Lorian Tucker looked around at the room of people that surrounded him. He hadn't been back on Earth in more than thirty years, since his sister's graduation. He didn't even recognize most of the people in the Starfleet meeting hall he was standing in. Then a tall brunette caught his eye.
"Lorian," he heard a voice say, and all of a sudden he was wrapped up in his sister's arms. No one in the universe got away with hugging him except his ko'kai. Their relationship was wholly unique.
"Where's Ko'Mehk?" he asked his sister.
"Talking with Admiral Rawlings."
"How is she?"
"I don't know. Quiet. I've never seen her like this."
"Can you blame her?" Elizabeth slowly shook her head.
"How are you?" she quietly asked her brother.
"As well as expected," he replied. They had rarely seen each other as of late, having fallen into the same pattern their father and aunt had set almost three quarters of a century ago. They were close, yes, but light years between them and busy schedules had pulled them apart. Their father had often warned them about not keeping up their relationship – a day might come when it would be too late to fix things. They might not always be there. They now understood their father's concern. They had suffered a loss, all right, but neither one of them was the one being mourned.
Lorian and Elizabeth slowly approached their mother. Neither one had ever associated the word 'fragile' with T'Pol, but that day it was popping up in both of their minds. She was several shades paler than normal, and as she stood amongst the Starfleet admiral and captains that were expressing their condolences, she looked like the porcelain doll that Trip had once given Elizabeth as a birthday present.
"Admiral, Captains," Elizabeth addressed the men.
"Lieutenant," they all returned. "Your father was a good man." She nodded.
"We know." The men moved on, and what remained of the Tucker family was left in solitude by the window, overlooking San Francisco.
"You should get some rest, Ko'Mehk," Elizabeth told her mother, taking her hand. "You've been talking to officers all morning." T'Pol's eyes did not meet her daughter's.
"Your father worked with many people."
"Are you hungry, Ko'Mehk?" Lorian tried. "I could get something for you to eat."
"I am fine," she told her children starkly, and did not miss it when they both flinched. She turned to them, her expression a bit softer. "I have always known that your father would go first."
"I think I just saw Aiko come in," Elizabeth told her mother. "I'll be right back."
The best friends immediately hugged upon reaching each other. "How are you holding up?" Aiko asked.
"I…I'm not entirely sure," Elizabeth admitted. "I'm not sure if it's sunk in yet, really." Aiko knew what she was going through; she'd lost both of her parents a few years earlier. Elizabeth knew she was lucky to have had some extra time with her father – he'd lived to be 106. She also knew she hadn't made the most of that time…
The two women made an odd pair, but they were both used to it. In age, Aiko was actually a year younger, but in appearance she could have been Elizabeth's mother. They were both in their late sixties, but Elizabeth only appeared to be about thirty. She and Lorian had been blessed – or cursed – with their mother's lifespan. Aiko actually looked older than her best friend's mother.
"How's your mom?" she asked, and Elizabeth looked back to where T'Pol and Lorian were still standing by the window. They'd always been more alike, while Elizabeth had taken after her father. She wasn't entirely sure what to do for her Ko'Mehk now.
"I don't know…" she truthfully told Aiko.
San Francisco was a nice city; Elizabeth had lived there for a few years when she attended the Academy. Lorian had never spent more than a month or so on Earth; he'd graduated from the Vulcan Science Academy, but he hadn't stayed on his second home world, either. He'd taken a position on a science station like the one he'd grown up on, while Elizabeth had gotten an assignment at the Utopia Prime shipbuilding facility. She was still uncomfortable with both of her home worlds, as well. However, they had an uncanny knack for making each other feel at home anywhere.
"Here," Lorian told his sister as he offered her a mug of tea. She looked away from the window she was standing at in the quarters Starfleet had put them in.
"Where's Ko'Mehk?"
"Meditating." Elizabeth nodded.
"Good."
"What happens now?" Lorian asked after a long moment of silence.
"I don't know."
"I am concerned for Ko'Mehk."
"I know. So am I."
"Perhaps I should take her back to Vulcan."
"You really think she'd go?"
"I don't know. Do you think she would go home?"
"No." Their parents had bought some land in the southeastern United States; they'd lived there, mostly in seclusion, for the last decade of Trip's life. Elizabeth had accompanied her mother on the shuttle-pod flight from there to San Francisco, and when they had left the house, it had seemed very final.
"We cannot leave her alone."
"I know."
"Then what should we do?" Elizabeth didn't have an answer for her brother.
