Stardate 2260.230

"How is she?"

The sound of his voice made the hairs on the backs of her arms tingle. Dagny's eyes snapped open and she sat forward in her chair. Evidently, she'd been dozing. The children squealed Voris' name from the other end of the room and Malen barreled toward him to hug his legs. Voris stiffened slightly at the boy's zeal and reached down to pat his back.

"I'm… better. I think," Suna answered for herself, her words labored but much clearer than they had been. "You work miracles."

"It was a novel therapy that I could not guarantee would be effective."

"It seems it was though. You've given me my life back."

Dagny and Voris exchanged looks—it had been long hours of waiting to see if the treatment protocol he'd spent much of the past twenty-four hours developing would work and reverse the effects of the rare, Romulan neurotoxin. Suna was still pale, but the trembling in her hands was barely noticeable.

"We shall continue to monitor your condition in the coming days," Voris replied.

Malen let go of Voris' legs and wandered to Suna's bedside, lifting his arms to indicate he wanted assistance in getting into the bed with her. Dagny stood from her chair and started to walk around the foot of the bed, but Voris moved quicker and beat her to it. He grabbed the boy under the armpits and in a single motion, settled him next to Suna.

"Will you permit me to examine you?"

Suna nodded, prompting Voris to perform a series of tricorder scans and a quick physical examination. Maera, who had been playing a game on a PADD at the far end of the room, joined them and stood next to Dagny, curious about what Voris was doing to Suna.

It was early in the afternoon and as it was the last day of the standard week, the clinic was closed to walk-ins and routine patients. It was never really closed though, because there was always some emergency or crisis lurking around the corner, or now that the convalescent ward was open, there was always at least one patient who needed to be cared for.

It seemed to Dagny that the clinic was unbearably slow when she wanted to stay busy and impossibly busy when she needed rest. Today had been a nice change of pace though, with Suna and her adoptive children staying in the ward.

The odd little family was a distraction when she needed it most, because in the past few weeks, whenever her mind had been free to wander, it had always chosen to settle on thinking about Voris. It had only been two weeks since that night the baby had started kicking and she'd crawled into bed with him, but it might as well have been a lifetime. What had she been thinking? What had he been thinking?

They'd never spoken of it again and she'd never worked up the courage to ask him to touch her belly since that night. She thought the baby could sense his presence because it seemed like it kicked more when he was nearby, but she admitted she could easily be imagining it. Either way, the baby needed little provocation to turn her insides into a playground these days, but she didn't mind.

"Your neural function is returning," Voris declared several minutes later, powering the tricorder down. "I cannot say whether your recovery will continue in this way or how completely you will recover, but there is good reason to remain optimistic."

Suna hugged Malen and kissed the top of his head. "Thank you."

"Now that you are able to sustain a conversation, there is a matter I would like to speak with you about," Voris added, glancing down at the little boy.

Suna's face fell and she hugged Malen tighter to her chest.

"I merely wondered if you will allow me to examine the children. They appear to be underweight."

"They were in prison." Suna's voice held a threatening timbre.

"I understand the situation and I am not accusing you of any abuse or neglect. I merely want to ensure they are healthy."

Suna looked at Dagny. "I do want the best for them, but…"

Dagny interrupted to say, "We're not trying to get involved in whatever kind of dispute that exists between you and Rhaev."

Suna shifted her gaze from Dagny to Voris, sighed heavily, and then whispered a few words to Malen. Several moments later, he scooted around and lifted his arms in Voris' direction again, allowing himself to be plucked from Suna's bed and placed on the one next to hers. Voris lifted the tricorder to begin a routine scan, but Malen clearly thought it was some kind of game because he laughed and tried to swat it away.

Voris tried several more times, but Malen was doubled over in giggles and soon Maera left her seat at the other end of the ward to investigate the source of her brother's amusement. Voris looked helplessly at Dagny. She wanted to laugh and ask if he'd really never dealt with an unruly toddler in an exam room, but she figured as a doctor, more specifically as a male Vulcan doctor, he probably just recruited parents or nurses to do the work of keeping little ones occupied while he went about the business of actually treating or examining them.

Dagny grabbed another tricorder from the clinic, pulled out the power source, and sat on the bed with Malen. She allowed him to play with it and pretend to scan her while Voris did his scans. She then distracted him while Voris took blood samples and made a game out of stepping on the scale and body mass analyzer. Maera was a lot more cooperative and had a better command of rudimentary Standard than her brother and so Dagny chose to sit back and let Voris handle it by himself.

When it came time to weigh her and analyze her body mass, Voris looked down, gestured toward the door, and asked, "Will you follow me?"

Maera scrunched her nose and repeated, "Followme?"

Voris pointed to the door leading into the main clinic and then to himself. "Go. There. With me."

"Yes." Maera reached up and grabbed Voris' hand and though he seemed to bristle, he leaned down slightly to adjust for the great difference in their height and escorted her to the main part of the clinic where the scale and analyzer were. Warm feelings flooded through her at the sight. When he returned, he was holding a PADD in one hand and leading Maera by the other.

