A.N
Note to self: probably shouldn't leave story hanging for a fortnight again. At least I know what American weather is like now. You have a very (very) hot sun. Shall keep that in mind for future references to San Francisco weather anyway.
No, I didn't think Paul would be a very popular character, or the other Archers in general. But it seems that you forget most all families have at least two sides, and I've only toyed about with the father's side so far… (A really big hint for the upcoming chapter there).
I knew Aldon would be much liked though –smile–
As for Paul's accent. Well I never had an accent in mind for him, it's just meant really to be a conveying of his loose tongue, to hint the slight edge of madness in him. I wouldn't say it was Scottish though, Southern I suppose, if anything, a slight Southern twang.
And it's nice when people quote specific pieces of the story, I don't know why but I like it, so thanks Karen Elizabeth, for the few times you've done that now.
(Be warned, this chapter has somewhat of a weak ending to it).
. . . . . . .
-Two Years Ago-
The Cargo Bay still clung somewhat desperately to the putrid scents of charred skin, of twisted and violated metal, of foreign, poisoned blood and most prominently fear.
They had found the shuttlepod in a dire, wholly wretched state. It was no more than a discarded lump of metal drifting in an unoccupied region of space, where the nearest inhabited planet would take a lifetime for the crew of three who had been abandoned on this shuttlepod to reach.
They hadn't had a lifetime to spare though, before the Enterprise had come across their presence. They'd had mere days. Torturous days that were designed for their weary, bruised eyes to watch as the life support slowly drain away with their will, their fight and their desire and spirit to carry on.
So it was entirely fortunate that the Enterprise had found them.
"Life signs?"
Captain Archer turned to his Science Officer who expressed one of her subtle flickers of doubt across the tongue as she reported. "Three sir, all… Andorians, with weak bio signs."
Briskly, not daring to show even a mocking trace of his own surprise he nodded and turned to his Helms Officer. "Deploy the grappler and bring it in." Communication seemed not to be on his mind right now. "Lieutenant, Sub Commander."
He need only glance briefly at the two to reel them forward at his heal.
At the doorway to the Cargo Bay the Captain paused. His two officers neither said a thing nor prompted him to carry on forward quickly through the doors.
He didn't say it, certainly not with T'Pol in his midst, but already he had been persuaded with the mess that he had just witnessed on screen that the Vulcans had something to do with this situation – something rather crucial and absurd.
T'Pol concluded nothing until she had seen the situation, and Malcolm stood poised with his pistol and his hand over the lock. Finally, in the wake of a long, chilled silence Archer nodded for him to open the door.
There was very little that could be read clearly from Shran's face and his battered and shadowed features as the three appeared in the doorway, save a deep, grudging gratitude as he stood up shakily from tumbling out of the crushed door of his pod, and then a hatred that was directed at no one in particular in the room, but burned slow and steady in his sharp, yellow eyes and seemed permanently stained there. His own two officers soon followed him out on their burnt and weak legs and Archer again signalled to Malcolm, this time to call sickbay.
With no hesitation, no mistrust as he once had for Shran, Archer walked up to him, leaving T'Pol at the door with Malcolm, and offered forth his hand to the Andorian. There might have been a smile across his blue lips, if not for the fact he had just escaped by luck alone a dire and unjust situation.
"Captain." His next words ran through predicted in Archer's mind before he had even the time to drawn the breath to speak them. "We need to talk."
. . . . . . .
One Andorian officer was suffering the daunting turmoil of internal bleeding. He remained bound in sickbay, protests and complaints aside, and the remaining one of Shran's men, one who miraculously donned only scrapes and burn, stood at his side in the conference room with the Captain and the Vulcan, who were ready to listen to what he had to tell them.
"It seems the debt lies back in my court Captain. I owe you my life several times over for this one I believe."
A weak, genuine smile graced Archer's sombre face in a wavering curl of his pale lips. "When I need it I'll call it up."
Shran nodded slowly, failing to smile himself but understanding the dry humour the Captain was quirking at. He then leant over the icy cold surface of the conference table and levelled his stony gaze with the First Officer who sat to the Captain's right.
"You Vulcans can cause a lot more problems and grief that you're aware of."
