Jamille Shane, Cutiee Kyuubi, gkell, Ahlysha and Bewildered: Thanks so much for your reviews! I'm happy you're still with me and don't seem to get bored by this long story.
This chapter is a short in-between-kind of chapter. Things will get more exciting when they reach Vulcan.
Chapter 27 – Wedding Plans II
Olga and Irina's mother came back loaded with shopping bags full of clothes and various materials. Olga had bought some exotic artist supplies while Irina's mother was happy to have acquired some alien seeds and soil fertilizers she wanted to experiment with. After the two guests had put their stuff away and packed their bags for tomorrow, everyone settled around Irina's couch table for dinner.
When they had finished eating and chatting about shops on the station, Irina cleared her throat, 'there's something we have to tell you', everybody fell silent, 'we've decided to marry.'
Her mother looked stunned for a moment. 'Oh sweetie...that's wonderful!' she managed to say with some effort, 'I mean, I'm really happy for you, but are you two sure...you're still young and sometimes people jump into something in the heat of the moment...and you two just met a few weeks ago.'
Irina knew her mother would address some concerns and although she was aware of the fact that her mother obviously cared about their happiness she was slightly annoyed that her mother didn't seem to trust her judgment in this matter.
'Lina,' Soltek answered first, 'I assure you we went through the familiarization period very thoroughly and are quite sure that we want to be married.' He obviously tried his best to use the correct human terms.
Irina's mother listened patiently to Soltek, but also seemed to be at a loss at what he meant exactly with his explanation.
Irina sighed, 'we've mentioned before that Soltek's clan head is very traditional and strict and she doesn't like the idea of us being together without being formally married...but that's not the only reason we want to do it, we're really sure we want to be together for the rest of our lives.'
'Oh,' Irina's mother said, 'I'm so sorry about the pressure! But are you two really sure you don't just fulfill her expectations instead of doing what you want?'
'Yes,' Irina replied getting more calm, 'mum, we're already bonded, we only have to formalize it.'
Her mother frowned in confusion, 'what do you mean?'
Irina gave Soltek a quick glance to see if he was okay with discussing the subject. She felt his affirmation to go on, although he was slightly uncomfortable discussing the mating bond with non-Vulcans in too much detail.
'You probably know Vulcans are telepaths...When they get close to one another a telepathic link is established between them...and from that connection we both know that we are serious about each other.'
Her mother looked at her with wide eyes, 'does that mean you can read each other's minds?'
'Vulcans don't call it mind reading because there are different forms of telepathic contact and only a few very specific methods allow us to witness the thoughts of another person,' Soltek explained.
'The bond is more like an open comm link,' Irina said, 'I can talk to him through it, but I don't have to all the time.'
Her mother frowned in concentration to understand what they were talking about, 'if you're sure that's what you want, I won't stand in your way,' she said, 'did you check with a doctor that this telepathy stuff isn't harmful to humans?'
'We did,' Irina assured her, 'the doc did several brain scans on me to make sure and I'm fine.'
That seemed to satisfy Irina's mother so far and they talked a lot about the Vulcan ceremony and the celebration they would like to do on the moon afterwards. Her mother liked the idea and was very happy to have the party in her house and already started to discuss details with them about the food and decoration and where their relatives could sleep etc. They planned to do the celebration on the moon three weeks after the Vulcan ceremony, so they would at least have some time to invite the guests beforehand.
It was already late when Irina called her father. He raised similar concerns as her mother, although much less tactfull. But he also accepted their decision after a while and didn't object to the compromise of a ceremony on Vulcan and the celebration on the moon. He also said that Soltek made a good first impression on him and that he was happy to have another engineer as son-in-law.
The next day Irina and Soltek went to Captain Idara after their duty shifts. They had only been in her office once as they had reported for duty when they came to the station. She was a short Ktarian woman in her 50ies with intelligent dark eyes and had seemed quite welcoming and approachable on their first day.
The Captain smiled at them after they had told her the reasons for their request of a 4-day-leave beginning on Friday and she offered them to use a runabout. She also complimented them on their work and the good reviews from their CO, Cmdr. Glenn.