"Are they healthy?" Suna asked, motioning for Maera to join her at her bedside.

"They are quite small for their age and genetic profiles and have below average body fat compositions, Maera more so than Malen. This is easily attributed to the prolonged period of undernutrition you claim they both endured in the prison."

"But are they ok?"

"I have no samples for reference, but they do not appear to be suffering from the types of cellular stresses frequently seen in persistent undernutrition, so I believe they are on the path to recovery. Both have notable copper deficiencies, but that is treatable with dietary changes and supplemental injections."

"And you're going to make notes of that? Like, in their records? So people can see that I'm not starving them?"

"Yes."

"And you can give them these injections today?"

"Yes. I can give them now, if you consent. As I have no record of their immunizations, I would also like to give them a full battery of vaccines."

Suna nodded. "Please. Whatever they need to keep them healthy. You're sure they're going to be ok? Like, developmentally?"

"It is likely both will grow to be smaller adults than they would have under normal conditions. I can prescribe a series of growth treatments, but I would advise giving them the opportunity to develop without them until they are old enough to understand what is involved with the protocol and make an informed decision for themselves."

Suna bit her lip. "But psychologically… you know… will they be ok? They were in prison. These little kids, they were… it was awful there. You have no idea."

Voris shifted his weight on his feet. "Children are quite resilient. I am not a psychiatrist and unfortunately the colony lacks any child development or behavioral experts to treat them. I can make contact with a former colleague on Earth and ask for their professional opinion. Are there any specific concerns you had?"

"Maera hordes food and has temper tantrums that would wake the dead. Malen barely talks, except to Maera. He doesn't like to make eye contact. He has nightmares and he refuses to learn to use a toilet or utensils. I've tried so many things but a lot of the time, he just shuts down and stops responding if I push him too hard to learn new things."

"You haven't even had him for two months though," Dagny interrupted, gazing at the boy and feeling her heart swell with pity.

"True, and they're doing better than they were, but I worry they're going to be permanently scarred somehow."

Voris opened his mouth but Dagny spoke first. "We can't change what they've been through, but we can do our best to do better by them from here on out. I think we need to just give them some time."

"I agree," Voris said quietly. "And as I said, I will communicate your concerns to my former colleague and relay any advice she has."

Suna sniffed and smoothed Malen's hair. "Thank you both. For everything."

Voris excused himself to prepare vaccines for the children and though Maera allowed Voris to inject her without complaint, Malen screamed and hid under the bed when approached with a hypospray. When Voris tried to coax him out, Malen bit him hard enough to draw blood. Suna snapped her fingers and uttered some stern-sounding Romulan, but Malen ignored her. When Voris made a second attempt to pull Malen from under the bed, Maera started pummeling Voris in the leg to get him to stop and yelling what Dagny could only presume to be Romulan curses.

Twenty minutes later, the children were curled on either side of Suna. Malen seemed to have already forgotten the incident, but Maera continued to watch Voris with keen suspicion.

"Do you need help patching up your hand?" Dagny asked, reaching for Voris' bloody fingers to examine the wounds created by Malen's sharp tricuspid teeth.

No sooner did her fingertips meet the meat of his hand than he pulled back and muttered, "I can manage. Will you monitor Miss Dalal while I finish resupplying the pharmaceutical cabinet for the coming week?"

She glanced at him, unable to look him in the eye. "Sure."

She watched him return to the clinic and made her way back to the chair by Suna's bedside.

"I'm sorry they're so wild," Suna groaned, brushing Maera's long, black locks behind her ears. "And thank you both so much for being so understanding."

"We get all kinds of families in here," Dagny replied. "This is what we're here for, is to take care of people."

"I bet none of your other patients bite."

Dagny grinned. "Now that you mention it, there was a rather unruly Gorn boy a few months back who could give Malen a run for his money."

Suna snorted. "Ok. Fair enough. I've seen Gorn kids—they're no walk in the park."

Silence started to grow between them before Suna took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then murmured, "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not cut out for this. I never wanted to be a mom. I have no idea how to begin raising human kids, let alone Romulan ones."

Dagny's eyes shifted to Suna's hands, which were absentmindedly tracing lines through Malen's hair. "You seem to be doing good enough."

"I don't want to be 'good enough.' They deserve the best after everything they've been through. What if Rhaev was right? I don't know if-"

"There's no right way or best way to raise a child," Dagny interrupted. "I can't say I have much experience in wrangling little Romulans, but based on everything I've seen, they can't be that much different than human kids."

"What if they need more than what I can give them?"

"I never actually heard them say it, but I'm positive my parents asked themselves that every day. I grew up on a salvage ship and I know it bothered my father that sometimes there wasn't enough food for us to all have second helpings for dinner or that clothes passed from one kid to the next until they ended up being little more than a few fibers of thread hanging from the collar of a shirt."

Suna scoffed. "I grew up on a transport ship and had two older brothers. I can relate."

"I had two older brothers too." Dagny's mouth turned into a faint half-smile at the thought of Aksel and Benjamin.

"It's not easy being the baby of the family and the only girl to boot, is it?"