As T'Pol kept a stern silence in her throat and in her calm, dull eyes Archer leant over the table in turn with Shran.
"What happened?"
Briskly Shran sat back up, his nose raised in a tilt of pride as he carefully removed his gaze from T'Pol, who showed no signs of breaking her own solid eye contact until he did.
"There was a whole fleet of us you know. I had a crew of fifty-four, and we three are now all that's left. Rather sad, you must admit."
Archer frowned, staying bent a few inches over the table, his eyes sharp and focused on Shran, but still fully aware of the Sub Commander on his right.
"The Vulcans wouldn't destroy a whole ship and crew."
A harsh smile scarred the lips of Shran as a crude delight flickered over his eyes. "No, no they wouldn't, you're right. They're capable of it, and I wouldn't doubt it in them any time in the future, but no, the Vulcans are not directly to blame for this one."
Those cruel, hurt eyes latched on once again to T'Pol as he stressed the 'directly' and Archer allowed the man to carry on without questioning his cryptic words.
"You know, when you try to convince your own people that maybe, perhaps, there are a few rare individuals who manage to evade the stereotype you have grown to resent so much, you become a very unpopular man."
A little of T'Pol's unfazed expression faltered. Archer's brow deepened, almost to become a permanent feature on his grey shadowed face. These two comments were left to hang in the room and in their minds though as Shran moved into his explanation.
"We, the fifty-four, were send out by our Government for a simple enough task, to carry on our 'peaceful' negotiations with the Vulcans. We decided we would seek out your ship Archer, as you and your Science Officer have… boded us well, I will admit, in the past. The mission hardly remained the secrete it was meant to though."
There was a suffering silence, brought out long and hard as Shran leant languidly back in his chair and ran his fingertips carefully over a deep bloody groove in his forehead. His remaining officer, who sat there more just listening than anything, kept a highly suspicious pair of hot golden eyes locked on T'Pol. She cared little for the extra dose of attention and a few times Archer frowned at him irritably, but neither could bring themselves to chide him.
"There are many who, understandably," he barely made the eye contact again with T'Pol, but it was a flicker of the lids long enough to look accusing, "do not want to see peace made with the Vulcans. Many want to see a war, a fight for justice and ultimately for pride. I have no doubt this idea runs both ways with the Vulcans as well, even if they do not care to admit it."
A tremor ran through the room, a growl seemed almost whispered on the cool, hostile air. Archer turned slowly to T'Pol, who sat back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes scolded.
"We do not wish war with the Andorians."
"No, you do not wish it Sub Commander, but how long has it been since you were back with your own people?"
She allowed him no answer to that.
"Too long I imagine."
Archer was close to taking up a defence for his First Officer but Shran sailed on with his words.
"Anyway. A rebel faction was set up – it was only a matter of time after the news got out that the government was working towards peace with the Vulcans that one would be. They are small, but they are powerful." He shivered as he said it. "They have inside operatives in every possible post imaginable, they have weapons and ships and strong, capable men, as well as good, stable leadership. They are not mindless fighters or morons. They have tact and subtlety, and have taken down tens of Andorians with important status in these peace treaties already."
After a small pause a wave of white-hot bitterness flooded Shran's voice. "One of my own men was an insider. I knew each of my crew as well as I do my own blood family, and yet he missed my attention, and so I emphasises how good their tact is."
Countless questions were raised to Archer's attention. He hardly uttered a heavy breath however until Shran was finished.
"They haven't got a name and each member has their own personal reasons for joining. You are not recruited unless you have been 'affected' by the Vulcans personally. They have veterans and they have children. Orphans, loved ones, the poor, the rich, the respected and the undermined. Their spread of members reaches every class and level of our society. They… put the Imperial Guard to shame, and have done so on several occasions now."
Still Archer and T'Pol said nothing and Shran was free to continue.
"I must admit to you, if they weren't taking out Andorians as well as Vulcans I perhaps wouldn't be so bothered by this faction and its threat. As it is, they took down my entire ship, and almost every member of my crew with it. So I will admit, before it is accused, that things have gotten personal now as well."
Shran was, thereafter content to watch T'Pol's reaction. She gave him nothing however, nothing obvious.
