exit without uttering to him another word. She knew humans were good at reading the expression in others' eyes, and so she allowed her plain brown ones to tell him he was not welcome and that she would bear no guilt if she were pushed to putting him out, if he dared try another assault. He knew this; it was why he smiled so. It was also why he eventually left.
"Maybe it's 'cause you're feisty, maybe that's why the ol' Captain's keepin' y' aboard. Wouldn't doubt it in him, wouldn't doubt it any man, any man wae the wits to fancy the right sex anyway."
He made to carry on with his drabble and twang but there wasn't a second after his feet stepped out into the domain of the brown corridor that T'Pol wasted in shutting and locking the door.
"G'dnight!"
There was a moment of nothing in the apartment, T'Pol didn't move and there wasn't a thing with the nerve to break the tension in the room. And then she listened to Paul take leave down the corridor and her back fell against the door, her eyes closing over as she allowed herself to catch up with what had just happened.
Along the wall to her right was one of two doors, the one furthest from her, lying slightly ajar being the door that led to the room she had taken up residency in for the past peaceful week. In a grand oak wardrobe was her suitcase and in the wardrobe also along with drawers and cupboards was a scattered collection of her clothes, her every day wear and more formal robes and tunics.
She thought perhaps now, as she made her way to the room, it was time to swallow her Vulcan pride and pack up for returning back to the Compound.
. . . . . . .
A small whine echoed through the lift that rose shakily up to Jonathan's apartment, a whine sounding more for sympathy that to express pain.
Porthos was pathetically cute and pitiful looking by any man's standards in his beloved owner's arms, with a cone cloaked around his chubby neck and a cast around his abused leg made too big so that he hadn't the chance to walk gracefully.
He had been in and out of the vets for the past week and his watery brown eyes expressed well his confusion and protest to the constant change between being home to being in a strange, musky smelling cage to being home again.
Jonathan at the best of times could not resist his dog's whims, and so now he had little choice but to cave in to the pledges of Porthos and spoil him in every way imaginable. With all manner of affection he massaged his fingertips into the back of the little beagle's velvety ears and even kissed him briefly a few times on the crown of his head. Porthos was all too content to sit back and let the hail of affection come to him without the effort of having to seek it out.
"Don't expect much sympathy from T'Pol mind you. I'm sure that's still classed as an emotion."
Jonathan mused quietly to his dog as the lift reached the twelfth floor and opened up to the couple the brown corridor that would lead down to his apartment.
"But we'll see if she's not in a more sociable mood anyway, eh?"
Porthos raised his rough pink tongue to his owner's nose, an action made difficult and ungainly by the cone, and Jonathan repaid his with another soft scratch.
"Yeah, we'll see."
He stopped outside apartment 187, tucking Porthos securely under one arm as he searched for his keys somewhere in his trouser pockets. Almost immediately the dog began to squirm.
"Alright, give me a second boy."
Porthos seemed unwilling to do so as he struck up a verse of whines and low growls, his back legs paddling ungainly and his nose twitching like an engine.
Finally Jonathan plunged his hand into one of his back pockets and revived his card key triumphantly. Still struggling with Porthos he placed it in the one thing that gave it away that this was not an apartment of the old days - a small silver box laced onto one of the hinges of the outside door that acted as a tight security lock.
As fast as he could open the door Porthos took a spectacular dive from his owner's arms, tumbled over himself with his cast a little, quickly gathered himself up on the beige carpet and then hobbled and loped hastily over to the kitchen lino floor where he began a series of fierce barks that shook his entire small body.
His two front paws dug madly at one laminated tile, stopping only in their tracks for brief seconds at a time to bark ever more furiously at the one spot before he began clawing mercilessly again.
Jonathan stood and frowned for a moment, slowly closing over the door as he found himself utterly baffled by his dog's sudden chance in behaviour. He had only seen him react this way a few times before, and the reaction was usually cause only by certain people and other dogs being in the apartment, his pack's territory.
"Porthos, come here! Stop that now!"
Finally, placing authority in his voice and stride, Jonathan walked over to seize Porthos to detain him in the bedroom. As he scooped up the small elderly dog from his underbelly though he froze.
Porthos finally settled, content that he had alerted his alpha to the spot of intrusion. Jonathan fell to a crouch and with tentative nerves put his free hand forward to touch warily on the spot Porthos had hollered at. His fingertips dusted over a dry cross of red blood atop green.
"That's Paul, isn't it?"
Quickly with jerky haste that even startled Porthos Jonathan put his dog down and leapt across the living room to T'Pol's bedroom.
"T'Pol? T'Pol!"
He feared what he thought was every worst possibility, and was greeted by the single one he didn't expect.
"Jonathan?"
She welcomed him with a frown, in mid-stride from the wardrobe to the bed with both a black eye and scorched knuckles across her left hand, neither of which seemed to bother or pain her.
From wardrobe to bed she was transporting a handful of neatly piled bronze robes in her arms, which seemed destined to go into her large suitcase, which sat open and half full on the bed.
"What are you doing?" was the first question he asked but not necessarily the first he wanted to.
Suddenly their eye contact was broken as T'Pol's head tilted down slightly and she carried on to finish packing the robes.
"I have been given my quarters back at the Compound until the hearing is over, and so I have decided that it would be best if I stayed there instead, until I am allowed to return back to Vulcan. I have imposed here long enough and I apologise."
He thought he fancied catching in his sights a trace of clear, fresh tears along the bases of her dull brown eyes, but they were skilfully subdued if they were any.
