Reed
Well, so here we are – the 'Florida Panhandle'. Home to the one and only Mistah Tuckah and his kith and kin, as well as part of a state that has rather fewer inhabitants than there were a couple of years ago.
A few minutes ago the small aircraft I've flown in on passed over the northernmost tip of the Trench, that water-filled wound in the world the Xindi were kind enough to bestow upon us. I have one of the window-seats, so had a grandstand view. I'd seen that ghastly devastation on our previous visit, before it filled up to its present level, but to judge by the gasps and groans from others, plenty of my fellow-passengers hadn't. No doubt in time the kindly hands of wind and weather will soften out the edges of the scar; I don't see any hope of being able to drain it and fill it in, but bridges will be built across it and vegetation will take hold, and those of us who lived through the attack and lost loved ones in it will die, and a couple of hundred years from now it will be just another monument to the stupidity of past ages. If the human race survives that long, that is. God knows we tried often enough to wipe ourselves out, and the last attempt damn near succeeded. I hope we've learned our lesson, but somehow I doubt it.
I spent the first week of my shore leave hiking on Terceira in the Azores – a pastime that quite admirably ironed out the cramps from living so long in the confines of a relatively tiny ship. Also it acclimatised me to a hot climate, so when the aircraft door opens on the baking tarmac of the Panama City Airport and the hot muggy air of Florida rushes into the contained environment it's not as much of a shock as it normally is.
Trip's waiting for me in the reception hall. He looks tanned and relaxed in a white jacket and long shorts, and has even selected a reasonably restrained shirt, presumably so I'll walk beside him as opposed to ten feet away pretending we're total strangers.
"Hey, Malcolm!" he says, clapping me on the shoulder. "Flight okay?"
"Fine." He rolls his eyes at that, so I clarify. "Hit a bit of turbulence at one point. Apart from that, it was quiet enough. Still feels a bit strange using a commercial airline instead of a shuttlepod."
"Gettin' institutionalized. Should get out more." He grins, and leads the way to the flitter park. One of the rewards pressed on us by a grateful Earth on our return from the Xindi hunt was a flitter each; unsurprisingly, his is scarlet. Considering that subtlety is to Trip what snowballs are to hell, I occasionally wonder what on earth attracts me to him, but as he turns around and smiles at me and the base of my stomach drops away I'm afraid I know. It's not just that he's incredibly good-looking and terrific in bed, but that he exudes this irresistible charm; and it's not just surface deep either. He really is just a really nice person, and in some inexplicable way he makes me feel whole when I'm around him. It's such an odd sensation for me that I haven't dared explore it in any detail; the bare idea that anyone could be becoming so important to me is frankly terrifying. I haven't said it to him yet, and maybe the opportunity will never present itself, but in the silence of my thoughts I've actually found myself using the 'L' word; and using it in a way that's quite different from what it meant in any of those other disastrous relationships which I tried so very hard to make work without committing to them anything of me that really mattered.
Among the other gifts he's brought me is comfort with my sexuality. When I'm with him, I don't have to be ashamed of what I am. True, it doesn't do anything to make certain memories significantly easier to live with, but those were part of the person I was then, and that person would never even have contemplated becoming as interdependent with not one but two other people as I am now. Occasionally I look back on that life of utter isolation and feel some nostalgia for the safety of it, but there's no doubt about it that my life is infinitely richer now, in friendship as well as in physical satisfaction.
We get into the flitter. Our arms brush as I settle into the front passenger seat, and the casual contact makes me shiver with longing. However, we've already acknowledged that places like these are far too well monitored to allow us even a moment of carelessness, and we do no more than glance at each other, he understanding quite well why I shift abruptly in my seat.
"We'll make chances somehow, Mal," he says, his voice quiet and fierce as he engages the drive.
"That's exactly what you're talking about. Chances," I reply, though my pulse has speeded up and my memory has chosen this moment to present me with certain scenes that make my loose-fitting cream trousers suddenly uncomfortably tight around the crotch area. "But I believe the phrase you should be using is taking rather than making."