"Oh, I wasn't the baby. Not by a long shot. I was third of fourteen."

Suna's eyes widened. "You're joking."

Dagny shook her head. "Families tended to be big on the Albret. My mom used to say there wasn't much else to do on deep space missions."

"The Albret… that sounds familiar. Wasn't that the ship the Svendsens were on?"

She nodded. "They left several years ago to come here."

"Nicolas told me what happened. I'm very sorry."

Overwhelming sadness threatened to engulf Dagny. It seemed disproportionate to the amount of grief she'd come to accept as normal whenever she thought about her family. "Thanks," she whispered.

"Anyway, it's a small galaxy," Suna mused, clearly trying to change the subject.

"It is," Dagny agreed. "And we covered a lot of it over the years."

"It must have been nice to have a change of scenery. I spent the first sixteen years of my life travelling between the Utopia Planetia Depot and the Bolarian sector. Same boring transport route. Back and forth, back and forth, eighteen times a year."

"Have you ever been to Earth?"

Suna gave her a wry smile. "I saw the lunar colonies once when I was little. Does that count?" When she saw Dagny smile and shake her head, she added, "I'm technically a citizen, but I've never been to Earth. Pretty weird, huh?"

"Me either. After the Albret was destroyed, everyone kept suggesting I should go home to Earth, but it's not home. Not really."

"I tried to go. I left the Kluwer when I was sixteen because I hated it so much. I had the idea that I would go to Earth. I have no clue what I would have done there."

"The Kluwer, that was your transport ship?"

"Yeah. One day, we settled into the Port of Zjim and I told my mom I wanted to go to the shops. I never came back."

"That must have broken your family's heart," Dagny replied without thinking.

Suna winced and gazed at the children sitting in the bed with her. "My brothers were troublemakers and kept my parents pretty busy. Danesh and my dad used to get in such bad fights. I guess I never really felt like my parents noticed me. I was a bitter little brat back then."

"Have you talked to them since?"

"Oh yes. My mom was angry, but she got over it. We still don't talk much, but why would we? We never talked back then."

"So where did you go?"

"When I left the Port of Zjim? Where didn't I go? I hitchhiked with some Bolarian traders to Babel, then worked odd jobs to buy passage to back to Earth, but the day I was supposed to leave, I overslept. I had been sleeping in the attic of this house in the old part of the city and I missed my ride. So I stowed away on another vessel, ended up at Wolf 359, then I just kind of wandered around the Alpha quadrant for a while. I never stayed in any one place for long."

Suna stopped talking and gazed at Dagny, and only then did Dagny realize her mouth was hanging open. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. Your story just sounds very…"

"Crazy? Irresponsible? Dangerous?"

"I- well, I wasn't- I didn't mean-"

"It's ok, I was. But the story only gets wilder from there."

Dagny raised her eyebrows, making Suna laugh. "Oh yes," she added. "Should I start from the beginning, or just skip to the part where I ended up blockade running with Nausicaan smugglers?"

"Seriously?"

"Are you asking if I seriously just asked that question or if I seriously profiteered off the Laurentian conflicts?"

"I guess start at the beginning, please. I've got nothing but time."

Over the next hour, Dagny sat in awe and listened to Suna's sometimes funny, sometimes shocking tale of her life over the past fifteen years that included captaining a merchant ship and spending six months in an Orion prison for counterfeiting, a sentence that had been cut short by an escape made possible thanks to her crafty cellmate, who had once been a Laurentian pirate. There were times it seemed like a tall tale, but when Dagny would stop and ask questions for clarification, Suna had no problem keeping the story straight.

Eventually she talked about how she'd met Rhaal when she'd been on a mission with Orion pirates, whom she'd met through her Laurentian pirate cellmate, to capture Romulan cloaking technology to sell on the black market. Rhaal had been the first officer of a small scout ship, and following a vicious battle between the Orion pirates and the Romulan troops that had left most of both crews dead, Rhaal and the three surviving Romulans had surrendered to the Orions on the condition they be taken to the Federation side of the Neutral Zone.

"So he… defected?" Dagny asked.

"Not exactly," Suna explained. "He didn't want to help the Federation any more than he wanted to help the Romulans. I think he was tired of all the fighting; he just wanted some peace and quiet. I told him the Orions wouldn't honor their promise, and I was right. The Orions tried to put them out an airlock that night, but I warned them and they fought back and took control of the ship. We toured the Neutral Zone for a few months, trying to find a place to cross back into Romulan Territory so the Romulans could retrieve their families, but there were listening posts everywhere. Eventually the ship broke down near the Hromi Cluster, and we were rescued by the Oglethorpe."

"And that's how you ended up here?"

"More or less. Rhaal and the Romulans tried seeking asylum at the Federation colony, but they wouldn't allow them in. That was when Sam had had enough and we split off into Bergeron colony."

"So Rhaal is the reason this colony exists?"

