Disclaimer: I do not own the Enterprise characters. I do not make any money doing this.

A/N: Exploded Pen, this one's for you.

Chapter 7: The Talk

When we get home, there's a car sitting at the curb. Jon looks at it and groans. "Oh, God… I was afraid of this."

"What?" I see Daddy's eyes have gone to the step where a short, blonde lady is standing up. She begins running toward our car, and Daddy grins. "Nicci."

"Closer to Nitti, I'd say." Jon mutters. I don't know what he means by this, but it sounds like an insult.

The lady gets to the car and begins pounding on the window. I can see now that she's not totally blonde – there's lots of colours mixed into her hair. Daddy rolls down the window and the lady leans in and gives him a big hug. "Hey, Squirrel." Daddy hugs her back. In the mirror I see Jon rolling his eyes.

I tap Daddy on the shoulder to get his attention. "Squirrel?" It seems like a strange name, especially since I have learned recently that squirrels are small rodents.

Daddy laughs. "It's a nickname, punk. Like Ivy."

"Or Trip." The lady says. She slaps Daddy in the back of the head. "Why didn't you say you were coming back? You could've stayed with us instead of this stiff…"

"Yeah, I'm sure that would have done wonders for his mental state," Jon interrupts her.

"Hey, don't you two start." Daddy bats at both of them, then gets out of the car.

"We're not starting," the lady protests, "we're continuing."

I'm impressed… I never thought of using that one when Lorien and I were fighting.

Daddy gives her a strange look, then pulls her into a headlock. They begin mock fighting on the sidewalk, even though Daddy's a very bad fighter.

"You know it always confused me why she never turns him into SPAM when he does that." A voice beside Jon's window makes both of us jump. A dark haired man crouches next to the car – he's either crouching or he's very, very short. He has a strange way of speaking, too… different than Daddy, or Jon.

"There is no explanation for those two." Jon answers back. He extends a hand through the window. "Good to see you again, Malcolm. It looks like you're surviving the Terror rather well."

Malcolm shrugs, but a smile appears on his face. "She's mellowed. And they're not so bad when they're apart, you know."

"Yeah, but together, they're a force dangerous to society." Jon says darkly. Malcolm laughs.

"By the way," Jon twists in his seat to look at me, "Malcolm, this is Ivy. Ivy, this is Malcolm."

Malcolm puts his hand in the window, but he looks uncertain. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ivy."

I shake his hand. I know he can tell I'm at least part Vulcan, and most Vulcans do avoid personal contact. Maybe it's because touching and feeling are alike somehow… I don't know. But humans shake hands for a greeting, and I'm part human as well. It's another thing Mother had problems with. Daddy says I'm a 'tactile person' which he said means I like to feel things. Malcolm's grip is very strong, even though he's trying to be careful. It doesn't match his face at all.

I look over again, and Daddy and the lady have disappeared. I tug on Jon's sleeve to let him know that they're gone.

"Uh-oh." Jon nearly knocks Malcolm over as he throws the door open. "They're gone. God only knows what they're up to. And I'm not certain He's sure." He scrambles out of the car and they take off at a jog towards the house. I follow after them, because I want to find Daddy. Jon races inside, then I hear him yelling.

"Put down the tools, and back away from the garage door opener."

"But Jon..." I can hear Daddy protesting.

"I don't care that it's broken... the two of you are not going to fix it."

"So, correct me if I'm wrong," This time it's the lady's voice. "But what you're saying is that you'll trust us with an anti-matter reactor, but you won't allow us to work on a simple piece of electronic equipment."

"That's because I want it to stay a simple piece of electronic equipment." I walk in to find Jon confiscating the tools from Daddy. "I don't want it to be turbo-charged, ultra-interactive and with fifteen types of back-up power and an entertainment system. I want it to open the garage door."

"We can do that, if that's what you really want." Daddy snorts with laughter as the lady replies to Jon.

"I'd rather you didn't. I'll call a professional."

"Jon," Daddy sounds insulted. "Both of us are highly certified warp field and orbital engineers. We are professionals."

"Professionals at destruction," Jon mutters.

"Erm…" This time it's Malcolm who responds. "That would be my profession… please don't insult it by bringing those two into it."

Suddenly I think that 'Squirrel' is a good name for this lady – because she is a rodent. Not only has she gotten Daddy into trouble, but he seems completely unaware that I'm here. He hasn't even taken the time to properly introduce me, and even Jon knew to do that. I turn and walk back into the house, slamming the door behind me.