"There's word that they're after the Enterprise now. It's their next predominant target. Their next project, if you like."
All three spun somewhat heavily on the freshly spoken Andorian officer. Slowly Shran dispensed from his face a glower that had flared up over his blond brow as he turned back to the Captain calmly.
"That, I was going to tell you later. But yes, there is the strong possibility that they are coming to dispose of yourself and your Vulcan, Captain. And they will do no less than kill you, I can assure you of that, by whatever means."
Archer had in his time as Captain of the NX-01 received more than an average amount of death threats for a lifetime. But none had ever been spoken of quite so calmly, and none had threatened his First Officer as well.
He stood up. "I'm not entirely sure if I'm hearing this."
T'Pol had been counting the seconds before he would stand up and begin such a speech of doubt and outrage. This time though, she had little to protest in him doing so.
"You're telling me that there's an Andorian Mafia running around space, with a price on T'Pol's and my head, and that you don't even have a name for these people? How are we supposed to defend ourselves against an invisible enemy? Or have you just come to give us the confirmation of our deaths?"
Shran did not stand up for the simple reason that he was suffering from a deep tearing of skin across his pain-ridden knees, but he did scowl with a heated anger as the Captain began to pace back and forth in front of him from across the table.
"You're lucky even to receive this warning! By all rights, if they knew we were still alive, which they will discover sooner or later, we would be killed for having this meeting alone. We have given you a heads up that no one would ever dare risk giving you. And you scorn us for not providing enough information?"
As Archer passed the back of his First Officer's chair again she twisted in her seat and grabbed lightly at one of the tense wrists of the pacing Captain. It was the fact that she made this bodily contact that normal she should would not have considering doing that alone made him stop instantly and lock his gaze questioningly on hers.
"They have done all they can for us. We must take responsibility for our own lives now."
Hearing such a statement pained him. It was too much like receiving a wakeup call by the truth and reality of such a certain and close death, even one he doubted so.
With some flicker of an apologetic gaze Archer turned back to Shran and wearily sat back on the chair opposite of the Andorian.
"Thank you, for your help. We'll see to it that you're home safe again."
. . . . . . .
Nothing ever came of that warning. The Enterprise was never hunted down by a rebel faction of Andorians, and Archer and T'Pol were never killed.
And never had many more than a few days gone by at any one time where Jonathan did not think of what Shran had told him, and if these renegades weren't still to this day tracking their kill.
It was during a cool breezy morning that Jonathan chose for today to contemplate this memory and allow it to haunt him ever so slightly through the quick rising of the sun. He was not a man afraid to admit, at least to himself, when he was afraid.
With great skill he balanced a bowl of cereal on one bony knee, whilst trying now to preoccupy himself from the past after pondering it for an hour or so with the television remote and his thousands of channels. He also kept a keen eye on the clock.
It was late morning, only just shy of noon. He was the only one awake though, as Porthos had grown lazy with his injury and age, and to the very best of his knowledge T'Pol was still asleep as well.
After seven years of failing every morning to beat her to the bridge on the Alpha shift, unless she had good reason to be late, it sat oddly with him that he should be up and awake before her. For now though he would dare to do no more than leave her be.
There was no amount of words that could describe the love Jonathan had for his time off from Starfleet. He was direly wanted back by many factions and superiors there, but he was entitled to a month off before it became compulsory once again for him to reply to a call of duty. And as much as his work had become his life and his pride, there was little that would remove him from his planned schedule of doing little or doing activities only as he pleased for the next month.
An idea had occurred to him on what to do today. It involved the cooperation of T'Pol, and her trust, but he felt it was something that would pay well to do, in light of recent (yesterday's) events.
Today was a mild day, with a sweet scent in the air and a freshness in the winds, and a pale sun with a comforting warmth that seeped through the bare window in the kitchen and living room. He wondered if it wouldn't hurt to take a walk with her as well, if he could convince her suspicious nature that no further harm would come to her intentionally if he took her to a park, or a reserve even.
A door opened quietly and he became – as his muses were forgotten – no longer the only one awake. It seemed it had been this way for a while though. She was fully dressed, and there was no lingering of fatigue in her eyes, or a stiffness in her movements.
