Chapter 6 - The Birthday Party

Authors note: Thanks for your reviews on the last two chapters, especially to BewilderedFemale and ByaSouthernLady, you girls rock! The suggested alternatives are hilarious, btw!

The part of this chapter about Vulcan hands was inspired by 'Love not Included' from BewilderedFemale, go read it, if you like the way Vulcans react... ;)

At this evening Soltek didn't find much calmness in his meditation. He had observed an intense emotional reaction in himself during the incident in sickbay. When Irina had hugged him, he didn't want to let her go again, he had felt a heat rise in himself as her body was pressed against his, he could smell her scent and he had wanted to get closer to her, touch her skin, her hands, feel her telepathically, kiss her...

If his brain hadn't just been scanned after the accident he would have suspected an irregular case of the fever. It was now clear to him why he had had these strange sensations during the last days: He was attracted to Irina.

He knew from his studies in meditation and emotion control that it could happen outside the fever, he had been taught the different stages of attraction and which emotions would stereotypically come up and how to deal with the reactions, but he had never experienced this before.

He had never felt anything like this for T'Punh outside the fever, maybe this reaction was due to her death, because his subconscious knew he needed to find a new mate before his next fever, but he still had 3 years, 7 months and 8 days left and he trusted his parents to find a suitable bond mate from a good family on Vulcan through their connections.

He could bond with Irina though, she wasn't an illogical choice for a mate. She was an intelligent scientist and a brave officer, they worked very well together and she was living at the same place.

His parents would never accept a non-Vulcan, but there were enough logical arguments for this to work out for him.

The only argument against such a bond was that her emotionality might take a toll on his discipline. Now he thought about it he had already displayed such an instability around her, even though he had promised to stay true to the Vulcan way and not be corrupted by the emotional display around him. He had come here to neutrally study other species, possibly learn from their unique perspective on technology and science - not to bond with one of them. But he also knew this kind of emotional complication could as possibly have happened between Vulcans on the T'Kumbra. - Only Vulcans wouldn't constantly disturb his equilibrium with emotional behaviour like hugging...

And while he knew she appreciated him, he didn't know if she would accept him as a mate...

He got entrapped in the pros and contras, but then realized that these thoughts made him more and more emotional instead of calming him down. He should first break down the emotional complex and then look at all these questions and arguments in a logical state of mind.

He took out his Kaltoh board to help himself focus his thoughts. He felt slightly calmer after three hours of concentrated Kaltoh, but decided he needed more time to reflect on and observe the matter before making a decision.

The next 4 days Soltek didn't see Irina much at work except for the mission debriefing. She was back in the astrometrics section working on the sensor data they had collected. His mind had a habit of revisiting his last encounters with her, especially that afternoon in sickbay, when she had hugged him, and he found himself looking forward to lunch breaks when he would often meet her.

During those lunch breaks they talked about work mostly. He had doubled his efforts at meditation, but every time they were eating lunch together he caught himself hoping for a casual touch from her and when she gave him a smile or started to talk about emotional subjects showing her trust in him he was flooded by a warm tingling sensation all over his body. When this happened he had to concentrate very hard to not make a public display of his inner stirrings and he wondered if she suspected anything.

He observed her very closely and found his mind constantly wondering how she felt about him and if she would accept him as a mate. After what he had observed of human behavior he had reasons to think she saw him as a friend like she did with Lt. Tash, but he hadn't yet found any indication that she wished a different kind of relationship with him.

He concluded that she would show him if she was ready for a more intimate relationship, because she always showed her emotions very directly. But she might reject him if he showed his desire and told her of his logical reasons too early. After all he had observed that she didn't often agree to Vulcan logic.

He observed that a heavy weight settled on his chest when she parted from him or when she just talked about work without smiling at him or starting humorous conversations. Sometimes Lt. Tash and her mate Lt. Uzell had lunch together with them and he caught himself staring at Irina when she was talking to someone else. Once he even caught himself having aggressive feelings towards the Betazoid waiter of the Green Leaf, who was flirting with Irina. The waiter had stopped instantly and stared at him in shock looking very white. Soltek had quickly busied himself with his tortellini, but Lt. Tash had started to continually give him curious observatory glances after that incident.

He had been working very hard on Irina's birthday present and he caught his mind wandering to the birthday party imagining her reaction to his present. Would she hug him again? Every time he was doing this the thought disrupted his concentration so much that he forgot what he was about to do, it was like going into a slight trance for a few seconds and then he had to guide his mind back to the task at hand.

Some of his thoughts reminded him a lot of the time when he went through the fever, but fortunately he wasn't irritable and if there was a lot going on at work he found himself able to concentrate after all, especially when one of his colleagues interrupted his thoughts.

