Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The wooden floors were warm on his bare feet as Chris padded softly through the house. While the heat flowing under the boards meant socks weren’t strictly necessary it wasn’t quite warm enough to stop him from pulling on a pair of flannel pyjama pants and an old sweatshirt when he’d climbed out of bed. He’d gotten the sweatshirt years ago with Joseph on their trip through Kenya and the logo was so old and faded now that he couldn’t tell which national park it had come from, but he’d swear that he could still smell the campfire smoke like it was woven into the fabric.

In his kitchen domain Chris moved between cupboards and draws gathering up the bowls and spoons and spatulas he’d need for his task. The trouble with having more storage space than the galley of a starship was losing track of where he’d decided to put things. Banging about, opening and closing cupboards and catching stacks of trays and tins before they tumbled out, was part of the fun of being in a kitchen but this morning Chris tried to be stealthy as possible so that he wouldn’t disturb the other occupants of his home. The bedrooms might be tucked away towards the back of the house, looking out onto a small wildflower meadow, but the thunderous sound of metal crashing onto wooden floorboards would definitely carry.

The kitchen opened up to the living area and the open plan space took up the entire span of the front of the house, a single story with sweeping architectural beams across the high ceilings. Along one wall were floor to ceiling window panels that could slide completely open, which was not a feature he was likely to be making use of this morning. Not only were they already well into the local fall season but the sun hadn’t even began to rise yet. But once it did, Chris would have a picture perfect view of the mountains framed through them. The low slopes were covered with trees in every shade of green, from teal through to dark moss but in the past few weeks patches of gold, burnt orange and rust had began to appear. Above the trees purplish grey rocks jutted up, turning crystal white at their snowcapped peaks. Between the edge of the forest and the house sat a sky blue lake. Chris had enjoyed the warmer mornings when he’d sat out on the deck, cup of coffee in hand, and watched some of the smaller animals creep out of the undergrowth to drink from the shores of the lake. He really could have been back in Montana, except that he wasn’t likely to see any white tailed deer skipping about, and he couldn’t fish for rainbow trout. 

Sometimes it seemed as though time stood still here; it had been less than a year since they’d moved planetside and yet it already felt like a lifetime. Maybe that had less to do with the magic of the place and more to do with the fact that he’d spent his last ten years as Captain of the Enterprise racing against a ticking clock; until finally he’d run out of time. He hadn’t just rolled over and resigned himself to the inevitable fate he’d been shown on Boreth. He’d accepted it because the choices that led him there were the only choices his conscience allowed him to make. He’d saved those kids lives, and Spock’s future legacy of billions more, knowing that it meant sacrificing almost everything he’d come to hold dear in his own.

Chris might have accepted the consequences, the losses, but Una hadn’t. When he’d given up fighting the designs of the universe, Una had done the improbable and the unexpected. Which he should have known wasn’t all that improbable or unexpected where Una was concerned. 

A few days after he’d been released from Starbase One’s central medical facility and moved back to their own quarters, still under heavy monitoring by a team of doctors and nurses, Una had stood in front of his life-support chair and held out her hand. Laying there on her open palm was an antique timepiece, a pocket watch that wasn’t a style from any time in Earth’s history. Chris already knew that it had been her mother’s, her grandmother’s and great-great grandmothers before her. And on down through an unbreakable chain of women. Illyrian women.

It hadn’t been the scars or the physical incapacities of the delta radiation that had broken Chris, it was no longer being able to tell those he loved what they meant to him. He couldn’t even share a stupid joke that would make Una groan, or reassure a new ensign that they’d all made that mistake when they’d started out. Everything from the smallest notion, to the big wide-sky at night pondering had been locked up inside of him. There’d been chatter amongst the medical staff about new technologies that might, in some abstract and murky timeframe, overcome the limitations of the machines that kept him alive, but he’d had to resign himself to the present reality where he could only communicate with affirmative or negative in direct response to a question.

That morning with the pocket watch Una hadn’t said the words out loud either. They’d both understood the question, understood what she was offering him. There were people out there in the galaxy who could give him back time and he’d thought ‘yes’. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the chair relayed the mantra to Una as a single flash of light. It wasn’t nearly enough to convey what this decision meant, or what the cost would be, but Chris planned to fill all of the coming years with the words he wanted to say. 

Almost a year before the training cruise that had gone so horribly wrong Chris had traded seeing the stars passing by his cabin window and the viewscreen every day for the vista of Starbase One’s glass domes hanging in the deep black of space and an endless horizon dotted with swirling galaxies, all just within his reach. He’d never imagined a time or scenario where he would have given up being out amongst those stars, given up his uniform or his federation citizenship. But for a long time now he’d had different priorities. Besides, the stars were just as breathtaking when he looked up at them with his boots still on the ground.

“You’re up far too early.” 

Chris looked up from his fastidious preparations. Una was framed in the doorway to the lounge sporting a very disapproving frown. Her hair was loose and cascading over her shoulders, the ends curled where she’d had it wrapped up in a tight bun the day before. He liked when she kept it down and he could see the slight streaks of silver that had started to appear. He didn’t feel quite so much older than her then, and his protests that there were only a couple of years between them were needed far less. Una was still in her night shirt, it was the colour of heather and had one too many of the top buttons done up for Chris’ liking. She’d added shorts since getting up but they barely made an appearance under the hem of the shirt, revealing an expanse of bare leg, but she’d also pulled on the ugliest pair of woollen socks ever created by hand or matter synthesiser. The socks did keep her feet warm in bed though and that he would definitely not complain about.

He’d left Una in that very bed, convinced he hadn’t woken her. He should have known better. Una always seemed to know when he wasn’t at her side, plus she enjoyed being up long before him, a trick she’d learned as his Number One. Back on Enterprise she’d have been awake and caught up on everything they’d missed from Delta shift before he’d even rolled out of bed, with an answer to any question he cared to pose over breakfast in his cabin or at the morning debrief in his ready room. Chris knew all too well that some habits were hard to shake.

Una took her time reaching him in the kitchen, weaving around the couch and armchairs of the lounge in a lazy meander. That was fine by Chris, it meant he had longer to watch her. Some days she seemed untouched by time and he could still see all of the things he had the day they’d met. The sparkling eyes that could see right through him. The way she’d held herself with a confidence and swagger, when Chris had still been all excitable awkwardness. Then other times he’d notice something new and fall in love all over again. A smattering of freckles just inside her elbow he’d somehow never noticed despite having carried out some rather extensive charting missions of her body. Another line in the crease of her mouth that he couldn’t decide whether it had come from smiling too much or was a scar of that long and terrible year when she’d done nothing but worry.