"Morning."
She nodded silently back, saying nothing, although he knew she was not being rude, just herself, and made her way into the sun-dashed kitchen without any intention of opening herself to conversation.
She discovered a scattering of crumbs on the worktop as she stood to make her breakfast, the remnants of two slices of toast, and a smear of yellow butter across an abandoned plate, which held a faint, alluring scent of jam on it as well. There was also a brown ring from a mug of coffee, and a splash of pale warm milk beside it.
Slightly to the left of the small, neat mess were smoky scorch marks and at her bare feet a pile of broken and torn tiles. The kitchen, along with T'Pol's eye and knuckles, still bore the scars of Uncle Paul's visit.
"Can I ask you something?"
T'Pol found that she had been staring somewhat aimlessly at the destruction for a few moment, and with a jerk raised her attentions back to Jonathan again, who had turned on the couch 180 degrees to face his guest. There was a quiver of a smile on his lips and in his eyes as well.
"Well, I haven't seen my mum since I came home, and I promised her that the minute we landed I'd go pay her a visit. She sent me a message last night and wants me to come around today, and I was just wondering if you didn't want to join me?"
T'Pol had been reaching for the back corner of a cupboard on the ivory tiled wall that bore all the Vulcan food Jonathan had bought her, but she stopped her hands from taking anything edible as he cautiously asked the question. Slowly she fell from her tiptoes and stood to face the man she owed her current living quarters to.
"Why?"
She said it perhaps a little flatly, and blatantly, but it was only a query, he knew. He found he had developed something of an ear for picking up on the different subtle tones of T'Pol's evenly spoken voice that would often determine her first attitude towards something. It was an ear he knew Hoshi would be envious of.
"Well, it's a two hour drive for a start, to her home, so the company would be nice."
He smiled again, and shaved off the tease that was so desperate to paint the edges of his lips. It took only a few seconds for a more sincere look to settle back in his docile eyes.
"And I'd like you to meet her."
He waited for her doubt and objection, and it came in a familiar raise of her brow, so he stood up and then across the units from T'Pol.
"I'll admit, you haven't met the best side of my family yet, but we're not all bent on hatred over my father's death. At least I can assure you we're not all like my Uncle Paul. My mum handled things a lot better than his brothers did, and she'll only hate you if you're bad to her son."
He fancied he witnessed the fleeting glance of convincement in T'Pol's features.
"Then you had better fail to mention the several times I have operated a Nerve Pinch or a phase pistol on you."
He fancied that as humour, humour as dry as a bone, but at least a fair stab at the human trait and habit.
"What time do you propose we leave?"
He beamed, then spilt a quick glance over his boxer short clad figure, and only then remembered that this was all he donned. The hot crimson blush ran like wild fire from his neck to his nose.
"As soon as you've eaten, and I'm dressed."
. . . . . . .
He was mad, although this was perhaps a grave and insulting understatement. He told himself, assured himself through and through that when he eventually came across her again in the morning after the afternoon they were meant to meet in the gardens, that he would show no leniency in scowling her and making her swell in guilt at never showing up.
He had been so excited, for lack of any better expression that would convey how truly happy and thrilled he was after making the final arrangements with his brother and the Horizon. He had wanted to wait no longer than a few hours before he could tell Hoshi the news, and had barely managed the self-control to sit at peace whilst he had waited for her on a stone bench under a blossoming oak tree. But she never showed.
His quarters had been cast in a harsh, bitter silence in the wake of the morning hours. He sat quietly on his bed as he laid out in front of him rolls of clean white paper and bundles of inky black pens, along with several tens of PADDs he had collected over the years on Enterprise of the star charts of every sector they had ever explored in detail. He planned to copy them out co-ordinate for co-ordinate on paper, the old-fashioned way. It was a way to bide the time, and also to rekindle a long lost but much loved hobby that had begun on the Horizon but seemed to have faded with his years on Enterprise.
To some, most it fact really, drawing out in hand in such detail such precise and large scale maps would have been more a chore than a pastime, a dreaded task that naughty children were made to do at school as punishment, or the unfortunate Ensign in training, when he had no power to argue the job.
