CHAPTER THREE:

Beneath the Blue.

Harry's P.O.V

Resting on the edge of the, what the doctor, he had to be a doctor, had called the Med-bed, Harry opened her mouth wide and, upon the inhale of a deep breath, flexed her voice box.

"Aaaaaaaah."

The doctor, a peculiar man of ridged mottled skin, kind smiles, and gentle eyes stood before her, little bleeping machine clasped in his speckled hand, and proceeded to laugh merrily.

"Oh no, dear girl. You can close your mouth. I can see into your throat with this."

Holding up his hand he wiggled the cubed device before he aimed the blinking light at her and swept it down her form just as her gaping mouth clamped shut. Harry watched the red lights flicker to green as they went from the crown of her curls down to her very, very blue toes.

"Can you really see into my throat with that?"

The doctor, Phlox he had introduced himself as, hummed as he pressed away at the panel of buttons on the gadget.

"Your venom sacs are adequately healthy if a bit small for someone of your age. Likely due to sustained malnutrition. Not to fear, we'll fix that right up soon with some good grub."

Harry grinned brightly.

"Food sounds really good right now and-… Wait, did you just say venom sacs? I have venom sacs in my neck?!"

Phlox pulled himself away from the beeping screen, matching her startled, wide eyes with a grin of his own.

"All Andorians have a pair of venom sacs situated behind the larynx. Nothing too potent, simply enough to aid in digestion and, well, mark territory, a primordial use now outmoded. I am presuming you have been having trouble keeping down human food?"

Having trouble keeping food down was an understatement.

She was lucky if she didn't end up bent over a toilet bowl, or plant pot, or anywhere really, throwing up her kidneys. Instead of describing her grizzly battle with her gag reflex, Harry merely nodded.

Phlox tapped away some more.

"There's a certain protein bond in human food that reacts violently to the type of venom in an Andorians system. It entirely destroys all nutritional value and causes nausea… Ah… One moment…"

Dashing over to what appeared to be a storage cupboard above a white top surface holding bottles of… Liquid, Harry hoped they were just liquid, Phlox rummaged around inside for a brief moment before pulling his prize free from the murky depths.

A bowl.

A bowl of red flecked white berries.

He came back, holding the bowl out for her to take.

"Andorian pigmy berries. Extremely high in fat and protein like most of their native foods. This should start putting that meat back on your bones and settle that stomach of yours. Here, take one. Have a bite."

Gingerly, she reached out and took one.

The berries were firm between her fingers, as hard as apple rinds but pitted like an orange peel.

She popped it into her mouth and bit down and-

And tasted heaven.

"It's bloody wonderful!"

Gulping down the berry, Harry reached for a handful only to have the bowl itself given over by a chuckling Phlox.

"There's plenty more where that came from. Help yourself."

Chewing down a mouthful, Harry had not realized just how hungry she had been, just how close to starvation, she sucked her thumb clean of juice with a pop before she dared ask the question that had been swimming about her mind since she had been rushed to the med-bay.

"Is she okay?"

Phlox peered up from the computer terminal at the bed's side, raising one of his impressively prominent eyebrows.

"She?"

Harry nodded over to the large doors at the far edge of the room.

The very same ones she had been rushed through not too long ago.

Beyond the hallways, in the room she had first appeared in, dizzy and dazed, where chaos had erupted.

She couldn't remember much of what had transpired after she had taken off her mask and goggles. Most likely because she had taken a single step forward and then promptly passed the fuck out, face planting the floor, according to the doctor before her who had, of course, used more polite language.

Not the best of introductions, Harry would admit, but for time and special hopping so far, while, she would admit now, being so close to deaths door, it was evidently the best, and only, thing she could have done.

"The woman who was shot at? I did move her out of the way in time, didn't I?"

Phlox, once more, smiled at her.

"She's perfectly fine. Not a hair out of place. You were very brave."

Harry scoffed.

"Most would say I'm very stupid."

Phlox waved a dismissive hand at her.

"I find most people extremely dull and small minded."