As she moved to return back to the wardrobe Jonathan stopped her by carefully placing his hand firmly on her shoulder.
"What did he do? What did he say?"
Every lie she had conjured up to cover the visit from Paul evaporated on her tongue from hearing those two tenderly spoken questions of concern. So she found she could only utter a quiet 'nothing' before she moved away from him to collect the numerous cat suits she had donned over the years as her uniform on Enterprise. She knew before she said it that he was anything but convinced.
"So what, did you two have a pleasant conversation over some pecan pie and then you just happened to trip up over a phase pistol that shot back at you across your hand, and then did the classic tripping up over the carpet and hitting your eye against the coffee table trick?"
She threw him a stony look. "Do not be absurd."
"And don't be coy with me T'Pol."
She only paused for another moment, looking into the hazel eyes that almost twinned Paul's before she carried on to pack the cat suites. Abruptly he took them off her and placed them on the bed. He then closed over the suitcase. All actions were carried out almost violently, and almost desperately and painfully.
"Whatever he said, it means nothing. He could never handle my father's death properly, and he needed a vent for his confusion and anger, which ended up being the Vulcans. But you shouldn't listen to anything he says, it means nothing."
She reached behind him and lifted the lid of the case open again.
"It would still be best if I returned to the Compound."
"T'Pol…"
He shut over the case yet again and this time sat in front of it on the bed.
"If you're leaving because of whatever Paul did or said, well you're not. This is as much you're home now as you want it to be, and you're as important to me as Trip or any other good friend is."
He could only guess what he had to appeal to her, what he had to contradict from Paul, but it seemed he guessed rather accurately. She stood in front of him, for once outstripping him in height, and hardly moved or spoke, despite Jonathan's wish for some response to his pleas.
Porthos chose this moment to join them, limping languidly towards his owner who bent down and quickly scooped him up and held him carefully on his lap, posing him almost as bait again, as he had done half jokingly back at the party to reel T'Pol in to come resident with him in the first place.
"And if not for me or yourself then maybe for him? I think he needs a woman in his life, some structure in the household."
Porthos surrendered his cone clad neck onto the crook of Jonathan's arm and sighed heavily as he relaxed and settled in the warm hold. Jonathan smiled weakly.
"I hardly know if I am safe from your family."
Jonathan's smile strengthened by some small fraction, although inside he pained heavily to hear that. "As soon as I've sorted them out you will be. I always figured you could handle yourself fine anyway. You got rid of Paul, didn't you?"
She ran her right hand over her burnt left one carefully and Jonathan moved Porthos onto the bed to stand in front of her, as his attention was drawn back to what had alerted his concerns. For a moment he was distracted from begging her to stay with him.
"Let me see."
Quickly she hid her hand from his sights behind her other. "I don't know if that's entirely wise, as the last time you insisted on helping my injuries heal, it led to unfortunate consequences."
An unsure smile crept over his lips, uncertain of whether to smile at an attempt at humour or a blatant, shameless insult by the Vulcan.
"Nothing touches it but my own hands, I promise."
Understandably she remained reluctant and wary and kept her burns from sight, so instead he took a determined step forward and ran his hand under her chin, tipping her head slightly to the ceiling.
"He really socked you one." A low sigh sped out over Jonathan's lips. "I'm sorry."
She pulled back, unwilling to be seen so close to, and ran her fingertips over the lid of the suitcase slowly. "There is no need for you to apologise, you were not the one who provoked his actions, or carried them out."
The lid was tipped open again and she moved a collection of neatly folded airy cotton tops from the bed into the case beside her robes.
"The hearing is in two days, Admiral Forrest phoned to inform me. It will take place in the Compound at noon, it only makes sense that I stay there until I am needed to plea my case."
He almost growled as his dark brow dropped sharply in a frustrated frown. "And I'd let you go if I knew that was the real reason you were leaving, but it's not. I've changed T'Pol; you of all people should know that. My family are wrong about the Vulcans, and I was wrong with them, but I know better now. I'm not saying I'm a fan, but I respect you, and your race, and to hell now with what Paul or Richard or Edwyn think. I know my dad would have moved on by now, and he would have liked you."
She managed to latch onto his eyes for a brief moment with her own on the last comment, before she broke the contact again and stood almost uncomfortably now, looking almost guiltily at the suitcase.
"The High Command would also rather I was at the Compound, to keep me under close surveillance. Soval at least has suggested such pledges."
"Soval also suggested you go back to Vulcan instead of coming with the Enterprise into the Expanse. I don't remember you bending to his whim then."
Very nearly Jonathan smiled again, a dark twist of the lips it would have been, but he kept the expression locked and titled his head carefully to one side, ducking a little so that maybe he could catch T'Pol's eye again.
She was thinking, furiously, although he knew she was keen on only one possibility, even if he were to boast that the answer was she wanted to stay with him.
"I would have to cancel the reservations for my quarters."
"Easily done."
"And it will not bode will with Soval or any of my previous superiors if I declare I am keeping residency here."
"I'd be surprised if it did."
"Yet I don't believe they can force me by any law to stay there."
Finally the grin with the twist of dark, petty triumph crossed his lips. "Want me to phone Forrest?"
She leant over the bed again and tipped the lid of the case shut. "That's alright. I think it would be best if Soval heard from myself that I have no intention of following his 'whims' until the hearing, and wish instead to fraternise with a race he in turn is not too wholly keen on."