But this was Travis's art. He had never had much of an eye for drawing, and never an ear for music or the confidence for drama. But he had the utter skill of attention to detail and patience of time for such an abstract and beautiful trait as penning out star charts.
In time it made him forget. He cruised the hours between nine and eleven simply sketching the basics of one sector, eyeing out the vital co-ordinates and calculating angles and scales. At best this one sector alone, if done well, would take him the duration of a week. He would be gone from Starfleet before a week though, if things were kept well as planned and negotiated.
It was noon before Travis took heed of the time again, and he only took heed of the time because it was at noon that there was a caller at his door.
The pink undertones of his hands bore thick dry blotches of ebony pen ink, and his forefinger on his right hand was heavily indented and slightly red. He flicked his wrist and found it stiff and realised the legs under his torso had slowly died away and his back was straining just to straighten up.
"Just a second."
Although he found great pain in uncurling from the same position he had kept himself tacked up in for close to three hours now, when he took a better look at his work in progress so far he couldn't help but grin slightly in modest pride.
He then blinked furiously to coax his eyes into better focus on the room around him before he leapt over to the door. In all truth he had forgotten about Hoshi.
"Oh…"
There seemed shameless disappointment in his voice as the metal door slid open gracefully and silently and the young face of the linguist greeted him somewhat sheepishly in the airy hallway just outside.
"Good, you're here."
His inky hand rested on the doorframe and he nodded blankly. "Yeah."
She hesitated, a little taken aback by his coldness and abrupt tone, but she shook it off inside her head and carried on.
"I'm so sorry. I meant to turn up, I did, but I lost track of time. You see I met—"
"You lost track of time? That's it? Not even that there was an emergency, or some family business, just… you 'lost track of time'."
She had no hesitation in frowning sharply in the next moment. "Hey. I'm trying to explain here."
"Is there really much to explain?"
He didn't realise it at first, or she, but something of a pent up storm was beginning to brew in his throat, and he was about to release it, despite Hoshi's protests and urge to explain herself.
"It's only me, Travis. Only Ensign Mayweather. Is he worth a few extra minutes of free time in our day to spend with? Probably not. Would it be worth it to ask him what he thought of the movie, or what movie he'd like to see? I doubt it. Is it worth it to keep your appointment with him? Hell no, not if we lose track of time it's not!"
"Travis—"
"No! I found out a long time ago that I don't raise my hopes with other people. Why I thought you'd be any better I don't know. Malcolm thought he had his problems with society; well at least he had Trip. Me, I should never have bothered, should I?"
The door slid shut again, and Hoshi hadn't even the time to open her mouth.
She had never realised, and she had never felt such a swell of guilt. She had never shattered a young man's utter peak of happiness and joy before though.
. . . . . . .
This was the land of the people who had managed even in such a modern lifetime to keep living a life in a part of the country hardly scratched by technology at all. It was a land where the skies were a blue that had never been poisoned by faux grey clouds, and had never lost their wonderfully serene hue, and a place where the grass was natural, not planted and harvested, and the flowers and weeds were as wild as the shifting winds, and the air was sweet and fresh, tainted only by the natural fragrances of the earth itself.
This land held home to only a scattering of small houses, dotted here and there around the bases of magnificent towering mountains and scrawny stone roads. The numbers that lived here were far outnumbered by widespread herds of sheep and cow, that were hardly seen until it was time to gather a stock of milk and wool, and apart from that lived just as any wildly as any other creatures of the land did.
It was the uncombed and unpolished part of America, home to most of the few remaining Native Americans and humble count of people in this vast country. Jonathan Archer's mother was one of these humble people.
Years ago she had married a man of the modern age. And she had been happy with that man, and so more than willing to sacrifice the clean air and peaceful skies of her home for his habitat of amazing machinery and wondrous scientific advances. She had been willing to raise their son in his father's land too, and was happy to watch him grow up as a man of the era.
But when her husband had died, and her son became a man, she just as willingly and happily retreated back to the one place her heart and soul would always call home before anywhere else.
Grace Leon-Archer was a woman of nature, for no better, purer term. Henry Archer had been a man of the future, and despite how terribly these statuses clashed they had been a far better unity of persons than most tragic couples were these days.