While Una and his new doctors (and Joseph via subspace communications) continued to marvel at the progress Chris had made with his genetic modifications, relearning how to walk and talk in months, he marvelled at Una’s adaption to their life outside of Starfleet. Two weeks after he’d been released from the medical facility, and finally convinced her he’d be just fine if she left the house for more than an hour, Una had taken up her new post at the Taruva Institute, one of the highest regarded universities in the Illyrian Free Colonies. Watching her no longer having to hide her Illyrian nature had helped Chris to finally understand the culture beyond mere genetic tweaking. Una became an embodiment of their beliefs- eagerly embracing the changes needed to shape herself to this place where fate had led them. A long time ago, in their old life, she’d followed Chris to Enterprise, then to Starbase One; but she’d been the one to lead them here and now she was training the kids who would go off into the stars in their place. 

A few days ago he’d asked her if she missed those stars. They’d been sat out on the porch. The nights had gotten darker but weren’t yet the bone-deep cold they promised to become. Una sat with her back against the arm of the bench seat they shared, her legs slung over his lap and a heavy horse blanket on top of them both. It was too dark to watch for any critters chancing a trip to the edge of the lake but they could look higher and see all of the unfamiliar constellations shining above, like a beacon calling them back out to the stars. 

“How can I miss them when they’re right here?” she’d answered. And when he’d turned to her she’d been looking right back at him, the night sky forgotten.

There was no lecture hall for Una today though. Today was going to be all about their family. 

“I thought I’d get the decoration done before she woke up,” Chris said as soon as Una was close enough that he wouldn’t be raising his voice. 

The explanation probably wasn’t necessary what with the two layers of cooled chocolate-cherry cake he’d baked late the night before sat on the kitchen island, wearing his apron and holding a mixing bowl in his hand. Una came around the counter and dipped a finger into the chocolate frosting that he was whipping up.

Absolutely transfixed he watched  her raise her finger to her lips and slowly lick the frosting off.

“If you wanted me to come back to bed you could have just asked.” 

He shifted the bowl to the crook of his arm and leaned in to kiss her. This was something else he’d been stopped from doing for far too long and he’d been doing his very best to make up for lost time. Chris pulled back just enough for Una to catch a single breath then said, “You got some frosting, right…” and he pressed his lips to hers again.

It was a lie, but a pleasant one. He didn’t need an excuse to kiss his wife.

“Ewww.”

La’an had appeared in the hallway as stealthily as Una, though more dishevelled. She wore pyjama pants much like his own and a Starfleet Academy Decathlon Team t-shirt that he was sure had been Una’s. La’an was not a track and field athlete. She also wasn’t old enough yet to attend Starfleet Academy even if she’d wanted to. There’d been no way to reverse the extensive changes that the Talvin device they’d encountered on Paesh eleven years ago had done to La’an. But just as he’d promised Una, Chris had fought to keep them both on board Enterprise where they belonged. With their family. With him. They’d converted Una’s quarters, adding an additional suite from the adjacent cabin, and La’an had been the first kid to grow up on a Federation Starship. And possibly the last given some of the mission reports he’d had to file over the years.

“You’re not meant to see the cake until it’s done,” he told her.

La’an pulled one of the high stools away from the breakfast bar on the other side of the kitchen counter and sat down facing him. She tried to hold back a yawn but failed miserably, her tongue curling out as she said “I always watch you make my birthday cakes.” 

She had; from six to fourteen. The first one he’d even let her help decorate. What could possibly go wrong with rainbow sprinkles on fluffy white frosting? They’d been aiming for the appearance of floating clouds but honestly it looked a mess by the time an overzealous five-years-and-three-hundred-and-sixty-four-days-old kid had been let loose on it. If he squinted at it just right it resembled a warp core breach, but La’an had been delighted with it. 

He’d just finished wiping down the frosting covered child and counter when Una arrived, done with the crew evaluation meetings that had spared her from supervising the birthday cake and dinner preparations. La’an bounded over to her the instant the door opened, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward the kitchen.

“Look what I made with daddy.” 

Una masterfully kept any astonishment from showing on her face, but Chris could see more than mild surprise in the way her eyes flicked from La’an to him and back again. Chris had a feeling he wasn’t anywhere near as successful at hiding his own shock at La’an’s choice of words. 

“That looks… delicious.” 

Any other time he’d be defending his efforts- yes the cake might not look the prettiest but it was safe to say it would taste amazing. But right then Chris could only focus on the feeling of his chest tightening and the coppery taste filling the back of his throat. Was this a heart attack? 

Una took pity on him and sent La’an scurrying away from them by saying, “Why don’t you go tidy up before everyone else gets here.”

Items from all around his quarters had been appropriated to create a shuttle cockpit on the floor by the couch, where La’an had been enjoying the latest holographic flight simulator from Erica. Every one of his senior staff’s quarters had cultivated their own stash of games, books, colouring pencils and puzzles to keep La’an occupied whenever they babysat. Only Una’s quarter’s remained remarkably uncluttered. 

Una gave the cake another pitying frown as she stepped close enough for a hushed conversation.

In a fierce whisper Chris told her,  “I did not teach her that.”

“Relax, Chris. I know you didn’t.” 

“Where would she even get the idea?” His eyes widened at a sudden thought. “Does she think you and I?” He indicated himself and then Una with a wave of the spatula he was holding.

“I really don’t think La’an is contemplating our sex lives.”

“Then… I don’t…”

“Chris, you cook her pretty much every meal. You help her with school work. You play games with her, tell her stories.”

“Okay, well, aside from the cooking, Spock and Joseph do those things too. And I’m pretty sure she’s not calling them dad.” A sudden feeling of panic enveloped him. “She’s not calling them dad is she?”

Una sucked in her lips, trying not to laugh at him. When she seemed sure that the urge had passed she said, “Definitely not.” 

Yeah, that made more sense. Spock was La’an’s annoying and overprotective big brother, and Joseph was her partner in crime. To be honest he’d expected Chapel and Ortegas to be the bad influences but it was M’Benga who loved getting into trouble with their youngest crew member.

Una glanced at La’an to make sure she wasn’t eavesdropping, something La’an had become particularly adept at of late. The girl was thoroughly occupied bossing Runa around as she and the toy dog moved the pile of stuff on the floor to what Chris suspected would be a pile of stuff on his bed. 