Turning back to face her, Phlox slipped a small metal band around her wrist, clicking the lock in place.

Harry eyed the device.

"What's that?"

Phlox pressed a button on the face of the bracelet, and Harry felt a cold wash of chill ripple through her skin, seeping into her muscles, down to her aching bones. Immediately, she sagged, slumping, drawing out a long dying sigh of relief.

She had forgotten what it had felt like to not be on fire.

Phlox patted her hand tenderly as if he knew exactly what she was feeling.

"Temperature regulator. You're passing extremely hot for an Andorian. Young Andorians can't handle high temperatures for too long and often have to wear this on off world expeditions well into their thirties. It's surprising you've survived this long with that fever you've been running. You, dear girl, are lucky not to be dead. No taking this off, not unless you're on Andoria, alright?"

Harry met the kind eyes of the doctor.

"Andoria, that's where…"

He nodded.

"Andorians are from, yes."

She dared another question, half afraid of the answer, half something else entirely.

"And I'm…"

Phlox smiled warmly.

"An Andorian, yes. Surprisingly, you have very little human DNA left. A few rogue gnomes, a spleen… Oh, and those eyes are definitely human."

Andorian.

Harry was a… Andorian.

A name.

A name she now had.

And a place. Andoria. And there were more people like her right here, that woman she had pulled out of the way of the flashy gun, she had been blue, hadn't she?

And the other one in the room had been too.

They had antennae.

And white hair.

And-

And she had other names she needed to find. A Shran, and a Talas, and a Thrass.

Now that she wasn't dying, there was so much to do, so much to see… So much to find.

And then the doctor's words caught up to her, and Harry found herself, instead, none of these names but frowning deeply.

"How do you know I'm part human?"

The doctor batted back.

"Because your father has told us. Lily was your mother, correct? A human woman. Rather fascinating case study in xenobiology if I do say so. The possibilities are endless. The fertility crisis Andoria is facing could conceivably be rectified if we analyse-"

The bowl of fruit was knocked over as Harry surged from the bed, bare feet plodding on gleaming floor.

"My father… He's here? So this is the Kumari? I made it?"

Phlox shook his head.

"No, the Kumari exploded three cycles back. This is the human vessel Enterprise under Captain Archer."

The news came like a blow right to the sternum, hitting Harry with so much force she stumbled back into the bed at her hip.

"What? I, he-… She-"

Phlox floundered.

"Oh, dear, sorry, no! Your parents are fine. They're aboard our ship. We have the wreckage of the Kumari, as much as was salvageable, locked in our cargo hold. Which, if what Shran has told us of your… Kind is true, is likely why you ended up here and not out in deep space."

Your… Kind.

They knew what she was.

Magic.

They must have.

Shran must have known about her mother too.

That was, she supposed, one less hurdle to cross when the time came.

"They're here? My… Parents, they're really… Here?"

The doors to the Med-bay swooshed open.

A lone man stood at the crux, human, tall, dressed in blue, hands folded behind his back. He smiled towards the doctor.

"Doctor Phlox?"

Phlox bowed his head in greeting.

"Captain."

"Any quarantine issues?"

"None. No pesky diseases, infections or poisons to be found. She's healthy in that respect. Although, I will be writing up a strict dietary plan for her to follow. She is severely malnourished and underweight, and the fever she has been under has done some internal damage to her organs. Easily rectified, luckily, but it will be a long road to full recovery for her."

Only upon the news of having no nasty illnesses did the Captain, who must have been this aforementioned Archer, come through the Med-bay doors which resolutely closed behind him.

"She has some eager visitors awaiting, but first I would like a quick word. Do you mind giving us some privacy?"

The doctor gave her one last tender pat on the shoulder before he left, leaving her and the Captain alone in the Med-bay.

Archer's P.O.V

Making his way closer to the Andorian, Archer bought himself some time by languidly running his hand across the end of the med-bed.

This wasn't going to be an easy conversation to have.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

The girl was quick to reply, quicker still to keep her front facing him directly. Weary.

Good.

She had some sense, then.