She savoured such simple pleasures as drinking untainted water from the rivers, and breathing the air from the trees every day, and waking up to the song of the nightingale in the morning and falling asleep to the call of the crickets at night.
She shared her life with her sister, Stephanie Leon, a woman who had found giving up such a lifestyle for only a man an utterly unattractive and absurd idea, even if she had adored Henry as a brother-in-law.
The two lived in a cottage with a sandy brown brick shell and a beautifully crafted thatch roof, and anyone would be easily forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into the Highlands of Scotland or the Canadian Rockies a few hundred years ago.
It had taken Jonathan and T'Pol no less than two and a half hours to reach this pocket of nature by land-car. T'Pol had made a point that there were far faster modes of transport, and Jonathan in turn had pointed out that there were quicker ways to eat a Mars Bar than to dissect it layer for layer, but she had not understood the metaphoric point.
"Do you get places like this on Vulcan?"
They were driving into the last fifteen minutes of their journey, arguable the most spectacular fifteen minutes where scenery was concerned. Looking out of the window it was simply a sight of incomprehensible masses of sweet green grass dotted with burst of amazing colour, and unspoiled snow tipped mountains of immense height, all on a backdrop of a cloudless indigo sky.
"Such places are not common, no. The atmosphere is mostly too thin to support such a vast amount of vegetation in one place, although we do have what we call zul-kunel in the North, which translates closest as mountains, I believe, such as these ones."
She briefly waved a finger back and forth across the view from the window.
"They are more red in colouration though, and mostly hold acidic hot springs."
Jonathan nodded with a tight smile. "Maybe we can do a bit of rock climbing while we're on Vulcan then."
She slowly turned her eyes away from the scene, and in a husky voice uttered quietly "Unlikely."
Her voice had also flattened in tone very slightly. Although she often did not understand his fair attempts at humour, she was aware of when he was delivering it, and would often choose simply not to replay to such comments as these. It was clear without saying so that she was not keenly looking forward to facing her family, when they eventually were to make their way to Vulcan in a few days time.
"Do you still want me to come?"
The car drove over a small stony bridge, which carried them over a sparkling river of ice-cold, mountain-fresh water.
"Only if you are still willing to join me."
There was little question about this, even if she did glance at him quickly and unsure.
"Of course. I owe you a lot, this is one of the least few things I can do for you to return the favours."
She hadn't time to query on what he 'owed' her, as the car suddenly left the dwindling road of sand and rock and pulled into the roughly paved driveway of Grace and Stephanie Leon's fantastic little cottage in the middle of nowhere.
"Well, this is it."
Porthos, who had been so dormant and peaceful in the back seat for the duration of the trip, was up at the window before the engine had even been cut. He knew this place and its people well, for the few times he had been here, and hadn't a bad memory of it. To him it was a place of beef jerky and geese a plenty to chase – it was the land his ancestors had worked and lived in before his kind had become heavily domesticated into modern life.
You are sure I am not intruding?"
Jonathan almost wanted to hit her. This was not the first time within the two and a half hours that she had asked him this. He could understand why though, and so he only nodded, uttering a definite 'I'm sure' before he released his seatbelt from across his chest and opened the door to step out into a driveway of yellow grass and unkempt weeds.
"Come on, she'll be waiting for us."
Reluctantly, but without hesitation she followed.
Jonathan had not lied. They trailed off the driveway and into a garden on their left, heading towards a little grey path that led up to a stained oak door. There stood a woman, who had opened the door a few seconds before the two had made it to the front door step, to greet them immediately as they made their way to the entrance.
"Jonathan, my boy, come here."
His grin only just missed spliting his face open as he picked up the speed of his stride and walked into the arms of his mother. She slammed her hand into he back of his head first.
"If you tell your mother you're going to see her the day you come back to Earth, then you go to see her the day you come back to Earth."
Although he winced in pain at the surprising power in her arm, Grace hardly stopped smiling herself as she gathered her only child up in a tight embrace thereafter.
"It's good to see you again, Captain."
She was the only one he would not dare chide for that.