“From the few times she ever talked about her dad with me, you’ve cleared a pretty high bar to get called daddy.”

Chris still didn’t quite know what he’d done to deserve it but daddy had stuck, long before he and Una finally acknowledged their own feelings for each other. Chris and Una might only have been married for two years but the three of them had been a family for a lot longer.

That first year of that marriage had certainly put to the test the old Earth vows ‘for better or worse’ but Una, and La’an, had stuck with him. As Chris hadn’t been in any condition to bake for La’an’s last birthday he’d made a promise to himself that he’d make up for it on her sixteenth. He was hoping the gold and scarlet edible glitter he’d gotten as the final touch for the cake would go at least a little way toward his objective.

While he’d been distracted Una had dipped finger back into the mixing bowl and was already sucking frosting off with a grin. 

“You’re not meant to be eating it all before I even start.”

Accepting that she was now banned from the working side of the kitchen, an all too common occurrence, Una quickly flipped the switch on the coffee maker then joined La’an sitting at the counter.

“So what do you want to do today?” Una asked.

Their daughter shrugged. “I don’t know. Just… something together?”

The past year had been particularly hard for her. After La’an had lost her family to the Gorn she’d made Una and then Starfleet the foundation of her new life. Even her second chance at childhood, which had shaped the young woman in front of Chris now, had been all about Starfleet.

During the time that he’d been home but still incapacitated by his injuries La’an would come see him late at night. In careful whispers she’d tell him all of the things she’d been avoiding sharing with Una, not wanting to worry her mom, who was already carrying so much for them both. He’d longed to tell her that she didn’t need to be brave, that he and Una were there to do that for her, but La’an understood too well that there were times in life that she had to be strong for herself.

A few nights before Una’s question La’an had come into his room wearing a gold uniform shirt. He’d thought it had been one of Una’s until she’d thrown herself down into the bucket arm-chair beside the bed and the lamp light had caught the gold captain bands on the sleeve. He was sure she could sense the raised eyebrow that he couldn’t physically show when her fingers began to fiddle with the cuff. 

“Mum’s been tidying again. Like she did before you came home.” La’an didn’t have quite as pronounced an accent as she once did but it always came out when she called Una ‘Mum’. “She’s put a ton of stuff into the recycler. I found this in a pile of things she’d left on your bed.” 

La’an looked down at her lap as if she’d said something wrong and was embarrassed. Of course, it wasn’t their bed anymore, it was just Una’s. 

“It’s okay that I wear it right?” 

The bed that was his had the same functions as the chair, it just came with a different view. Chris’ answer flashed for La’an to see and she beamed at him.

“Thanks dad.”

Even blurry eyed from just waking the La’an who sat across the counter from him now was nothing like the bone-deep tired girl who’d left Starbase One. He hoped she’d never have to feel that way again. 

Chris caught his daughter’s sleepy gaze. “Something together sounds perfect.”

“Could we go for a ride?”

They might not have the same wildlife as Earth here but Neera had surprised them by arranging for five horses to be stabled at their new home before they’d arrived. Chris was still amused that after letting La’an chose their names the smallest one, a palomino, had been christened ‘James’.  

“Well that sounds more like a present for your dad,” Una said. She wrapped an arm around La’an’s shoulder tugging her close enough that she could kiss top of her head. “Why are you even up this early?”

La’an hadn’t gone through the promised teenage phase of finding her affectionate parents embarrassing, and he an Una certainly hadn’t held back. She snuggled into Una’s embrace and closed her eyes, mumbling, “Christine’s going to call.” 

La’an had been heartbroken when they’d left the ship. Chris would be forever grateful to their Enterprise family that every one of them had made sure lightyears, and the fragile state of Illyrian and Federation politics, wouldn’t keep them apart. It had been good this past year to find La’an lying on the couch holding a padd above her head and sighing to Nyota about a school assignment, or even kicking her bedroom door closed on him when he’d come to investigate Erica’s voice. He’d been pretty sure that he’d heard the pilot asking about La’an’s latest crush before the slam of the door. Having doors closed in his face was infinitely better than being confined to the life-support chair and hearing the faint and distant sound of La’an sobbing to Joseph over the comms carry through their apartment. 

“You might want to wake up before then,” Una told her, shrugging her shoulder a little to jostle La’an. Chris couldn’t see below the counter but given La’an’s squeal and how she suddenly straightened on her stool he suspected Una had also found a ticklish spot. 

“Christine’s message said Spock made me a birthday cake too.” La’an noticed Una’s smirk and matched it. “She’s going to make James try it first.” 

Well good luck to Captain Kirk. Spock had plenty of skills but Chris had had to accept that no matter how hard he’d tried to teach the Vulcan, baking was not one of them. Spock hadn’t yet come to that same conclusion.

Chris sandwiched the two layers of cake together with frosting and glacé cherries and gradually covered the rest of the cake, turning it slowly on the rotating stand to smooth the sides. He could tell when the coffee was ready, the rich aroma beginning to overwhelm the chocolate. Una stood a millisecond before the click of the machine. His wife moved so silently that Chris could hear the last drips of liquid dripping through the filter hitting the pot below and the clink of mugs being placed on the countertop, then the sigh of the door of the refrigerator opening and closing as he swirled the frosting on top of the cake into twisting peaks.

Una came up behind him and snaked one arm around his waist, the other set his favourite mug beside the cake stand. When she came back around the counter to sit beside La’an she put down her own coffee and a tall glass of strawberry milk that was far too pink to contain natural anything 

La’an reached for the mug instead of the glass but Una lightly slapped her hand away. “Not a chance.” 

La’an huffed but wrapped her hands around the glass pulling it close. She took a sip and then propped her chin on the rim, eyelids fluttering sleepily again. 

Both of his girls watched as Chris finished sculpting the cake’s exterior then he picked up the small jar of edible glitter. The overhead lights and the rising sun creeping in through the windows caught the contents and it looked for a moment as though a swirling galaxy was trapped within the glass. He held the jar out for La’an and she grinned, instantly wide awake. With a flick of a finger Chris set the cake stand into a slow spin then stepped aside, leaning on the counter. Una reached for him, her fingers settling against his forearm. La’an stood up on the footrest of the stool, balancing over the cake, and dusted the frosting with stars. 

Chapter Text

Una thumbed off the padd she’d been skim reading as she turned from the main plaza into the corridors of Starbase One's residential district that was nestled within the station’s core. Being the first officer of a starship had pretty much meant always being on the job, even at the end of a duty shift, but her current position allowed for a little more latitude; specifically, she could turn off her padd and comms to enjoy an uninterrupted evening with her family. 