"I think somebody's a little upset." It's the squirrel talking, and she sounds like she's laughing. I decide I need to leave before I do something bad. I go up into the attic – mostly because Jon has said it's a place I'm not supposed to go, because it might be dangerous. I don't think they'll look for me there, and I don't want to have to sit and pretend to be nice to that person.

"Ivy!" I hear Daddy calling for me, but I pretend not to. Instead I start exploring the attic. There's a lot of old furniture up here, and spiders. Daddy might not like spiders, but I do. Right now they seem like good company. I find a rug piled up and tossed in the corner, and drape it over some of the furniture to give me a place to hide if they do decide to look for me up here – Jon might just decide to look after all.

There's interesting things up here, including some old pictures of Mother and Daddy and Jon. There's even some of Malcolm – there's pictures of people I've never met. There's some pictures of the rodent, too. I think about destroying them, but instead I stuff them down in a corner behind some junk – mostly because Daddy's in them too, and while I'm mad at him, I won't wreck him. Then I spend some time looking at the rest of the pictures. Daddy looks happy in most of them, even the ones where he's with Mother. Again I wonder if it would have been different if I hadn't come along. If I had never been born. After all, Daddy was happy again today, especially when he didn't notice I was there. I wonder if I could stay up here forever and if anyone would come to look. I find some cushions and put them on the floor in my hiding place. Some dust puffs out of them and makes me sneeze. But it's my space now, a place that's all my own.

After a long time, I hear the car drive away. I'm hungry now, so I come downstairs and find Daddy waiting for me in the kitchen.

"Where were you, punk?" He's wearing his 'Father' look, the one that he gets when he's only a bit angry with me.

I shrug, and his face gets angrier. "Don't just shrug. You were very rude today, Ivy."

"So?" I shrug again. As far as I'm concerned it was the rodent that was rude, not me. She was the one laughing at people.

"Not 'so.' You know better than that, Ivy. I'm very disappointed in you."

"I'm disappointed in you, too," I tell him. "You were rude to me."

"Nic is one of Daddy's oldest friends. I've known her longer even than I've known Jon. You could have at least said hello before you went storming off."

"I didn't want to. I don't like her."

"You don't even know her, Ivy." Daddy sounds frustrated.

"I still don't like her. And you can't make me. She's a bitch."

"Ivy!" Daddy snaps. "You apologise right now!"

"No!" I'm allowed my opinion. "I won't."

"Charley Elizabeth T'Mir Tucker, you apologise right now! Now you've been told that sort of language is unacceptable, and you will not talk that way about people."

"I won't. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her." Daddy reaches out to grab my hands and I hit him across the face. He barely has time to look surprised before Jon comes up behind me and scoops me up. He carries me to the room Daddy and I are staying in and places me inside. Then he walks out and pulls the door shut behind him.

I try to open the door, but he must be holding it, because I can't make it budge. I begin to pound on it with my fists and kick it, but he doesn't let go.

"Jon," I hear Daddy outside, protesting.

"I don't want to hear it, Trip." Jon sounds very angry, but very calm at the same time.

I pick up a vase from one of the tables and throw it against the door. It breaks into dozens of pieces, making lots of noise. I begin breaking other things, but he doesn't come in to stop me.

"Jon, she's going to hurt herself." Daddy sounds worried now, almost in a panic.

"Then let her hurt herself. It's a lesson she needs to learn."

I resume pounding on the door, even throwing my body against it.

"Jon, that's..."

Jon's voice doesn't change. "There's another bedroom down the hall. If you want to throw your own temper tantrum, you can do it there. And put some ice on that. It's going to bruise."

I hear Daddy stomping away, but Jon still won't open the door. After a while I can't do it any more. I lie down on the floor, exhausted. Only then does Jon open the door; I'm too tired to move, so he has to push me out of the way a bit. He comes in and sits down on the floor beside me.

"Have you calmed down now?"

I nod. Jon's been learning some words every day, but he still doesn't know much.

"Good. I don't want to have to do that again. Now go to bed... you've got school in the morning. And don't cut yourself on that glass." He stands up and leaves, and I lie there thinking about what he just said. He didn't yell at me like Daddy would, or lecture me like Mother. He's given me nothing to fight against – once again he has simply informed me of the way things are and we can have no argument. He hasn't even said I was bad. I've got nothing to cling to, nothing to hate or be angry with. I haven't even managed to get a real reaction from him. Jon has taught me what my engineer father and scientist mother could not: the concept of wasted energy.