T'Pol came up on Jonathan's heal, quiet and reserved and wary to make eye contact, wary really to be standing there at all. Her face was somewhat stern but her eyes were curious now, as they absorbed her surroundings, and she seemed ready to be spoken to, even if she wouldn't be the one to open her throat first.
It did not take long for Grace to take heed of her son's companion. Her smile never faltered.
"And the Captain's First Officer, Sub Commander T'Pol, if I'm not mistaken."
T'Pol was surprised, even if she did not show it and only nodded, telling Grace with the gesture that she was indeed correct. T'Pol then extended her hand.
"I am… pleased to meet you."
She had picked up on many human traits over the years, including their usual greeting rituals. However, seeing as she had already gotten to know at least the people she worked with on a daily basis well enough so that she no longer had to introduce herself when she saw them, T'Pol had never had the opportunity to execute these moves. So now she did.
It surprised Grace herself, in the most pleasant way. She quickly took up T'Pol's hand in a thorough shake and introduced herself in turn.
Porthos made his own pleasantries by throwing his two front paws up to claw lightly at Grace's filthy and faded jeans, only managing to levitated himself on two legs for a few brief seconds however before he lost his strength on his cast and fell back on all fours again. Nonetheless he repeated this process several times.
"Dog, what happened to you?"
Grace scooped the beagle up in one fluid dip and placed him under her arm before throwing a questioning look of scorning blame on her son.
"It's…" he looked briefly back at T'Pol, "a long story."
Grace felt no need to ask any further questions, and instead led the two inside, bringing them down a matted orange hallway and into her living room.
It was a room that held everything. It was a room where bits and pieces and memorabilia would come in through the chipped wooden door and then never leave again. Although it was small there were cabinets and wardrobes and tables full of ornaments and china and photographs and general precious junk. The wallpaper was an extravagant floral pattern and the carpet a patchwork of different shades of brown. It was a busy room, but seeing beyond that it was a warm room, with a calming fragrance and a truly homely feel.
"You two make yourselves at home, I'm gonna feed this one."
She raised Porthos up under her arm slightly and he strained to lick her nose. It was the same every time he came here, he had utter priority and the son and whoever his companions may be were seen to later.
Jonathan turned to T'Pol. No amount of self-control would keep the continuing smile from his face.
"You like homemade biscuits?"
T'Pol glanced at him almost as if he were as mad as his uncle. She looked around the room next, not with distaste, but almost with confusion, as well as a lingering trace of curiosity. She felt a familiarity with the new company she was in, but could not say why.
"I… do not know."
Jonathan dropped down on a worn leather couch, its rapidly fading brown cover creased and ripped in so many places that it had become a thing of sentiment, and too loved and used to throw out, despite its awful condition.
"You have the exact same look on you as Trip did when I first brought him here."
As he had indented with the comment it gave him her full attention back.
"Sit."
He patted the faded cushion next to him in a friendly gesture. Naturally she hesitated.
"If you don't sit before my mum comes back in you'll be helping her make the next batch of coffee."
T'Pol's brow was quipped. He had been waiting for it to rise ever since he had pulled his car into the rugged drive.
"I do not know how to make coffee."
His smile became a grin again. "Well, you're a quick study, you'll be making it with her before you realised the mistake you made of not sitting down."
It took a few more seconds of a persuasive look from his deep hazel eyes before she obeyed, and sat neatly on the edge of the couch. He noticed that this was the same way she sat whenever she was in his chair on the bridge.
There was a rush of blunt claws against lino and Porthos ran through a door at the back of the room that led into the kitchen, then hobbled up to Jonathan through the living room, and only just managed to jump up between him and the Vulcan so as he could lie securely on the couch. T'Pol shifted away slightly from the beagle, but he took hardly any noticed. He received all the attention he needed from his owner.
"Your dog eats too fast Jon, don't you feed him at home?"
Grace came through the door after the little dog, and in her hands was an elaborate silver tray, with hot biscuits and tea.
"You'll have to forgive me dear, I'm not very good with Vulcan cuisine."
T'Pol looked up from watching Jonathan's fingers dance around the backs of Porthos' ears when she realised the 'dear' was she.
"As long as it hasn't got meat in it she'll eat it."