As chief of Special Projects Oversight on the starbase Una supervised everything from the pretty standard starship overhauls, to the kind of large scale resource management necessary for Starfleet’s disaster relief or planetary terraforming missions. When it came to Starbase One’s internal operations she coordinated the work of any number of tech development and scientific research teams that made use of the orbital station’s facilities. Even though she wasn’t warping around the uncharted reaches of the galaxy anymore there was still plenty of the unfamiliar and unexpected to Una's days to keep things interesting, and she’d found the job fit her skillset quite well. Bob April had even confided, out of Chris’ earshot, that since taking up her new posting more than one senior officer had asked him just how Captain Pike had managed to keep Una to himself and Enterprise all these years.

Una reached her quarters only a few minutes after leaving the plaza. The door slid open onto a compact entry hall, with an aesthetically concealed storage unit and then a door to one of the apartment’s two bedrooms mirrored on each side. Una walked past both of these rooms and on into the living area directly ahead, where there was enough space for two plush couches and three comfy armchairs without even coming close to crowding in on the sleek desk in one corner, necessary for whenever she or Chris needed to bring work home with them. The beating heart of the place though was undoubtedly the open-plan kitchen, which had been at the top of Chris’ list of requirements when they’d been applying for their new quarters. Even being the former command team of Starfleet’s flagship came with its privileges, and there wasn’t much the top brass would say no to when it came to their very best boy scout Christopher Pike

The air in the apartment was thick with the scent of chilies and lemon grass, garlic and ginger, telling Una that dinner would be ready imminently, and that she’d made the right call leaving Lieutenant Durand to deal with the Ganymede’s nacelle maintenance schedule. Bob hadn’t been wrong in telling all those enquiring captains and admirals that Chris’ cooking might have had something to do with Una’s years of loyalty. 

The man in question was of course in his kitchen. Despite the clutter of bowls and jars and utensils on the counter in front of him the apron Chris wore over his off duty shirt was somehow immaculate. He looked up from his chopping board as Una entered the room and as soon as his smoky blue eyes landed on her his cheeks tightened with a smile. There were plenty of reasons that Una had stayed by his side for so long, including the cooking, but the way Chris looked at her, as if she were as beautiful as a river of stars in the sky, and how that look still flipped her stomach even after decades, was the main reason that she always came back to.

“Great timing as usual,” he said grinning at her. Chris reached over to the rice cooker and flipped the catch on the lid, releasing a pillar of steam toward the silent extractors in the ceiling above. “Cho and Abara just left and I’m almost ready to plate up.”

Una could just imagine how disappointed the two commanders must have been to be shuffled out of the apartment before dinner was ready. Chris really did need to stop multitasking by scheduling meetings with meal prep if he wasn’t going to ask his staff to stay for dinner. She hoped he’d at least sent them off with some of the leftover cornbread from breakfast.

La’an was sat at the breakfast bar in front of Chris and with her back to the room, and absorbed in the padd in front of her, didn’t seem to have noticed Una’s arrival at all. But while La’an’s sharper instincts might have softened around the edges over the years they hadn’t been completely worn away and just as Una expected La’an didn’t startle at all when she reached her and kissed the top of the girl’s head. La’an might not have pulled away from the affectionate gesture as some kids her age might have, but typical of the teenager she was only offered a vague mumble in greeting. 

The quick glance over La’an's shoulder Una got confirmed that the padd was open to a group comms channel, instead of a page of required reading for even one of her classes. Una was still amazed that a bunch of fourteen year olds had so much to talk about, especially after spending six hours together in school and another two hanging out in the plaza. 

She gave Chris a look. The far too often used ‘Don’t Make Me Be The Bad Guy’ look. He rolled his eyes as he scooped rice into each of the three shallow dishes that balanced close to the edge of the busy worktop but he did say, “Okay, padds down. Both of you.” 

For a second La’an looked like she wanted to argue. Then her fingers flew quickly over the bottom half of the padd before she tossed it down in front of her like she’d just discarded a primed plasma grenade and threw up her hands in submission. Una made a point of flashing the already turned off screen to her husband before putting hers down with a little more care than their daughter, even though the things were pretty indestructible. 

La’an had already set the table at least, so she and Una only had to take their seats. Chris ladled servings of Thai green curry out over the rice then brought across the bowls. Their quarters had what Una considered to be an extravagantly sized dining table, because of course even without a ship’s crew to host Chris still enjoyed bringing people together for meals. She’d had to remind him that he didn’t actually need to invite everyone on Starbase One to dinner though. What the large table meant on their designated family dinner night was that the three of them were rather comically huddled at one end; Chris and Una opposite each other and La’an at the table’s head. It did remind her of the early days back on Enterprise when they’d sat just like this in the captain’s quarters, with La’an on her booster seat so that she’d be able to see above the tabletop and both of them within in easy reach to offer the five year old help with using her knife, or ready to catch a toppled cup before it fell. 

La’an immediately dug into her food, stuffing a spoonful of vegetables into her mouth even as she was trying to explain how she, Emerson and Torin narrowly avoiding blowing up the school chemistry lab in their morning class was, in fact, nothing her parents needed to be worried about. 

Their baby really wasn’t a baby anymore. 

Once Una and Chris were assured they weren’t going to be receiving a call from La’an’s principal, Chris announced, “I’ve been assigned to a shakedown cruise. Helping some cadets get their space legs under them.” 

La’an looked up from her bowl with interest but as Chris talked about where he planned on taking the J-Class training vessel and what they’d be charting it was Una’s gaze he held. And to her his words were drowning beneath the thud of her own rapid heartbeat filling her ears. 

This was it. This was when it all ended.

“When?” Una asked once her husband’s lips had stopped moving. She hoped that the slight tremble in her voice wasn’t clear to La’an, that she hadn’t seen the stab of pain that passed over Chris’ features the way Una had. 

“Tomorrow.”

“Dad!” La’an’s innocent protest gave Una the chance to quickly blink back the burning in her eyes. “You promised.” 

Tomorrow they were all meant to be going white water rafting in dome four as a reward for La’an acing her last semester chemistry module. Chemistry was by far La’an’s worst subject, even when she and her friends weren’t actively trying to blow up parts of the station, and she’d even put up with weeks of Una’s tutoring to prepare. The day was meant to have been a celebration. 

So many things were meant to have been in their tomorrows, and now there’d be none.