At Archer's blank stare, she sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck.

"I mean… I don't feel like someone's taken a blender to my insides and lit a fire beneath my skin. That's better, right?"

Archer nodded as he came to a stop at the end of the med-bed, only a few feet away from the girl. Enough space to give her some comfort, to make her feel less… Boxed in.

Close enough, however, to get a good look at her.

She was… oddly human, beneath the blue. Dimples, lashes, even a few freckles, white speckles displaced in the cerulean.

It wasn't lost on Archer what her mere presence here meant.

Time travel.

People capable of atomic manipulation.

Damn… This was possible the first, and known only human hybrid in the galaxy.

The things Shran had told him when-

"You've been unconscious for the last five days. Phlox wasn't sure you were going to wake up in the beginning."

The girl shuffled uneasily.

"I thought it had only been a few hours."

Archer leant against the bed at his hip.

"You were very close to death. How did you survive before?"

The girl laughed, light and airy and dry.

"I wasn't… I wasn't always… Blue."

Right.

Yes.

Quite normal.

Everything that had happened in the last hundred odd hours upon his ship had been perfectly darn normal.

And his name wasn't Archer.

"You've come a long way. Why?"

For a moment, the girl didn't answer, only stared at him. She must have found something satisfactory within his features, nonetheless, as she finally cracked.

"You said it yourself. I was dying. My friends tried to help. They tried everything. Nothing worked. I… Stumbled across my mother's things and… There was a photo and-… It's a long story."

Archer nodded.

"You're mother time travelled and found herself upon a Andorian ship, where, eventually, she fell in love and became pregnant, only to seemingly die in an axillary explosion. I'm assuming she did not die, but accidently travelled back to her original time where she went on to have you, and… Here we are."

The girl swept her gaze along him suspiciously.

"You appear to know more than me, Captain."

Archer sighed and rolled his neck.

"Your father is aboard my ship. When I managed to pry him and your mother from your bedside for a brief moment he told me all he knew."

The girl's hand tightened on the edge of the med-bed frame.

"You've met him?"

Archer nodded.

"What's he like?"

Archer couldn't help it.

He laughed.

He laughed hard.

"He's a stubborn, brash, enraged maniac on the best of days, and a down right pain in my ass-"

Remembering just who he was speaking to, and knowing how hard all this must be, how… Confusing, maddening, frightening, Archer cut himself off. Instead, he met the girl's gaze from across the way, and smiled as softly as he could.

"And when I say I had to pry him from your bedside, I mean pry. Your mother too."

The girl wrapped her arms around her chest. Not guarded. Not hostile… But as if she was trying to hold herself together.

"I... I'll be honest with you Captain Archer. I'm lost."

Her gaze flickered up to the ceiling, as if the lights sparkling overhead could give her answers.

"I think I've been lost for a while. Maybe for a long while. Perhaps since the very beginning. I've always been… Different. I never really fitted in. Not even when I found people like me and went to Hog-… I never really… Fit. I… Coming here, now, leaving my friends… That choice didn't come easy for me, and yet…"

"Yet you took it."

She rolled her lip between her teeth, worried the flesh, let her gaze plummet back to the floor.

"I didn't mean to cause you or your people any trouble. I didn't mean to scare anyone or-… I'm… I'm lost and I'm just trying to find my way home."

Archer pulled away from the bed.

"Do you regret it? Leaving everything behind?"

"Regret? No. My friends-… I'll see them again one day. I know it."

She left no room for argument in her voice, in her words. It was simply fact to her. She would see them again one day, just as the sun would rise on Earth tomorrow.

She shrugged a pale blue shoulder.

"But the fear of the unknown shouldn't stop one from moving forward in the dark. I… Grew up an orphan. I never really had family, and while my friends are my family and always will be, it's…"

Archer nodded.

"It's never really the same as knowing where you come from, especially when you're blue."

The Andorian smiled at him gently.

"Especially when you're blue and all you've ever seen is pink."

But then she squared her shoulders, cutting a rather impressive figure.

"I'm guessing there's a reason behind this inquiry to my motives?"