T'Pol looked long and hard at Jonathan. She had never taken well to having others talk for her when she could fine well do so herself. It was a constant habit of Trip's that often forced her to draw looks of authority on him, pointing out to the Commander with her features alone who was the superior and who should be talking for herself.
If Jonathan knew he had trampled on her pride though, the one she forever claimed she did not have, he took no heed of his actions and quickly grabbed a biscuit for himself. His mother continued her focus on T'Pol as she sat down slowly, settling on a far too cushy armchair.
"Now where have I seen you before?"
T'Pol was taken aback by this. Most of this woman, and the sharp contrast of her nature to Paul and Richard's, surprised the former Sub Commander. However most of this woman reminded her of something from the past, an event from when she was so much very younger.
"It couldn't have been in the conference in Detroit thirty years ago now, could it?"
Something was playing up in Grace's eyes, a spark, a tease. Her questions were rhetoric, asked more for T'Pol's memory's sake than her own. Eventually T'Pol saw why, and remembered, and understood the feeling of familiarity.
"Thirty-one years ago, in Detroit. The High Command were asked to attend a talk hosted by a one Henry Archer on his theories of a Warp Four engine efficient enough to power the Starship that Starfleet had already drawn blueprint for, the NX-01. Yes, I remember."
Jonathan's smile faded. The biscuit never made it to his waiting mouth and as it sat on his lap, still held lightly in his hand Porthos lapped it up. His brow dropped so sharply it looked painful and his eyes could not make up their mind whether to focus on his mother or T'Pol.
"I'll admit I was surprised to see such a young Vulcan there. You couldn't have been any older than forty."
"I was thirty-nine."
Grace nodded. "You must have an impressive academic track to have been allowed to attend such an important event so young."
T'Pol shook her head. Jonathan wasn't sure if he had ever seen her shake her head before, when a simple 'no' would have sufficed.
"My father arranged it that I came down to Earth, to experience humans first hand for myself. I did not ask to go, and theoretically I should not have been allowed to go. But I will admit that I found your husband's talks… interesting."
She was unsure if that was the right word but it seemed to please the widow.
"Henry said you were interesting to talk to. A little quite and stubborn, but… unlike the others."
T'Pol made to reply but it seemed Jonathan would no longer not be a part of this conversation.
"You knew my father?"
She turned to him, as if only now remembering he was beside her.
"I could only talk to him briefly, so I would not say that I knew him. I simply questioned him about the long term durability of the engines."
"Questioned?" Grace could not help but step in again with a whopping laughter and a slap on her knee. "You challenged him is what you did my dear. Most of Starfleet were too excited to look for any difficult questions and the High Command were too bored to bother. He loved it though. You really put him on the spot."
Jonathan leant forward on the couch, looking for eye contact with T'Pol who was busy being curious over the burst of laughter from his mother.
"You never told me you knew my father."
She frowned, almost. "I did not know him, I spoke to him once, a long time ago."
"But still… you knew him."
"I knew him by reputation as well as Soval or my father did, but I can assure you I did not know him on any personal level."
Porthos moved his wet nose onto T'Pol's wrist and she pulled back with lightening grace.
"But why did you never say you'd met him?"
Grace sat back on her plush chair almost timidly as she watched the two move to face each other better. If she knew their relationship better though she would have known this was simply a typical conversation for them. Certainly if Trip was here he would have carried on eating biscuits and rolling his eyes.
"Why would I say I had met him? There was never any time that knowing that I had would have been relevant to help the situation."
Jonathan blinked dumbly in silence for a few seconds. He absolutely despised pure Vulcan logic.
"But, you knew my dad…"
It was a weak argument but anything else he could have said would have sounded pathetic and would have been met with a raised brow. He could only appreciate that from her point of view yes there was never any need for her to mention she had met his father.
What she did not understand was that now she had become a link to the part of his past and his heritage he missed, and it was going to become something very hard for her and her logic to understand.
The front door opened. With it the smell of manure was allowed in. Grace got up.
"That'll be your Aunt Stephie then."
Jonathan got up with her. He looked at T'Pol somewhat warily then with a smile.
"Come meet the rest of the family then why don't you. Just, don't shake her hand. She works with that smell."