Chris finally looked away from Una and turned to La’an. “Sorry kid. We’ll go when I get back. I promise.” 

Una knew how much it hurt him to lie to their daughter; he’d get torn up inside just promising that she wouldn’t feel a hypo spray, or that he’d only be gone for a day with Spock to ShiKahr. This lie was so much worse though. Chris wouldn’t be able to make up for it with kisses and strawberries, or a stuffed toy sehlat. All at once Una both pitied and hated Chris for having to even say it. She knew it wasn’t fair, but she wanted him to hurt just as much as she knew La’an would end up hurting.

Right now La’an took his promise at face value, with the grudging acceptance of every Starfleet kid whose parent put their duty before family, and brooded quietly over the rest of the meal. The atmosphere in their apartment remained subdued through washing up and homework, only easing into a pensive silence after La’an had gone to bed.

As Chris retrieved the bottle of whiskey Erica had gifted him for his birthday the previous year and slowly poured out a glass for each of them, Una deliberately moved to sit in one of the arm chairs instead of the couch where he couldn’t come to sit beside her. She tucked her legs up beneath her and curled up in the seat. When he passed her one of the glasses the light from the standing lamp that craned over the chair caught in the facets of the ice making the whisky glow with amber warmth. 

Chris nudged a stack of padds and synthesised paperback books toward the middle of the coffee table and perched on it’s edge in front of her. 

“Una…”

“Not yet Chris. Please.”

There wasn’t much time left to talk, she knew that, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud just yet. 

Later that night, stood at the mirror in their bathroom, Una watched his reflection in the glass passing the open door to the bedroom; as he changed for bed, tossed his balled up clothes in the laundry hamper, checked his uniform hanging in the closet. He took more time that he should running his fingers over the gold shirt and Una wondered if he was looking for some stitch out of place in the near perfect material, anything that might excuse him from putting it on tomorrow. Only when he stepped away from the closet toward the bed did Una realise that she’d left the facet running too long. The steam that had risen up from the basin and fogged the glass of the mirror made Chris look like a ghost passing through a memory of their room. 

When they were in bed together Una pressed her back against Chris’ bare chest, feeling the heat of him through the fine layer of silk that separated them. He wrapped an arm around her and his palm came to rest over her heart. It had stopped racing hours before. There’d even been point during the evening when she’d wondered if it had stopped entirely. But then she’d taken a deep breath and felt a deep endless ache pull inside her chest and known her heart was still there, breaking.

His forehead pressed against the back of her neck then Una heard his raspy whisper, “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” she said quietly into the room.

“If there was another way…”

Una cut him off by rolling in his arms. A soft, barely there glow from the light strips set just above the deck rose up the walls like the steam from the rice, allowing Una to see the shadowy lines of Chris’ face. The wall opposite their bed had a dynamic window usually set to a shifting display of space which they longer had a view out on. Tonight it had remained off. They hadn’t said as much but neither of them had been able to face the stars.

“I know,” she told him. She understood. And she really had forgiven him already.

It was the last time they spoke until morning. Instead they’d said goodbye to each other in the dark without words. Chris would be coming back they both knew, but some things would be left behind forever out there with the real stars. 

Chris might have prepared himself for the pain he’d been shown would be coming for him, but the Klingons hadn’t shared Una’s. 

She tried to keep everything as normal as she could for La’an’s sake, even as every chirp of the computer’s varied alerts, announcing a subspace message or visitor at her door, made her flinch inside. The sheer frequency of alerts that someone was at the door to their quarters didn’t help; passing captains and admirals for Chris, and Una’s crew seeking her out with paperwork that could definitely wait until morning for her sign off. Almost all of them were hopeful that in bypassing the comms and coming in person they might get something from Pike’s famous kitchen, and it usually took a couple of days for news of his absence from the base to filter through. 

Una waited one day, then two, until what she was dreading finally came. When it did she was sure that the computer’s notification alert sounded different, like it knew what it was announcing. Maybe if she never answered the door it just wouldn’t happen. Schrödinger's husband. He’d be fine and safe if she just didn’t open that door and look inside. But as Spock would have told her that was not how quantum superposition worked. That wasn’t how life worked. 

 She couldn’t find her voice to grant access so instead Una walked to the door and touched the panel to open it. Admiral Robert April waited for her on the other side. Of course Bob would come tell her himself.

La’an was laid out on the grass, looking up at the honeycomb of hexagonal windows above her head that framed the permanently midnight black of space on the other side. Underneath the plaza’s glass roof was the main concourse rammed with its fresh food cafes catering to species from all across the quadrant and stalls offering everything from handmade goods to personal tech repair. It was the place you went to to find whatever you couldn’t get from the matter synthesisers or Starfleet's stores. At night a few of the cafes shifted their focus to providing alcohol and a couple of music venues opened up but no matter what time of the artificial day it was the concourse was always busy with people, and the odd anti-grav pallet weaving between them. 

Somehow though the noise of it all didn’t carry to the park that surrounded the concourse. The structured gardens were tiny compared to the forests and jungles in the gigantic domes that spoked out from Starbase One’s central structure but even here there were dozens of varieties of trees and flowers. The plants even crept up the walls of the concourse buildings, covering them with climbing vines and different coloured mosses. Wide footpaths wound their way around low grassy hills and small copses of trees, with benches scattered about for people to rest on and enjoy a view that wasn’t either an endless maze of sterile corridor or open space. 

As Starfleet kids, La’an and her friends didn’t really mind what the view was, so instead of using the benches that had been carefully placed for their picture perfect views they preferred to lounge about on the hill directly behind Anko's noodle shop after school.

“It was definitely La’an’s fault,” Emerson was saying to Torin. Deliberately loud enough so that La’an would hear his absolutely blatant lie. “I said we shouldn’t use that much.”

La’an was a little higher up the slope than Emerson so giving him a light kick to the shoulder was pretty easy. He’d been the one mixing the compounds before handing them to her to use. That made it way more his fault. Not that she’d said anything like it when they’d all gotten the promised lecture from Principle Millar that morning. 

Emerson just laughed at her and made a grab for La’an's ankle, failing miserably because he had the co-ordination of a goldfish. 

Torin simply raised his head from the grass and stared at them both as if their interaction made no sense to him whatsoever. Which of course it didn’t, despite them having been friends for months now. When Torin’s father transferred to the station for business and Torin joined their class most of the other kids had been reluctant to allow him into their groups, probably because they hadn’t spent much time with any Vulcans, let alone a Vulcan child. But La’an had looked at him that very first day and seen Spock. To her Vulcans had the potential to be awkward and funny and smart and loyal. Sure some of them could be absolute… well a description her dad did not like at all, but La’an had the feeling that Torin had some real Spock potential. 