"Sonofabitch!" He pulls up at the back of a queue for the exit, and his fingers drum irritably on the steering wheel. "Look. I've made the arrangements. There are two bedrooms in the new place. Hoshi'll have one. I was gonna give you the other one, but Mom thought that was …"
"…Inappropriate," I finish dryly. I'm getting the picture. These people have never even met me and they already think I'm a voracious sexual predator who'll brutally ravish a helpless junior officer if we're alone in the same building overnight. No doubt it's only the restraining presence of other male personnel that has prevented me from despoiling the entire female complement of Enterprise since we launched.
(Well, for one embarrassing day that was probably true, but hopefully Starfleet hasn't made that particular episode public knowledge.)
Maybe it's because I'm English. You'd have thought that enough centuries have passed since the Boston Tea Party for memories to have faded, but I've found there are still isolated pockets where an English accent suggests some kind of deviant personality. It appears that the Tuckers live in one of them.
It's not an encouraging thought.
Still, I can't imagine that an intelligent, friendly bloke like Trip can have come from a bunch of inbred swamp-dwellers, so I resign myself to the fact that they're probably just trying to ease the path of true love for him and Hoshi. It would be far more convenient for romantic trysts if the happy couple were in a place by themselves, and presumably the rest of the family will put up with my presence indoors as long as I don't pee in the fireplace or try to enforce droit de seigneur on the servants.
"It's not goddamn fair!" He simmers until we've hit the freeway, at which point his indignation spills over again. "Look, if you can't–"
"Trip." I've already faced this, and all that remains is to make him see sense. "If we got caught out there'd be hell to pay. You and Hoshi can enjoy yourselves and make it up to me when we get back to the ship." I glance across at him. "And before you say anything, yes, I'll be as envious as hell. Of both of you. But one thing I don't want to do is feature on your family tree as the axe that lopped one of the branches it still has left."
"It's not the same!" he bursts out.
"I know that, you fool." Hoshi and I will happily shag each other's brains out when he's not there, but we still miss him. Just as he and I miss her when she's too tired or too busy. The reality of life on board ship is that it's actually relatively rare that all three of us are available and inclined and energetic enough to meet up, so we make the most of it when it happens, but mostly there's only two of us sharing a bunk. We had to come to the agreement that this would happen without causing excessive heartache, and so far it's worked well enough. I don't say that I don't feel twinges of envy when I'm the one left out, but that's just the way it is, and so far caution has served us well. The next few nights will be happy for them, not so happy for me, but if that's what it takes for us all to walk away leaving Trip's family ties intact, that's a price I'm happy to pay. Perhaps it's my having the family from hell that makes me so much more aware of how lucky he is to have a family that loves and admires him so much, and so determined to make sure it continues that way.
"Hey, who're you callin' a fool?" He ruffles my hair (Hoshi has successfully transferred that little habit to him, much to my exasperation) and seems to forget about the whole thing. Instead he concentrates on pointing out local points of interest, and both of us carefully neglect to mention that not all that far ahead of us is the Trench. His little sister didn't move far from home, but unfortunately she moved just far enough. Maybe the old cinema exercised some kind of sentimental attraction – a fatal one, as it turned out. I suppose it could have been worse; a few miles north and west, and the attack would have taken out his parents' home instead. Naturally I don't say this. The topic still feels somewhat sensitive, and for all that I forgave his outburst at me on the subject of Lizzie's funeral long ago, I'm not anxious to provoke a repeat of it. Our relationship is still new enough for me to be very cautious of risky subjects.
The afternoon is hot, even by Florida standards, by the time we reach the Tucker ancestral home. It's quite a beautiful building, rather old but well maintained, and evidently someone in the household is fond of flowers. Tubs of them stand along the porch and more tumble from baskets along the veranda, and the lawns on either side of the front garden are lined with rose bushes. The property occupies its own fairly large area of land – at the back of it I can see what looks like the end of a stable-block, and at a guess there are other buildings further around out of sight. I know from odds and ends that Trip's let fall over the years that there's a shed somewhere that he used to tinker with machinery in when he was small; there's also a lake not too far away where an uncle kept the boat whose motor was the first he repaired – at the advanced age of eight. A child prodigy, was our Mistah Tuckah, and I'm more than glad that Enterprise has the benefit of his talents – even if my enjoyment of some of them will have to wait for a few days longer.