"I doubt it. I think it would have happened eventually no matter what. Samantha Bergeron and Lucy Coronado are the reason this colony exists. Either way, the colony became a magnet for all kinds of Klingon and Romulan refugees. Rhaal forgot about his family for a while, but when his brother Rhaev and his family showed up here and told Rhaal what the Romulans had done to his wife and kids because they'd believed he'd defected, he decided he had to try and go back, no matter the cost."

"Last night, Rhaev said you and Rhaal cost him everything," Dagny replied, electing to leave out Rhaev's more colorful language.

"I can't say it isn't true, I guess. The Romulans have a way of punishing innocent people to keep the masses in line. Sometimes things can get bad enough that people are willing to risk their lives to try and change it, but they aren't usually willing to risk their kids' lives."

Anger bubbled in Dagny's gut at the thought of Maera and Malen sitting in prison because Romulans had no qualms with punishing children to get back at their parents.

"You know, Rhaal never even met Malen. Maera was just a baby when he left to go on that mission."

It was a statement full of sad information, but the more Dagny reflected on it, the more confused she became. "I thought you said you and Rhaal were partners? Like, romantically."

Suna winced. "Maera and Malen's mother, Nha'll, was from an old senatorial family and would have never deserted the Empire, or so Rhaal says. He always used to say she'd have turned him in to the squads in a heartbeat if she'd even suspected he wasn't fully loyal. I guess that's why he never worried too much about what they might do to her—he figured her family would protect her. Then when he found out she'd been arrested and executed and Rhaev and his family had been forced to flee in the night, it ate him up inside. I don't think he ever forgave himself."

"I don't even know what to say," Dagny replied.

"What can be said? The Romulan Empire is evil and its people are brainwashed."

Dagny looked at the children again, who were starting to doze off in Suna's arms. Even if it were true about Rhaal's wife, it seemed wrong that he had left his pregnant wife and young child to fend for themselves, knowing what the state might do to them. How could he have left them so vulnerable? How could Suna have agreed to enter into a relationship with someone who was married? It didn't seem like it was her place to judge and it definitely didn't seem right to judge a dead man and a woman who had nearly died trying to save two young children from prison, but the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth.

"Anyway, as you can see, I don't really think I'm mother material."

Dagny's mind snapped from her internal reflections back to Suna and she struggled to think of something to say. "I had wondered where you'd found the guts to break into a Romulan prison camp, but after that story, I'm surprised you didn't take it over and disguise yourself as the camp's senior official."

"I'm bold but I'm not insane," Suna laughed.

Seconds ticked by and the awkwardness grew. Eventually Suna said, "I bet you're a wonderful mother."

Suna gazed down at Dagny's bulging stomach, an act which made Dagny feel immediately defensive and embarrassed. "I guess I wouldn't really know. This is my first one."

"Well, you said you had a lot of younger brothers and sisters and I can tell by the way you handle Maera and Malen that you'll be a good mom."

"Thank you? I guess? If you want to know the truth, I'm actually terrified."

"Really? You seem like an old prol."

"I know how to raise kids on a salvage ship and I know how to raise human kids…"

Suna looked deeply confused and it occurred to Dagny that Suna probably didn't know the situation if she'd only been back on the colony for a few weeks. Unfortunately, Dagny didn't feel like she could walk back such an idle comment without offering at least some kind of explanation for why a human woman wouldn't be having a human baby and besides, Suna was bound to find out eventually, so she simply said, "My baby is half Vulcan."

Suna smiled awkwardly. "I can't believe I didn't guess that, but it makes a lot of sense. You and Dr. Voris seem so natural together."

The words immediately made her cheeks burn. "Oh, we're not together. Not like that."

It was Suna's turn to look embarrassed. "This is what I get for assuming. There are so few Vulcans on the colony. This is awkward."

"No, Voris is the father, but we're not married or anything. It's… it's complicated."

Suna frowned and thought to herself for a moment. "Really? You're not even casually dating?"

"I mean, we work together and we live together." Dagny groaned inwardly as the words rolled off her tongue. She felt like she'd had some version of this conversation so many times that it should come naturally but for whatever reason, it felt especially awkward now.

Suna's eyes drifted down to Dagny's stomach and it didn't take a lot of effort to guess what the woman must be thinking. She constructed the conversation in her head, imagining Suna asking, "How you'd end up pregnant with his kid then?" to which Dagny would have wanted to answer something like, "Vulcans get horny every seven years and I had just lost my entire family and probably would have latched onto a Klingon warlord if he had shown me even a hint of kindness and five months later, here we are."

Fortunately, Suna offered a thin-lipped smile and told her, "We don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. And I'm sure I'm the last person who should judge anyone's life choices. However it happened and however you make it work, I think you're both going to be good parents."

Dagny almost felt compelled to burst into tears. She blinked several times and looked away and a second later, the door opened and Voris appeared. She felt herself blushing, but her sudden girlishness disappeared when she saw the constable standing behind him.

"What's going on?"

"Constable Kilpatrick and Nhael have come to speak with Miss Dalal."

Only then did Dagny notice Rhaev's wife standing behind the burly, redheaded constable. She sensed Suna tensing in the bed next to her.

"We're not here to cause trouble," the constable said grimly. "We just want to talk."