"There is somewhere that I would like to go," a voice said behind them, and they both spun to see T'Pol.
"Where?" Elizabeth asked.
"Florida."
A week later they were on the other side of the country. T'Pol had said little about the point of the journey, but they all knew the significance of the location. In the years since the Xindi attack, the state had recovered to some degree. Parts of the chasm that had been cut into the earth had been filled, and new communities had sprung up from the destruction. But the hole was still visible from space, and the events of the past would never completely be forgotten. There was a memorial dedicated to the 7 million people who had lost their lives for doing nothing more than living, and that was where T'Pol brought her children.
They didn't speak; they didn't need to. Anything that could have been said was already running through everyone's minds. They just stood, and looked, and thought.
After about an hour, Elizabeth looked up at her mother and realized she looked even sicklier than she had that morning. They'd noticed the sharp decline in her health since Trip's death, though T'Pol had adamantly refused medical attention. "Ko'Mehk, you should rest."
"I am fine."
"No, you're not," Lorian persisted. "We're taking you back to the hotel."
Elizabeth was acutely aware that the roles had been completely reversed as she and her brother got their mother to bed. While Lorian went to make some tea, the two women sat together. "Why did you want to come here?" Elizabeth asked.
"This is where everything changed. Your father and I, our lives would never be the same after the attack."
"You helped him through it," Elizabeth agreed. "You let each other in."
"In the face of great loss," T'Pol told her daughter, "May lie the only time you can see all that you have before you." Elizabeth took her hand.
"You still have us, Ko'Mehk. Lorian and I, we're going to take care of you. We're still a family."
"You were nearly an only child," T'Pol revealed. "But your father did not want you to be alone."
"Daddy always said that Lorian was the only friend I had that I couldn't ever get rid of."
"You take care of each other."
"We will, Ko'Mehk. We'll all take care of each other. That's what a family does, right?" Elizabeth's small smile brightened when her mother returned it. "What would you like to do tomorrow?"
"I am uncertain."
"We can talk over breakfast in the morning. You should get some rest now." Elizabeth kissed her mother's cheek. "Good night, Ko'Mehk. I love you."
"I love you, too, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth ran into Lorian in the hall. "Is she asleep?" he asked his sister.
"If not, she will be soon."
"Did you ask why we are here?"
"To get some perspective…I think she'll be better in the morning. She seems to be getting some peace." Lorian nodded.
"You still want your tea?"
"Yeah."
The closeness that Elizabeth and Lorian had shared as children was still there, though it had been buried deep. That night, they unearthed it, and stayed together on the balcony of their hotel room, talking about everything and anything until the sun's light began to peek over the horizon. Elizabeth checked the chrono.
"We probably should get a little bit of sleep," she told her little brother. He waved her on inside.
"You go on," he told her. "I'm fine." Elizabeth nodded and headed back into their suite. Her mind was too active for sleep to come easy, and after an hour or so of tossing and turning, she finally got back up. She could hear Lorian making breakfast, and so went to see if her mother was awake yet.
"Ko'Mehk?" she asked as she lightly rapped on the door. She didn't receive a response, and so tapped the control pad to open the door. "Ko'Mehk?"
T'Pol was still asleep in bed, and Elizabeth smiled as she knelt beside her. "Ko'Mehk, do you want breakfast?" she asked as she gently shook her shoulder. She froze, however, when she realized how cold her mother felt. "Ko'Mehk?" she whispered, the word barely making it out of her throat.
T'Pol could not hear her daughter calling her name, for she was no longer in the hotel room, or even in Florida, or on Earth. She was back onboard the Enterprise NX-01, back in the corridor outside her quarters. The door opened, and she walked inside.
"Look who's home!" she heard a very familiar southern drawl say. Trip grinned as his eight-year-old daughter and two-year-old son ran for their mother, wrapping their arms around her.
"See the tree, Ko'Mehk?" Elizabeth asked, pointing to the makeshift Christmas tree that was in the corner.
"Daddy did it!" Lorian announced. Trip smiled as he stepped over to her, and held a small bit of a plant over her head – mistletoe.
"Merry Christmas, darlin'," he told her as he leaned over to kiss her.
It was the most perfect day she'd ever lived though, and she'd get to live it again for the rest of eternity. As Elizabeth sat at her mother's bedside, she knew that the story her mother had told about bond mates not being able to live without each other wasn't just a story.
"Sleep well, Ko'Mehk," she whispered. "We'll be okay."