But he kept going back to the hug and the approaching birthday party. A part of him hoped she would not hug him at the party because he didn't know how much of his inner stirrings would show, even to non-Vulcans.

Soltek realized his heart was beating much faster than usual when he made his way to the appointed location of Irina's birthday party.

Everyone had hid in the dark waiting for Irina to enter the room, he had used the waiting time for more meditation. But when Irina finally arrived and everybody jumped out, yelling 'SURPRISE!' most of his achieved calmness was gone again.

Everyone approached her offering a gift to which she showed emotional responses, mostly by hugging the givers of the gifts, even the males.

Irina had just finished hugging Lamira when Soltek approached her, holding out the data stick, 'this is my birthday present for you, it contains a holodeck program of your favorite places, I collected holographic shots and created accurate sceneries for you to take a walk through and admire the view like you often expressed that you wanted to.'

'Oh, Soltek!' She gasped, 'that must have taken you hours!' She wanted to hug him, but quickly restrained herself when she saw his eyes grow wide, instead she put both her hands around his hand holding the data stick and shortly caressed his hand before taking the stick. It send an electrifying wave of heat through him and he could barely restrain himself not to let out a moan of pleasure. He managed to draw a deep breath instead.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said noticing she had done something to him.

'It..is...alright,' he said still gasping for breath and hearing the blood rushing into his head, 'if you will excuse me.' He headed out into the corridor, but Irina followed him.

'Soltek!' she called, he turned around and waited for her to reach him, 'are you okay?'

'I need rest, I am...dizzy,' he said.

'I'll accompany you to sickbay,' she said.

'That is not necessary, I can walk alone,' he said in a determined tone and realized that panic was rising in him at the imagination of standing with her in sickbay while a doctor scanned him detecting nothing wrong but his current state of mind.

She looked at him, obviously feeling pushed away, 'okay...but can I check on you later or would you call me to tell me if you're okay?'

'I will call you,' he said.

'Have a speedy recovery then,' she replied.

He said a short 'thank you' and then walked away, Irina stared after him till he went around a corner.

When she returned to her party, Lamira approached her and asked: 'What was that all about?'

'I don't know,' Irina said confused, 'he's either sick or...he didn't like that I touched his hand, I know Vulcans don't like skin contact because of their touch telepathy, I just forgot myself for a moment...it felt like some kind of electric discharge, really weird...'

Lamira looked at her with the kind of funny expression she had, when she suspected something.

'Do you think he is insulted or has to wash my icky human slime off his hands or something?' Irina asked flabbergasted.

Lamira still eyed her with that look, 'if that wasn't an emotional reaction from Mr. Logical, I don't know what is!' She paused and a wild smile crossed her face, then she added in a low voice 'I don't think he is annoyed...or dislikes you touching him.'

'What is that supposed to mean?' Irina said confused.

'Irina, didn't you notice the look in his eyes and that he just blushed like crazy?' Lamira asked in a low voice, 'I don't know what exactly you did to him, but it looks to me like he wasn't able to take it in public...' she concluded grinning widely with a bemused twinkle in her eyes.

Irina stared at her and then suddenly broke out into howling laughter, 'you had me going there for a second!'

Lamira didn't join in and just gave Irina a stern you-know-what-I'm-talking-about kind of look.

'You're serious!?' Irina said.

'You remember the other day when Antamo flirted with you and suddenly stopped?' Lamira asked.

'Lamira, you know how Antamo is, he flirts with all his costumers and quickly hops from one to the next, he even flirts with guys if they like it...,' Irina replied.

'You should have seen Soltek's face! He could have killed him just with his stare,' Lamira said.

'Nonsense,' Irina said.

'Go to Antamo, ask him, he's a Betazoid, he can tell you what's going on in that Vulcan head,' Lamira replied.

'Don't be silly,' Irina said shaking her head, 'you're telling me Soltek...'.

'is behind that Vulcan mask of logic madly in love with you,' Lamira said.

'Lamira, you don't know much about Vulcans. I've served with them for 4 very long years. They don't fall in love, the parents arrange marriages for their kids and they don't have any romantic feelings about it whatsoever.' Irina replied.

'Vulcan or not, I've seen a man look at a woman like that before... Sick!?' she shook her head, 'lovesick is more like it! - Really Irina, if you don't believe me ask Antamo, it can't hurt to just ask.'

'And let him use that occasion to get a good laugh at my expense while pulling my leg?' Irina said, but then she sighed and said: 'But I'll talk to Soltek later, ask him if he's alright.'

'You do that and hold his hand while you're at it...' Lamira said with a smirk.