Now here came the hard part.

"Protocol would have me directly report this to my Starfleet superiors. Not only are you possibly the only human hybrid in existence, but you are also capable of… Well, things Starfleet would be very much interested in knowing about. One alone would be enough to see your presence demanded back upon Earth where you would be questioned and possibly… Examined. What I have discovered, what Shran has told me of your mother, what you have clearly inherited-"

Archer shook his head, almost dizzy by what little he already knew, and Shran had only given him the barest of bones.

A bone that would see this girl before him in a tug of war between two Rottweilers.

"Starfleet would have no other choice but to see you back on Earth soil. Of course, Shran would have grounds to petition the Andorian Imperial Command on his part. You are more than half Andorian, and once this becomes common knowledge, they too would demand your release into their care. Then, the real fight would start."

At such a tender stage, when Earth and Starfleet were on their fledgling steps out into space, this whole mess couldn't have happened at a worse time.

The girl ran a tired hand down her face.

"I've kicked off a shit storm, basically."

Archer chuckled.

"That's one way of saying it."

He dared closer.

"But it doesn't have to be. I came here today, I wanted to know your motives, see who you are, to make my decision."

She met his eye, apprehensive.

"Decision? And this decision… Have you made it?"

Archer's voice dropped.

"You were never aboard my ship."

The girl frowned at him, but he diligently continued.

"I rescued the crew of the Kumari, but nothing more. The ships logs will show just that. When we meet up with the Andorian vessel coming to pick up the survivors of the crew in a Standard Earth day, our ship will only detail eighteen leaving. If the Andorian vessel happens to pick up nineteen, that will never be verified on our records. And if… If you are ever, ever asked by Starfleet, for one reason or another, if you have met me, or my crew, or seen the Enterprise-"

The girl broke out into a bright grin.

"I never have."

Archer smiled back.

"Bingo."

The girl cocked her head, startling white curls falling into surprisingly green eyes.

Human eyes.

"Why are you doing this for me?"

Why?

Because Archer knew what it was like to feel lost.

He knew what it was like leap into the unknown and hope your feet met soft ground.

Because, god dammit, he knew Shran, liked Shran begrudgingly, liked this strange, strange girl too, and he had seen Shran at her bedside, tired, unwashed, unwilling to look away for one single moment in fear that she would be gone as Phlox did what little he could to bring her temperature down and get nutrients in her, and how could Archer snatch that away?

Talas would snap his neck at any rate long before he could comm back to Starfleet.

No, this was better for all.

Of course, Archer said none of this.

Instead, he settled for something familiar, comfortable.

"Because, and you can tell your father this, Shran now owes me one."

With that, Archer kicked away, strolling for the Med-bay door.

"Captain?"

He glanced over his shoulder. The girl tilted her chin proudly.

"Thank you. And if you ever need anything, just call."

Archer smiled.

"I'll hold you to that. Surprisingly, this hasn't been the strangest thing to happen aboard this ship."

The doors opened with a whoosh.

Archer nodded to the Ensign stationed outside, who turned and marched down the hall.

With one last nod to the girl, the doors closed.

He had not gotten her name.

That was for the best too.

Talas's P.O.V

"I've sent a subwave transmission to Thrass on his science station, level 5 urgency. I did say to meet us on Andoria in a couple of cycles, but he said he would meet us halfway and has managed to dock upon the vessel coming to pick us up. He should be here tomorrow along with the Virlas."

Talas slipped out of the sonic shower, eager to finish and get back to the med-bay. Shran was already washed and in clean clothing by the time she got out the door, leaning against the wall.

She laughed, the lightest she had laughed in… In years.

"What did you tell him to get him to move so fast to cross the quadrant in a single day?"

Shran shrugged and took her towel, dumping the soiled material in the basket the humans had set up in the cleaning quarters.

"Four words. Our daughter has returned."

That would do it.

Perhaps if they managed to-

A knock at the door.

A hesitant voice through the metal.

"Captain Archer sent me to inform you the… Resident in the Med-bay is awake."