It seems that someone has been on the lookout for our arrival, as a number of young people tumble out of the front door as the flitter pulls up. It's unsurprising that Trip is an object of adoration among the younger members of his family; for all his intelligence, he has what Maddie would call a young soul, and gets on well with people of all ages. I'm aware of four pairs of eyes studying me with wary interest as their owners cluster around us; the resemblance to Trip is traceable in all of them, so they're undoubtedly his nephews and niece. He's already told me that a couple of his siblings and relatives who live only a short distance away have come to visit, and his older sister lives with his parents, so it's going to be a full house. By all accounts, however, that's by no means a rare occurrence here, and the household is well geared up to cope.
They draw us into the house, where the adults are waiting. Obviously it's Trip's parents Charles and Ellen, as host and hostess, to whom I'm introduced first. The marks of what the family have been through are plain in their faces. Ellen's eyes are still bruised-looking, and there's a conscious defiance in the way she holds herself upright. Charles, however, seems bowed by the weight of his loss, and his eyes are sunken in a face that has fallen into lines of bitterness and anger.
Husband and wife greet me pleasantly enough, however, though I do detect an undercurrent of puzzlement that they're not quite deft enough to hide. I didn't visit when the ship was back at Earth after the Xindi attack; I felt as if it would be an intrusion. They obviously know Captain Archer, since they ask Trip quite soon how 'Jon' is these days, but I'm a stranger, and they don't quite understand why I'm here rather than back in England with my own family. I don't know how much they know about my situation (probably not a great deal, since it's not something I discuss even with Trip and Hoshi), so my best course is to be as unobtrusive as I possibly can. Fortunately this is something at which I've had a great deal of practice, and even now I fancy I'm pretty damn good at it.
Having exerted my best and softest charm, and succeeded in banishing a few of the lines of unease from the faces of the older members of the gathering, it's time for me to be introduced to the junior members of it, so to speak. Trip's four siblings all bear the Tucker stamp to various degrees, though their colouring varies; his hair is among the fairest of the family, though his older sister's hair is the fairest of the lot, possibly with the aid of a certain amount of peroxide. They're also a pleasant enough bunch, and seem to share his intelligence; one or two of them even seem to suspect me of being an ordinary human being, even if I was born on the wrong side of the Pond.
There are two cousins in residence, and one of them is friendly and forgettable. The second, however, is of a different calibre. At some point he might have shared the family good looks, but I've already learned from Trip that he's the black sheep of the flock. He experimented with drugs in the past and still drinks too heavily, and the consequent ruin of his face and figure is compounded by the slovenliness of his clothing and a marked absence of personal hygiene (both, in my lexicon at least, severely discourteous both to his hostess and to the occasion, though maybe that's just his usual mode of appearance and everyone else just takes it for granted). In this heat we're all feeling the effects of it, but the sweat stains under his armpits would be appropriate in someone coming out of a strenuous couple of hours in the gym rather than attending a social gathering. Far worse than either of these, however, is his smile. It's as real as a nine-pound note, and when as I politely shake hands he closes his left hand over mine to hold it in place a moment longer than necessary, I feel the instinctive urge to wipe my hand on my trouser leg when I get it back. Needless to say I refrain from doing so, but I trust my instincts, and even if Trip's brief résumé of his misdeeds hadn't been in the back of my mind, my distrust of this man would still have been instant and visceral.
"M' cousin Carl. Carl, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, weapons officer on Enterprise." Trip's voice is too carefully neutral, and it's significant that he's mentioned my connection with weapons. So far he's introduced me as the Chief Tactical Officer, which is my official title. My disquiet ratchets up another notch.
"I guess it felt real good killin' those damn Xindi, hey, Lieutenant?" Carl wheezes with a knowing leer, as though he imagines I keep trophy recordings of the weapons strikes to masturbate over.
"It 'felt good' to defend my ship," I answer levelly. "With regard to the Xindi, obviously I'd have preferred it if a peaceful solution could have been achieved. Since that wasn't possible, I did my job – nothing more."
"Damn good job too! Damn good! When that weapon exploded – WHAM!"
I wonder if he has any idea how sore a spot this is to me. It was not I who placed the charges that destroyed that cursed weapon, but the captain. Starfleet has made this known, undoubtedly with the aim of enhancing still more the aura of heroism that hangs around Captain Archer's already overburdened shoulders, but I can't help but feel that it reflects on me – that people will wonder why the commanding officer of Earth's flagship couldn't trust his weapons officer to do the job. In my darker moments I wonder it myself. The obvious answer is that by that time his quest had become so intensely personal that he wanted the satisfaction of planting the explosives with his own hands, and of course he wanted to ensure that Hoshi and Corporal Macintyre were escorted safely off the weapon before he blew it to hell; but still, it rankles just a little.