"About what?" Suna demanded.

Nhael took a deep breath and wandered out from behind the constable. "I would like to meet my niece and nephew. You cannot object to that, surely."

"You're not going to take them," Suna replied. "They stay with me."

"You are in hospital," Nhael sighed. "This is not a good place for them."

"They were in prison before. Prison. If Rhaev cares about them so much, why didn't he go get them out?"

"Why don't we focus on the present?" Constable Kilpatrick said, inching forward to stand slightly between Nhael and Suna.

Dagny turned to Suna and realized both children had woken up and were staring at Nhael with burning curiosity. Nhael smiled and offered a little wave, but the children didn't respond.

"They stay with me," Suna said, her tone more like an accusation than a declaration.

"I was hopin' to ease into this subject, but to be fair, both Romulan and Federation law appear to favor Rhaev and Nhael.

"I'm no lawyer, but I didn't think Bergeron colony was under Romulan or Federation jurisdiction," Suna replied icily.

The constable sighed. "We don't have any precedent for something like this. We've had kids who ended up without any parents, but never kids with too many parents."

"I don't know that there is such a thing as too many parents," Dagny interjected.

Voris gave her a sidelong look and she got the sense he was trying to encourage her to not involve herself in other peoples' business, but she also sensed where this was going and she didn't like it.

"There has to be some way to compromise," she continued. "I grew up on a ship with many families and yes, I had my own parents, but I also had other parental figures I looked up to and listened to and learned from. We were all kind of one big family, in a way."

Nhael gave her a sympathetic look and then turned back to Suna. "The nurse is right. We do not want to keep you from seeing them and Rhaev and I are very grateful to you for-"

"No," Suna said flatly. "No!"

"No!" Maera echoed. "No no no!" Her brother joined in, and soon, the ward was in chaos.

"Perhaps Dagny and I should give you the opportunity to speak privately," Voris said, narrowing his eyes slightly at Dagny.

She mouthed, "Voris, please…" but he shook his head and motioned toward the door. It was an ugly enough scene without her getting involved and she supposed he was probably right, but she hated it all the same. She followed him out, fighting against her feelings of helplessness at the situation and irritation at Voris.

The moment he closed the door behind them, she blurted, "You're going to let Nhael take them, aren't you?"

"I do not see that we have a choice. She is their aunt."

"You saw how Rhaev acted yesterday! He had to be hauled out of here because he was making a scene. Rhaev and Nhael are strangers to those kids!"

"Please lower your voice."

"Voris," she hissed, "I don't think Suna can handle losing them."

"It is a difficult situation but as the constable pointed out, the children are fortunate to have so many adults invested in their upbringing."

"Rhaev is a racist."

"Rhaev is Romulan and holds many traditional Romulan values, but I have no cause to believe he or Nhael will abuse or neglect them."

"How can you take Rhaev's side?" she shouted.

"It is not about taking sides," Voris replied. "It is about ensuring the most appropriate living situation for the children and it is not our place to say what that is."

Dagny scoffed and crossed her arms, feeling the warmth rising up into her face. Suddenly, her temperature monitor went off and it took incredible discipline to keep from ripping it off her stomach.

"Perhaps you might go upstairs and prepare an end meal," he encouraged.

"And perhaps you might pull your head out of your ass," she snapped, turning on her heel and stomping toward the stairs without looking back at him.

Dagny spent the next twenty minutes cooking so vigorously that it might have been comical under any other circumstances. She diced the vegetables with such force that the tip of one of the potatoes went sailing halfway across the kitchen.

She could hear muffled voices in the convalescent ward below and eventually there was wailing and screaming. She covered her ears and began to cry, and after a minute, she decided she couldn't take it anymore.

She raced downstairs to see Nhael holding a squirming, squalling Malen and Constable Kilpatrick trying to subdue Maera, who was screaming at the top of her lungs and trying to run back into the ward. Suna was standing in the doorway in her hospital gown, hands clasped over her mouth and silently sobbing. The whole scene took Dagny's breath away.

The constable and Nhael left with the children and when the door closed behind them, she sank to her knees and started to howl. Instinct made Dagny join her on the floor and wrap her arms around the broken woman and they cried together for a long time.

In the back of her mind, she knew it was strange that she would react this way. It was a sad situation, but she had seen worse. She had lived through worse. No one was dead, no one was physically hurt, and Suna would see them again, but there was something about seeing a mother so casually stripped of her children that struck wild fear into her heart.

Exhaustion was creeping in and it was taking enormous effort to keep his eyes open. It was tiring, being so tired all the time. He was still recovering from Orion lungworm and the clinic had stayed fairly busy in recent weeks, but Dagny's manic emotions were adding to his fatigue in a way that excess work and lack of sleep could not.

She was approaching the sixth month of her pregnancy and it was likely the fetus' developing brain was beginning to experience primitive emotions, and because of the innate telepathic abilities it had inherited from Voris, the child inside Dagny would spend the rest of its gestation period caught up in a positive feedback loop of emotions with its mother.