And maybe she’d seen a little of herself in the boy too, the La’an who’d gone through school back on Earth decades ago. La’an didn’t remember too many of the details now, and sometimes what she did remember felt a little like someone else had experienced it and not her, but she knew that she’d been excluded and picked on just for being who she was, and she was determined that the Vulcan boy wouldn’t have to go through the same thing.

“Next time perhaps I should be in charge of the group project,” Torin told them both soberly, then laid back down on the grass as if he had nothing more to add to the discussion. 

Before La’an could point out that Torin had actually been in charge on their biology field trip to dome one, and remind him of what a disaster that had turned out to be, she heard her name being called.

“La’an.”

Mum was standing on the path at the bottom of the hill. La’an didn’t move to get up. Mum was probably heading to the concourse to get them something for dinner that didn’t come from a matter synthesiser. They’d both be eating a lot better once Dad got home but La’an would never object to Anko’s dan dan mian two nights in a row. She smiled and gave a half wave before turning to Torin to explain that maybe none of them were actually suited to command. 

Emerson, who was sitting up now, tapped La’an’s leg repeatedly until she looked up at him. 

“I think your mom wants you.”

La’an frowned down at her mum who gestured for her to come down. La’an sighed and scooped up her satchel, rattling the padds inside, then hopped over Emerson and Torin’s legs. She’d suggest to the boys in their comms channel later that maybe they’d be best asking Sienna to join their next group project. She was way smarter than all of them. And she hadn’t nearly blown up a science lab even once.

When La’an reached her mother she felt obligated to protest at least a little at being called away from her friends, even if it jeopardised her dinner options. “I’m not late. You said I could stay out til eighteen hundred.” 

“I know. I…” Mum hesitated, her eyes darting up to La’an’s friends, then to the couple with their arms locked together who were walking past and an ensign in an engineering uniform seated a few feet away trying to juggle a pair of chopsticks, a food container and the padd that they clearly couldn’t stop reading. “I need to talk to you. At home.”

La’an felt her stomach drop like she was experiencing free-fall in a shuttle simulator. Something was wrong. Something bad was waiting for her, and if she went home there’d be no getting away from it. 

La’an actually took a step back from her mum, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t want to.”

And now she felt childish, as well as sick to her stomach. 

‘I don’t want to’ did not usually get La’an her own way. It was a grumble of dissent when she was forced to attend a boring dinner for visiting Starfleet brass, or do her homework instead of spending time with her friends. For a while it had worked on Dad, but only when La’an had been really little. If she pouted enough, or even cried, he would let her lick cookie dough or chocolate frosting off of the mixing spoon or stay up way past her bedtime.

But La’an had always known that kind of behaviour would never fly with her mum. She could shout or stamp her feet all she wanted and Mum would just wait until she’d given up or worn herself out. Those particular childhood ‘I don’t want to’ s had felt like there’d been a fire burning up from her belly, completely consuming her body with anger or sadness until she couldn’t control the hot and dizzy waves that crashed over her. La’an could sense that same feeling beginning to creep across her now. 

Mum reached out for her, laying her hands on La’an’s shoulders. The touch felt heavy and deliberate and La’an didn’t realise that she’d been swaying on the spot until those hands steadied her. Then Mum gently tugged La’an against her in a hug which was so brief that when she let go La’an wondered if she’d imagined it. 

“Okay,” Mum said. 

Her voice trembled with the effort of saying just that single word and La’an knew then that she wasn’t the only one who was scared.

They walked away from the concourse and deeper into the park, La’an following a couple of paces behind her mum. The lamps dotting the path were already dimming, heading toward the end of the simulated day, and the glass ceiling above was shifting from an endless deep black field to the shimmering, dazzling sea of starlight. The further away they got from the concourse the more the visitors and starbase staff thinned out, until there was barely anyone around and La’an felt like she and Mum were utterly alone, adrift together in those stars.

Eventually they reached a place that Mum deemed suitable for their purposes and she sat on the end of an unoccupied bench. She took hold of La’an’s hand and pulled her down beside her, then dove straight in to what she’d come to say, as though if she didn’t say it now she’d never be able to. 

“There’s been an accident.”

No, not again. La’an couldn’t lose another family, not another father. 

Her life was good now, so good that she didn’t even have to try very hard not think about the bad things that had happened to her a whole other lifetime ago. Maybe that was why the sudden sharpness of those memories overwhelmed her, because La’an was certain she wasn’t on the starbase anymore. She was somewhere sticky warm and dark, and the air tasted like coppery dirt. La’an was struggling in someone’s arms. She thought at first maybe they were Manu’s but she could feel his hand on her back; she knew exactly how it felt even though he’d stopped ruffling her hair to make her mad a long time ago. Her skin tingled as though electricity was ripping through the veins underneath, and she could feel bruising blossoming angrily under her mum’s fingers where she was holding La’an too tight. Not Una. Her mum before Una. La’an’s breaths were hot and strangled, and burning her own face where Mum held La’an tight against her chest, trying to shield her. Protect her. But nothing could stop her from hearing the sounds: a long, rising scream. Then bones snapping like dry twigs before the scream gurgled out. La’an tried not to imagine what made the wet, slick noises that followed, not once she’d realised the sounds had all been coming from her dad. 

No, La’an wasn’t there again. She was in the plaza gardens. On Starbase One. But the dad she had now, the dad who baked her birthday cakes and taught her how to ride horses, was somewhere far away. He was in trouble. 

“I don’t want Dad to die,” La’an said, almost choking. 

Una Chin-Riley, who had saved her from monsters real and remembered, who had given her a new life not once but twice, reached up and cupped La’an’s face in her hands.

“He’s not going to die.” La’an tried to turn away, to hide the tears she could feel burning in the corners of her eyes and beginning to slip down her cheeks. Her mum held her in place, dipping her own head slightly so that she could look directly into La’an’s eyes again. “La’an, I promise he’s not.” 

La’an pulled away, scrabbling back across the bench. Anger and fear were fighting inside of her for control of her pounding heart but honestly what did it matter which one won in the end. She let them both tear up her throat as she spat out, “You don’t know that. You don’t know. Bad things happen and… and people don’t come back.”

“I do know. Your dad and I, we both knew this would happen. And we know that he’s coming home.”

