One Time They Really Were: Chapter One
The comfy wicker basket reminded her of home. She'd just snuggled into it, an e-book she'd been dying to read already queued up on her PADD, when her door chimed. She wasn't expecting visitors so late in the ship's evening and briefly debated letting it go unanswered. After all, she was off-duty and if there was an emergency, Captain Kirtle would surely have had someone page her. After considering for less than fifteen seconds, however, she put down her PADD and wriggled over to see who was there.
"Mr. Sock!" she exclaimed a little breathlessly. "What brings you here?" She wriggled aside to let the handsome Ash'ai hop in.
He waited for the door to slide closed behind him before answering her. His stern face, the color of unbleached cotton touched with green, was even more austere than usual as he regarded her so gravely.
"Lieutenant Underoosa," he said, "I require assistance."
.
As Lieutenant Underoosa wriggled to a stop in her sitting area, Sock hopped on towards her sleeping alcove.
"Just where do you think you're going, Commander?" she queried, her tremulous voice giving away her fear despite the belligerence of her words.
Sock hopped in a circle until he was once again facing the trembling teddy. The brown satin silk of her skin glowed in the low light of her quarters, calling him closer.
With a single hop, Sock was across the room and centimeters away from the beguiling communications officer.
"Forgive me Negli— Nyota," he murmured, leaning in to inhale her scent. "Without your help, I am destined for the rag heap."
.
.
"It is called the Pon farr. A biological imperative that separates Ash'ai males from their logic approximately every seven Terran years," Sock told her. "It comes with an insanity that collapses our façade of refinement.
"My mate, T'Pantyhose, can do nothing for me now. Even if that were not the case, she and I were separated some time ago and I doubt she would have been willing if the nature of our link did not compel her."
"Your mate is a pair of tights, Mr. Sock?"
"No," he explained, sounding quite a bit testy. "Her name was T'Pantyhose. She, of course, was a knitted stocking, much as all Ash'ai are."
"You mean she's a sock?"
"I have just said that she was."
"But that doesn't make any sense, Mr. Sock. You're a sock, and your name is 'Sock' …"
"Because of my mixed heritage, my father was concerned that—"
"Concerned? Isn't that a Ladieswear emotion, Mr. Spock?"
"My father believed there was a possibility that, as my mother was Ladieswear, I might find it difficult to fit into Ash'ai society. He named me 'Sock' — the Federation Standard word for 'ash'ai' — to remind me of who, and what, I must be."
Underoosa shook her head, thinking that Ambassador Thorlos's logic was faulty in the extreme. She was just about to say so when another fact hit her like a bucket of biting borax bath booster.
"Wait a minute! Did you say her name was T'Pantyhose?"
"I did."
"You mean she's dead?"
"Affirmative."
"But if the two of you have been separated for a long time, how can you be sure?"
A/N: Here begins the second adventure of Sock and Underoosa. (This one is my favorite of the four.)
Illustrated version of the first fic available at my lj.
I should have mentioned, this particular ficlet is TOS; all of the others are reboot.