Whenever Dagny was sad, the fetus would begin to feel sad. If the fetus was frustrated, Dagny would feel frustrated. Mother and child were feeding off each other's feelings and Voris had been invited to indirectly participate via his mating bond with Dagny.

He had only noticed that evening just how strong the haphazard mating bond between them had grown. Perhaps it was inevitable after spending so much time in close quarters and after everything they'd been through. He was certain her emotions had not always been this powerful, but they had increased in severity so gradually that he had not noticed how taxing it had become to maintain his own emotional balance.

Where he'd once only detected minor glimmers of her feelings, now he was suddenly drowning in a constant barrage of joy, irritation, and despondency if he relaxed his mind for even a moment. What struck him as particularly odd was the way her mood shifted whenever he was nearby and there were times that despite his best efforts, he could not repress the effect her feelings were having on him. Often he sensed pure affection that bordered on love, other times, intense loathing. Yesterday when she'd found him bathing Malen in the sink, for a brief moment, he'd felt the same profound love he'd once shared with T'Sala, but earlier that evening when the Nhael and the constable had left with the children, he'd felt hatred and helplessness in her that were difficult to describe.

He knew Dagny neither loved nor hated him—it was the unique complications of her hybrid pregnancy that were responsible for her feelings. He also knew Dagny could only be who she was, but there were times he wished she could make some kind of effort to control her feelings. Perhaps she was trying to keep them in check and this was the best she could do. If that were true, it was a wonder she didn't go mad.

Even if Dagny managed to maintain her sanity, he knew he could not continue in this way, nor did he want her to suffer needlessly. Because of his recent illness and the demands of the clinic, it had been many weeks since they'd devoted their evenings to study and personal development. He considered proposing they renew their lessons, except instead of focusing on medical school prerequisites or Vuhlkansu, he would offer to instruct her in meditation techniques.

Of course, he still hadn't found an opportunity to speak with her about leaving Bergeron colony once the quarantine was lifted. He had much to discuss with her and was in the midst of planning the most logical order to broach these subjects when the door buzzed. A muscle in his forehead twitched.

It was late, nearly 2100 hours, and Dagny had only retired upstairs a short time ago. Sunayana Dalal had just gone to sleep in the convalescent ward and he did not feel physically or mentally capable of dealing with another complex crisis. When he opened the door, he was relieved to find there was no one bleeding or suffocating or otherwise dying, only Samantha Bergeron.

"What can I do for you, Miss Bergeron?"

"Sorry for the late hour, doctor. Can I come in?"

Voris nodded and stepped aside to allow her to enter. It was taking conscious effort to quell the exasperation he felt at receiving what appeared to be a social call at this late hour.

"I don't want to take up too much of your time. I was hoping I could get some advice."

"I dispense medical advice six days per week from 0630 to 1830 hours," Voris explained, trying to keep his tone level. "If it is not an emergency-"

"It's not medical advice I'm here for."

"Then please, enlighten me."

"I heard your uncle is First Minister of New Vulcan and your dad is... some other kind of important bureaucrat."

"You were informed correctly—my father is New Vulcan's Minister of State."

Sam allowed her eyes to wander around the clinic. Voris watched her and swallowed his impatience.

"I guess the reason I'm here is… I don't have any experience with leading people. Not in any kind of official way. I started this colony with a handful of outsiders. It was never supposed to get this big and it definitely wasn't ever supposed to be this complicated."

"And what would you like me to do?"

"I don't know," she groaned, running her hands through her hair. "All I know is this colony is too much for one person to run."

"I agree."

"I guess I'd hoped that you had some advice about running a government."

"My uncle and father have many years of experience in such matters, but I am only a doctor."

"People look up to you," Sam replied, shooting him a tired look.

"I believe they admire you as well."

"You don't get it," she snapped. "You just don't get it."

"Perhaps I could 'get it,' as you say, if you could be more specific as to what it is I do not get."

"The Federation pulled the northern colony. When they dropped off our food and supplies, they also evacuated the other colonists back to Aldebaran."

"What does that have to do with your ability to govern our colony?"

"Everything. The Gorn are threatening to invade Cestus III and as far as I can tell, the only thing stopping them is the fear that the Klingons might fight them for it, and meanwhile, we're stuck in the middle, completely defenseless. If spring comes too late, we might also be facing a famine. People are blaming me."

"There is no logic in creating scapegoats, but rarely is there any logic to be found when people are facing the threat of invasion or starvation."

"No kidding."

"I was not making a joke, I was merely-"

Sam held up her hand. "Even if we don't get invaded by the Gorn or Klingons, the rest of the colony is falling apart. It's just grown too big and there are too many factions and groups and cliques. The Romulans are angry about the Orion lungworm outbreak, the Orions are angry that the Romulans weren't punished more severely for the random attacks in the tunnels, the Andorians are trying to declare independence—like they're not independent enough up there on the surface, for crying out loud! Most of the humans and Tellarites don't trust the Klingons or the Gorn, and so many rumors are flying at me every day that I don't even know what's true anymore. Maybe I was naïve to think everyone could just get along without having to write down a bunch of laws. I really hoped people could just be decent to each other. I really didn't start this colony with the idea of being a dictator, but that's what people think I've become. I'm just… I'm lost, Dr. Voris."