Afterwards they went to the infirmary to talk to Dr. Hedak. His wife Dr. Lark was not on duty, but they immediately spotted the tall dark-skinned Vulcan sitting in the office. He seemed pleased if Irina judged his response correctly, but he said he needed to speak to the Captain for permission to leave the station. They also invited him and his wife to the wedding celebration on the moon and he said they didn't have anything planned on that weekend and he was sure his wife would be pleased.
On Tuesday evening Irina received a call from Dr. Hedak confirming that he would travel to Vulcan with them and perform the bonding ceremony. He asked them both to come to the infirmary after their shifts so they could discuss the procedure.
When they sat in his office, Dr. Hedak offered them tea and said, 'you are probably aware that since you are already bonded it is not necessary to perform a bonding ceremony. I could simply testify your bond and send the info to the authorities and you would be married according to Vulcan law.
'We know,' Soltek said, 'but my clan head T'Fera doesn't approve of these modern proceedings so we chose to do a traditional bonding ceremony.'
'I understand,' Dr. Hedak said. Irina could tell that there were things being said between the lines and Dr. Hedak would go 'through the motions' of a bonding performance as to not expose the fact that they had taken matters into their own hands preliminary, but he didn't say so openly.
She wondered about the 'Vulcans don't lie'-rule and how far Vulcans would bend their own rules to safe face, but that line of thinking was disrupted when Soltek shot her a disapproving thought stating that the first rule for a healer was to protect the health and privacy of his patients.
After Dr. Hedak had explained how the procedure was usually conducted and what he planned to do at their ceremony, they went to their quarters to first inform Soltek's parents that they got permission to leave. Then they called Irina's parents, Olga and Lamira, who would meet them outside shuttle bay 6 on Friday morning.
They spend Wednesday evening rehearsing the traditional Vulcan bonding ceremony in the holodeck and on Thursday evening Irina couldn't believe how quickly the week passed and they were already packing for the journey to Vulcan tomorrow.
The runabout was cramped with seven people in it. Lamira, Soltek and Irina took turns in piloting the runabout while the others were reading and talking. They learned that Dr. Hedak didn't have a Starfleet commission and was working on Jupiter station solely as a Vulcan healer, because he was a specialist in neurology and xeno-neurology.
The replicator seemed to be in constant use because once everybody had had breakfast, they soon started to order tea, coffee, snacks and lunch... In between Olga and Lamira didn't seem to stop talking, even while Lamira was piloting. Irina and Soltek were busy answering questions of her parents. In contrast to the constant chatter Dr. Hedak was the typical silent contemplative Vulcan just sitting in a chair and reading.
But in the afternoon he got a call from his 3-year old daughter and everybody stopped what they were doing to look at the little girl with pointed ears and chin-long red hair appearing on the screen. She had an unusual dark skin tone for her Irish red hair color, which made the color of her hair stand out even more. She also had unusual small dark freckles on her cheeks, but the usual dark Vulcan eyes. She looked immensely cute. She exclaimed in a mixture of English and Vulcan that she wanted to see the Vulcan wedding too.
'It is called a bonding ceremony,' the voice of a boy corrected her in Vulcan from the background. Then they heard the voice of his mother, Dr. Lark, call him off for interrupting. Dr. Hedak promised Annie, that was the name of the little girl, that they would attend the celebration on earth's moon. She gasped with twinkling eyes and bombarded him with questions about the moon.
After Dr. Hedak had finished his talk with his daughter, his wife appeared on the screen and greeted everybody with a big smile. Dr. Lark thanked Irina and Soltek for the invitation to the wedding celebration on the moon and said she looked forward to it very much. After asking her husband how the journey had gone so far she called her son, Olpek, and asked him if he also wanted to talk to his father.
'No, I am busy with my homework,' the boy answered coldly in Vulcan in the background.
'He's still pouting that you didn't take him with you to Vulcan,' Dr. Lark said in a low voice.
Dr. Hedak raised his eyebrows, 'Vulcan children don't pout, my wife,' he answered in a low voice.
Dr. Lark gave him a skeptical look with half a smirk, but didn't say anything.
When Dr. Hedak said goodbye to his wife everybody went back to what they were doing. Then Irina looked at the time to destination-display and saw that they had just one hour of traveling left. She felt that the knot in her stomach was getting tighter and tighter as she was thinking of meeting his parents and strict clan head soon, but Soltek who was sitting next to her in the co-pilot-seat discretely reassured her with a brief touch of his fingers to hers.