The next moment was a blur of motion, a bolt of rushing, as the two scrambled out the door, ignoring the flustered Ensign, and dashing down the hall.

Talas was lucky she had already dressed before leaving the sonic shower.

By the time she had caught up to Shran, who had always been just a little faster than she when he wanted to be, he already had the med-bay door opening.

Talas stumbled, she stopped, she turned, and she stared.

There was only one inhabitant in the med-bay, likely due to the… Secrecy currently needed, the injured crew of the Kumari having been mostly discharged to their own rooms, sitting on the far side of the room, perched on a med-bed with a bowl of-

Pygmy berries, Thrass's favourite, before her, fistful in her hand.

The whole lot went straight into her mouth, cheeks puffing as she chewed delightedly when she caught sight of them at the door.

Hastily she swallowed and frantically wiped the orange juices from her mouth and hands on the back of her bare, blue legs, cheeks flushing indigo in embarrassment, as she struggled to look presentable.

"Sorry, uh… The doctor's just… Popped out. I think he should be back soon if your waiting for-…"

Her stare landed on Talas, white brows pulling down in a frown, green gaze blinking.

"You're the woman who got shot, right? Are you hurt? The doctor said you were fine but-"

She was hopping off the bed, and she was tall. As tall as Talas, perhaps, but lithe-

Thin too.

Too thin.

And older.

So much older, so many years lost, gone, but-

More now, so many more years right before them, and why wasn't Talas moving?

Speaking?

Doing… Something more than just staring?

And then her head was cocking to the side curiously, just as Lily once did when she found something intriguing, and Talas thought she felt her heartbeat jump right into her throat.

"Do I… Do I know you? You look awfully familia-"

She sees Talas now underneath the bright light of the med-bay, where there was nowhere to hide.

She must do.

Better than she did in that room, in the quick glimpse between phaser fire, phaser fire that could have killed her, because her antennae drop in surprise, in shock, against the slope of her forehead, and her face went slack just as the icicles fall in a row and-

"You're them. You're my…"

Finally, finally, Talas found she could move, for once faster than Shran, faster than the speed of light, two steps a stride and a long gate between, and-

And she had her child in her arms, tight, secure, there.

She had her child.

She held tight.

Tighter than necessary.

Tighter than she had ever held anything before, her own antennae patting out to the head on her shoulder, to the antennae on her daughter's head, coiling in greeting, in love, soft and soothing and-

And there.

"You're here… You're here. My girl… My child."

Two arms came up to wrap around her shoulders, voice quiet in her ear, low and weak.

"Harriet. My name's Harriet."

Of course it was.

How could it be anything else?

The very name Lily had chosen so many moons ago, a name Talas had never been able to speak again, but here, now, she could finally say it.

"Harriet. Oh, Harriet-"

She pulled back as far as she dared, only enough to see Harriet's face, with Shran's curls, and Lily's eyes, and her nose, and Thrass's smile.

She cradled that face between her palms like something precious, like one would hold the moon itself.

"Where have you been?"

Harriet smiled, eyes damp.

"I got a little lost."

Lost.

Yes.

They had all been a little lost, each and every one of them. Thrass with his work. Shran with his mountingly dangerous missions. Talas in her cold detachment.

No more.

She pulled the girl back into her arms, and she held her there because she could.

Talas could finally hold her child.

Another pair of arms joined the fray, another head upon a shoulder, another person to embrace and be embraced, one more step to a family returned.

And, for a long, long while, that's all they did.

Hold each other like a family was supposed to do.

Next Chapter: Thrass comes tumbling in, Harriet meets the first person in her pairing, and begins learning what life is like on an Andorian run vessel…

A.N: Ta-da! I know, it's been a while. Life's been sucky lately. Really sucky. Writing this helped cheer me up some, and though I never really get good reviews on a Saturday, I thought to post it now rather than let it linger in the old folder on my desktop. Hope you all liked it!

Thank you for the reviews, favourites and follows, and if you would like to see more, don't forget to drop a review! I always love hearing from you all!