"Perhaps it is time to institute a formal government."

"Yes! Yes, exactly! That's why I'm here, asking you to help."

"I know nothing of forming a new government."

"I thought New Vulcan spent the last few years rebuilding a government."

"True, but I was not involved with that."

"I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel—I figure we can borrow from existing colonial charters and constitutions—I'm just asking you to help me figure it out. I'm planning to call a colony meeting very soon, but I wanted to have some ideas to present to people at that meeting. I was also hoping you would help me talk to the people."

"You fear you have lost legitimacy as a leader and you think they will listen to me?"

"You're probably the most respected person on this colony and not to stereotype or anything, but I think people are naturally inclined to trust Vulcans to know the best way forward out of a bad situation. Please?"

"I will attend this meeting, but I have no expertise in governing."

"I'm in the middle of drafting a proposal for establishing a formal council. Will you at least look it over and give me your thoughts before I present it to the colony?"

Voris gave a small nod. "Yes, but I do not believe my opinion is more valid than anyone else's."

"Thank you. And you should stop trying to be so humble."

"Excessive humility is more of a vice than a virtue, but I assure you, I am no expert on government."

Sam nodded. She gave him a tiny smile, lifted her hand in the ta'al, and said, "Live long and prosper, doctor."

It had been so long since he'd shared this traditional Vulcan exchange with anyone and he was briefly struck by a feeling of nostalgia. He returned the salute and walked her to the door.

"I'm sure it goes without saying, but could we keep this just between us for now? The meeting will probably be sometime next week, but like I said, there are so many rumors-"

"I shall be a paragon of discretion."

Samantha laughed and hit the door release, but just as she started to walk through it, she froze. "Oh, hello, Vaksur."

Voris noticed the slender Vulcan woman standing outside the clinic door, hand raised as though she had been preparing to ring the after-hours buzzer when Sam had opened the door.

"Do you have an emergency?" Voris asked.

"Not exactly," Vaksur replied, ignoring Sam in favor of gazing directly at Voris.

"I'll leave you two to it. Have a good night."

Sam and Vaksur brushed past each other as one departed and the other entered. Vaksur shut the door behind her and drifted into the room. Despite his Vulcan discipline, Voris' irritation threatened to boil over at the prospect of ridding himself of one uninvited visitor, only to be burdened with a second one.

Before he could ask what she wanted, she blurted, "I'm very glad to see you're better."

"Thank you."

"I would have come by sooner, but there was the quarantine and then… well, it's not important. As I said, I'm glad you're alright."

Voris blinked several times. "Is there something I may assist you with? It is growing quite late."

She opened her mouth and winced. "Um, I've been having the headaches again."

"I can prescribe an immediate analgesic and perhaps you could return in the morning."

"The hypos never help. Can't you just do the neuropressure?"

She had unique talents of persuasion and despite the fact he wanted to retire for the evening, he consented to her request. She undid several buttons on her shirt and allowed it to fall slightly down her back, exposing the top part of her shoulders.

The last time he had performed neuropressure on her, he'd felt considerable trepidation at touching her, and his hesitation had only grown much worse. Rather than draw it out, he mentally collected himself and quickly traced his fingers along the vertebrae of her neck, searching for the proper pressure points.

"I was worried about you," she whispered.

"Why?"

"Because you're the colony doctor," she answered, her voice louder. "What would we do if something happened to you?"

"The colony managed with no trained medical staff for months," he reminded her, pressing down hard into trapezoid.

"Were you not worried about me? I could have come down with the lungworm too."

"I was unconscious for several days and even if worry were logical, which it is not, I could not have worried over your welfare in such a condition."

She snorted a soft laugh. "That's the most Vulcan thing I've ever heard."

"When I regained consciousness, I asked for a report of potentially susceptible Vulcanoid colonists and was informed you and several others had been vaccinated within the past ten years, according to the records my predecessor kept, therefore, there was no reason to be concerned for your well-being."

"This feels really nice," she said, craning her neck to look at him.

"It is not intended to be pleasant: it is intended to be therapeutic. Please face forward."

"If I didn't know better, I could swear you were in a bad mood."

"I am not."

She stepped forward, shrugging out of his grip, and when she turned around to face him, her shirt had fallen so low on her chest that it threatened to expose her breasts. He immediately looked away.

"Sometimes I feel like you're the only person on this colony who could ever understand me," she murmured.

"We are hardly acquainted."

"Do we have to be? We're the only two Vulcans here."

"We are of the same species but that does not make us familiar."

"Voris, I've lived my whole life away logic and discipline and everything Vulcan. When my grandmother died, I started to think maybe she and my parents robbed me of something I needed. Then you showed up. You're the first logical Vulcan I've ever met. I want to learn how to control my emotions like you do. I want to learn how to be Vulcan."

"Most Vulcans spend their entire lives seeking logic's serenity—I am hardly qualified to train you to learn what I myself am still seeking to master."