An unexpected calm and certainty had settled over Mum as she spoke. She didn’t try to move closer to La’an or reach out for her but she held her gaze, waiting for La’an to understand. 

And she did. Mum wasn’t talking about the dangers that all Starfleet officers accepted. La’an remembered a lost sister who couldn’t be talked about. And a man from another place who’d been pulled back in time along with La’an. There were things people sometimes had to hide from the universe to keep it held together, and now she knew that her parents had been keeping one of those secrets.

But La’an didn’t care, the universe was unravelling anyway, she just wanted her dad to be okay. 

She was angry. She wanted to scream and to hit. More than that though she wanted to run, to disappear and dig herself so deep into the forests in dome four that she couldn’t see the stars anymore. 

La’an didn’t say a word to Una once they’d left the park. They’d walked back home in silence, with La’an shrugging off Una’s attempt to put a hand on her shoulder. She’d gone straight into her room and Una had heard the computer’s obliging beep after La’an must have tapped the code into the wall panel to lock the door behind her. She’d had to fight the urge to override the damn thing. After all, she’d had three days of pre-emptive grieving, didn’t La’an deserve time to process too?

The next morning Una dragged herself from her cold bed. She deliberately kept clear of the door sensor to La’an’s room as she went to the kitchen and switched on the coffee maker. It was the one thing in the kitchen she considered hers, aside from the assorted bottles of hot sauce, and performing at least that step of her daily routine cleared her mind a little of the heavy fog that had settled over her. 

While the coffee maker bubbled and spat on the warming plate Una paced back up the corridor. She held a palm out to La’an’s door but it remained closed. The lock was still activated.

“La’an?”

In the silence of the apartment Una wondered if she only imagined the sound of rustling bed sheets behind the door.

“You can stay in there as long as you want, okay.” She definitely didn’t imagine the hitched breath. “I’ll be out here if you need me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Una had messaged her department heads and La’an’s school last night and when she turned on her padd there were responses from multiple colleagues and La’an’s teachers offering any support she and La’an might need. Scrolling past them Una found a notification from Bob, confirming that the medical transport would be arriving late that evening. And then one from Joseph that simply read:

‘Christine and I will be there in fifteen hours.’

Una hadn’t expected Enterprise to be so close when she’d messaged him, and she certainly hadn’t expected them to come running. As soon as she read the words though Una realised just how grateful she was for both of those things.

Two hours before Chapel and M’Benga’s shuttle was due to arrive, and after she’d forced herself to shower and eat something, hearing Chris in her mind telling her that coffee was not a food group, Una heard the dull beep of La’an’s door unlocking. When her daughter didn’t emerge from the room after, Una took it as an invitation. Or at least the acknowledgement of a truce.

Quickly she pulled together a simple sandwich then rapped her knuckles against La’an’s door. There was no response again so evidently La’an was still giving her the silent treatment. When Una stepped inside she could feel the anger rolling off of La’an in waves. Sure La’an had gotten mad with her before, whenever Una and Chris had stopped her from doing something she really wanted to do, or made to do something she didn’t. She was a kid. Worse than that, she was a teenager. But Una hadn’t seen this kind of rawness in La’an’s emotions since the days when she’d been a young ensign and had had to leave La’an behind with foster parents at the end of every shore leave. 

La’an was lying on her back in the middle of the bed. She’d pulled a fluffy blanket over her instead of getting beneath the duvet and from the one leg sticking out Una could see that La’an hadn’t changed out of her clothes from the day before. Una sat on the edge of the bed, reaching over to place the sandwich on the bedside table. With her head turned on the pillow La’an just stared back at her glassy eyed.

“Please can you try to eat?” La’an’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the food and Una gave her an encouraging smile. “I know it’s hard, but Dad will be home tonight. We both need to be strong for him.”

For a moment La’an’s face softened and Una thought perhaps she’d made a breakthrough. But when she tried to brush the flyaway strands of La’an’s hair away from her eyes La’an flinched then rolled onto her side away from Una, tugging the blanket with her until she’d formed a tight, impenetrable ball. 

Leaving La’an, Una had retreated to Chris’ favourite armchair and asked the computer to play audio programme Chin-Riley Seven. She hadn’t kept track of the time but it seemed like both hours and seconds later that a far too young Yeoman was escorting Christine and Joseph to her quarters. 

When Una dismissed him he gulped nervously before uttering, “I’m sorry to hear about the captain, Sir,” before scurrying away.

Chapel tilted her head toward La’an’s bedroom door, obviously asking if that was where she was hiding, seeing as the girl wasn’t there to greet them. Una was surprised that after more than a year Christine still remembered which of the empty rooms she and Erica had hustled crates of La’an’s things into when Enterprise’s senior staff had helped them move onto the starbase.

Chapel slipped into the bedroom while Joseph put his hand on the small of Una’s back and guided her to the living room.

“You didn’t have to come,” Una told him when she poured out the last of the whisky Chris had opened before he left. 

“Of course I did.” 

Una sat down on the closest couch. Joseph had picked up the second glass and waited a moment for her to settle and then sat beside her, his leg touching hers. 

“He knew. Chris knew.” Una couldn’t bring herself to look at Joseph’s face, instead she stared into the whiskey as she swirled the liquid in the glass with the slow turn of her wrist. “He saw it, experienced all of it, years ago. A vision of the future from some Klingon monks.”

She sounded tired, and slightly incredulous, even to herself. Joseph sat in silence beside her, obviously trying to process what she’d said. If she’d had the energy she’d of told him it probably wasn’t worth thinking too hard about the details.

“And you?” He finally asked.

“Since Kiley two seven nine.”

She chanced a look at his face and watched as he tried to place the planet’s name amongst the hundreds of worlds they’d visited. When he finally did his eyebrows furrowed in sympathetic pain.

“You carried this for ten years?”

She had. And now that she’d finally admitted it, everything that she’d been holding back for years came out in a choked sob. Joseph hastily set his glass on the coffee table, and took Una’s own away from her, before wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“It’s okay Una. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

La’an glared at the sandwich on her bedside table that Mum had brought in earlier. Her stomach was seriously growling now, since she’d skipped dinner and breakfast, but if she even thought about trying to eat she felt sick. And she’d rather be hungry than throw up. She wished she’d turned the lights out completely instead of only dimming them, maybe then she’d have been able to forget it was there. 