I nod, as curtly as courtesy allows, and turn the subject by remarking on the display of flowers on the veranda. Fortunately my mother was a keen gardener and I absorbed some of her knowledge – at least, enough to allow me to sustain a few minutes' polite conversation with Ellen Tucker, whose garden is her pride and joy. I flatter myself that I earn at least a few points thereby, and with this seal of matriarchal approval set upon me the rest of the clan allow themselves to relax. At least for the present I am showing no disposition to confiscate the contents of the tea-caddy or molest the women, and although my accent will probably be interpreted as upper-class I show no reluctance to mingle with my social inferiors. Dam' good of me, what?
My manners remain unruffled during the course of the meal that follows. It surprises nobody that pan-fried catfish should be one of the main courses, though even I am surprised by the size of the portion that Trip puts away. It's even more astonishing that he actually has space for a dessert afterwards (pecan pie of course, and 'no-one can make it like momma!') – I swear, that man must have a stomach like a shuttlepod hangar hidden somewhere inside him.
The guest's privilege of helping with the washing-up afterwards is negated by the fact that the Tuckers own a dishwasher the size of the Tactical Station, but I earn more points by helping to carry the dishes out and load it. Halfway through this operation I find the egregious Carl standing rather too close to me for comfort, and the situation isn't improved by the way his expression changes instantly to what he probably imagines is a friendly smile as soon as I look up. In actual fact I've seen friendlier smiles on a crocodile, but I can produce a pretty convincing smile myself when I have to, and this seems like as good a time as any to do so; though I waste no time in re-establishing a correct distance between us, and extricate myself from the kitchen as soon as I can.
"Got any plans for this evenin', son?" asks Charles Tucker II, when we're all finally established in comfort in the lounge. "Or will you be waitin' till Miss Sato flies in tomorrow?"
Trip and I are seated on the sofa. Though we're at a discreet distance from each other, his arm is resting along the back of it behind my head, as though placed there quite by accident. Even though we aren't touching, or even close to it, I have the suspicion that one person in particular sees this placement as significant. I deliberately refrain from glancing to assess whether I'm right; it will be far better if I act as though I haven't even noticed. I make a note to myself to warn Trip to take more care, though. If we're trying to avoid even the breath of suspicion we have to tread so carefully that we wouldn't so much as crush a snowflake, and those who are determined to find evidence will manufacture it out of nothing.
"Thought we'd pay a little visit downtown," he says cheerfully. "See if we can find somewhere we can have a dance. Once Hoshi gets here she'll make sure we toe the line, so we'll take our chances while we can."
Once again he's used that expression. I keep my face bland, but I want to dig him in the ribs by way of a warning.
"You may get lucky and find a girl for Malcolm here," his sister Catherine chimes in.
"You never know, hey, Malcolm?" He pushes his knuckles playfully against the side of my face. "Once they hear that English accent o' yours, you'll have 'em eatin' out of your hands."
"It's hardly likely." I try to look suitably bashful. "Besides, I don't suppose anybody will notice me when they've got you to look at."
There's instantly a chorus of disapproval of my excessive modesty, even if at heart they all probably agree with me. Actually I like these people more than I expected to, with one notable exception. Carl's just a little too hearty in his protestations that I underrate my own good looks, and the effusiveness in his voice makes my skin crawl. Fortunately, he's not the type to go clubbing, and we've already been informed he has a new movie downloaded he plans to spend the night watching. By the vast wink that accompanied this information I'll guess it's not the sort he'd offer to share with his mother, but maybe I'm just being cynical.
At any rate I'm relieved when the party eventually breaks up, and Trip escorts me to my room. Even there I'm careful to leave the door open, and we keep our conversation absolutely void of the slightest suggestion of impropriety. Trip's eyes send me messages concerning the bed that unfortunately I'll spend the visit alone in, but that's as far as it goes, and even there I frown him into caution.
The sooner Hoshi's here to divert attention away from me, the better.
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