She smiled and took a step forward. "So you're telling me that you really do have feelings under that stone cold façade?"

"You obviously know that Vulcans experience emotions."

She bit her lip and took a slow breath. "Do you… have any emotions about me?"

"Specify."

She covered her face with her hands and shrugged her shirt back up onto her shoulders. "I used to think I just admired you but if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I think I have feelings for you. I think I knew it the first time you did neuropressure on me. Maybe I knew it the first time I saw you."

Voris blinked several times, unable to absorb the weight of her words. Strangely, his mind turned to Dagny, wondering what she was doing upstairs. The hopeful look on Vaksur's face began to transform into something else entirely.

"Please say something," she whispered through clenched teeth.

"What would you have me say?"

"Say you feel the same way."

But he did not feel the same way. Did he? He had never considered his relationship with Vaksur to be romantic in nature. She was certainly very beautiful but their personalities were so diametrically opposed that he had never bothered to consider her as a potential mate, and why should he, when he had Dagny?

It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't have Dagny, not really. She was pregnant his child, but she was not his mate either, and he would need a mate eventually. Dagny had helped him resolve his most recent pon farr, but even if he dared ask her, which he didn't, he doubted she would be willing to assist him a second time.

He turned his attention back to the slender Vulcan woman standing in front of him, unsure of how to proceed. He knew so little about her. He started to realize just how much time had passed since she'd urged him to assert his feelings for her. He should say something, but what?

Before he could decide on a response, Vaksur inhaled a slight gasp, clenched her eyes shut, then stepped forward and pressed her mouth to his. Her lips were warm and dry, her touch, gentle yet insistent. Soon he felt her tongue sliding over the part in his lips, but he remained paralyzed by indecision.

She suddenly tore her mouth away and gulped. "What's wrong?"

"I- I am surprised by your display of affection. I am surprised that you harbor any affection for me at all."

"But I do. Are you not at all interested in me?"

"You are aware of my current situation with Dagny Skjeggestad?"

"Your paramedic? Yes, everyone knows about that, but I bet not everyone can figure out how it happened. I might not have been raised as a Vulcan, but Velara did tell me things. I know about pon farr. I know you can't go without a wife forever."

He took a step back and glanced at the wall.

"I know Vulcans don't like talking about it so I'm sorry to bring it up, but since we are on that subject-"

"You would accept my child by another woman?" he interrupted.

"Lots of people have children from previous relationships. I have two half-siblings out there somewhere. It's not unheard of."

"Admitting you understand the situation is not the same as accepting it."

"Life is messy. What else is there to say?" She reached for his hand, but her touch failed to generate the usual feelings of mild euphoria that came with ozh'esta. T'Sala's touch had elicited that sensation, and so had Dagny's. He thought of Dagny and suddenly felt ashamed for ever considering Vaksur as a potential mate.

"I do not believe we are well-suited to one another."

"How can that be logical?"

"Explain."

"There are so few Vulcans left—isn't it logical that the only two on this colony should be together? It almost feels like fate. You came here for a reason—you obviously didn't like living on New Vulcan."

"It is illogical to assume you understand my motives for relocating here. Furthermore, there is no logic in forcing a bond between us for the sake of perpetuating our species."

"Is it because I don't follow logic?" she asked, the pitch of her voice clipping several syllables. "I told you—I want to learn. Teach me. Teach me to be with you."

"Our incompatibility is not a personal failing on either of our parts. We simply are not suited to one another."

She exhaled sharply and squinted at him. "I think we could be, if you would just give me a chance."

Voris stepped back. "Perhaps you should leave."

Vaksur's face turned from confusion and hurt to rage. "I've just poured my heart out to you and all you can say is go away?"

"I think it would be for the best."

"You love her, don't you?"

"Whatever I feel or do not feel for Miss Skjeggestad is irrelevant now."

Vaksur balled her hands into fists and leaned forward assertively to kiss him a second time. He could not subdue the instinctive arousal that resulted from her hungry touch and the more primitive parts of his brain briefly overrode any trace of reason, but then Voris suddenly felt very calm. The calm lasted for perhaps three seconds before it started to transform into indignation and fury.

He made every effort to center himself but his anger was beyond him. He started cycling through feelings of hurt and betrayal, ugly emotions that he could barely comprehend, let alone control. He tried to push her away and when he did, he noticed the desperate, pleading look in her eyes and might have felt pity for her, if he could feel anything besides anger and pain. She reached for his face and he grabbed her by the wrists, and only then did his eyes register a flash of movement from behind Vaksur.

Dagny was standing on the stairs to their quarters, her face a strange shade of red and her mouth hanging slack at the sight unfolding before her in the clinic. She steadied herself on the wall behind her and turned to flee upstairs, tripping over herself to get away from the scene.

It would have been an awkward motion for anyone, but Dagny's protruding belly put her entirely off-balance and her left foot got tangled with her right. She started to fall backwards and despite her desperate attempts to keep herself from falling, her hands had nothing to grab onto and could do nothing to prevent her from crashing down the stairs.