Her stomach growled again and La’an moaned in misery; but she quickly stifled the noise when she heard the door chime and then Mum passing her room to answer it. La’an heard some kind of muffled exchange in the corridor and even thought she couldn’t make out any of the words, just the sound of other people made her feel a little better. It felt something close to normal. When their quarters had never been this quiet. 

But it wasn’t really normal. Whoever it was stopping by they weren’t here hoping they’d get some of Dad’s strawberry chocolate brownies. They’d come to say that they were sorry, and to ask what they could do to make things better.

La’an supposed even that was preferable to the only other sounds she’d heard since last night- her own heartbeat and her mum crying across the hall. 

No, she wanted to think about that even less than the sandwich. Because Mum wasn’t just crying because Dad was hurt, she was crying because La’an was hurting her too. 

La’an screwed her eyes shut so tight she started to see little burning flecks of light behind her eyelids. 

While her eyes were closed someone came into the room. La’an heard the door hiss open and then light footsteps across the carpeted floor. From the tread alone La’an could tell that it wasn’t her mum, but it didn’t feel like a stranger either. Whoever it was they stopped and knelt down beside the bed and La’an felt a weight coming to rest on the edge of the mattress, the slight dip in gravity that might eventually pull her closer. She was sure that the person had rested their head on top of folded arms, bringing their face close to La’an’s on the pillow, when she could feel soft puffs of breath against her cheeks and eyelashes. 

La’an opened her eyes. The room was brighter than she remembered from a few moments ago and she blinked twice before the face looking back at her came into sharp focus. Christine Chapel. 

Christine didn’t quite smile; it was too sad to be a real smile, but she tried. That was her training right? Nurses had to stay positive even in the worst situations. Her friend reached across the space between them, fingertips brushing away the hair that had fallen over La’an’s face. It had gotten even messier since La’an hid under the blanket after Mum left her the stupid sandwich. She’d stayed under it until she’d gotten so hot that her cheeks felt like they were burning and she was light-headed. Then she’d flung it off of her, gasping for air like she’d been holding her breath under water. Christine leant forward and pursed her lips, blowing the last wispy strands aside so that her crystal blue eyes could meet La’an’s without the wild uncooperative hair in the way. 

“Hey there beautiful girl.”

Tears stung La’an’s eyes and her throat clenched tight. Christine rose a little on her knees and La’an immediately scrabbled across the mattress into her arms. 

“It’s okay,” Christine told her. Her fingers were brushing through La’an’s long hair, tickling the back of her neck. 

“It’s not,” La’an choked out. How could it be?

Christine’s chin dropped onto the top of La’an’s head and her arms tightened around La’an’s shoulders. “It will be. I promise.”

Chapter Text

“She needs to eat before nineteen hundred.”

“I know Una.” 

Christopher Pike sat in his customary seat at the head of the ready room’s conference table and leaned back, feeling the chair tilt with him. He was the only one left in the room after the last briefing and there were still a smattering of water glasses and coffee cups spread across the table’s surface. Normally at this point he’d be picking up after his crew while discussing how the meeting had gone with his first officer; and his first officer would be reminding him that there were in fact yeomen who did the job of clearing up for captains.

But his first officer wasn’t on board. Instead Una was glaring down at him from the monitor on the wall as he skimmed over reports from the department heads who hadn’t attended the briefing. Enterprise was two days into the five day multi-planetary conference being held on the Caitian colony planet Chaton and many of the crew were remaining planetside in Baskent, the city hosting the event across multiple venues. Chris touched one file, marked in glaring red text to highlight its importance, and with an upwards swipe of his fingertip sent it off to Commander Porter so that she’d be prepared for questions about Starfleet’s position on para-terraforming when she gave her talk in the morning. 

Satisfied he’d dealt with everything that was time sensitive, Chris put the padd down and turned his full attention to the screen so that he could be properly admonished by his Number One. 

“I’m serious, Chris. If she doesn’t eat early enough you’ll never get her to bed,” Una warned him.

“Una.” He couldn’t stop her name coming out as a sigh of exasperation. The same focused diligence that made Captain Pike value Commander Chin-Riley so highly, seemed likely to eventually drive longtime friend Chris completely crazy.  

“We will be fine,” he tried to assure her, but Una was thoroughly immovable. Giving in, he finally parroted back what she’d tried to get him to say at the start of their conversation, “I promise I will not spend five hours cooking a four course meal for a child.”

It had been a month already since Enterprise’s chief of security had been… well de-aged seemed to be the term Spock and M’Benga had settled on; turned by an ancient alien artefact from a small, stubborn thirty-five year old into an even smaller, even more strong-willed five year old. Now they had a little La’an Noonien-Singh on board, who had as regular a routine as could be expected for a child living on a working Starfleet vessel. Lessons, play time, reading, bath time, and naps and snacks had become part of the rhythms of Enterprise. Snacks went down a lot better than naps obviously, but that could be said for almost every one of his crew.

And there was a very strict dinner time. Which Chris was expected to stick to as much as La’an. His promise that he wouldn’t go overboard on the preparations for tonight seemed good enough to get Una to move on from the subject. 

“Spock’s looked over the charts. With the repair time Pelia is giving us he estimates it’ll take twelve more hours to get back.”

Twelve hours wasn’t a disaster. It wasn’t great either. 

Una had been on plenty of landing party missions since becoming La’an’s guardian but this one had been the first taking her away from the ship for a whole day instead of only few hours. They should have expected something to go wrong really. Thanks to a faulty RCS thruster the shuttle that his first officer had taken for a minor side mission to deliver spare parts to the Arcturus Way Station for their waste recycling systems, was now stuck halfway across the sector.

Una had done what she could to prepare La’an for the absence but she’d still spent a whole ten minutes trying to extricate herself from the tearful girl in the shuttle bay. Chris could only hope that a few tears would be the worst of it once he told La’an that Una wouldn’t be home either for dinner or bedtime.

“Una we can always duck out of the conference, bring Enterprise to you.”

Chris tried to tell himself he was offering for La’an’s benefit, but if he was being honest he wasn’t looking forward to comforting a distressed child, especially without Una for backup. Either way, there were no security risks to leaving crew members planetside. Chaton wasn’t just a friendly port, it was a busy Federation planet with all the resources that entailed. He could have Enterprise out to the shuttle and back in a couple of hours even with a skeleton crew on board.

“No. We’re good Captain. Enterprise should stay at Chaton.”

That had been the agreement he and Una had made when deciding to keep La’an on board- there would be no compromises made to their work and no special treatment. Chris had actually been prepared to make plenty concessions, La’an deserved every good thing this second chance at her childhood had to offer, but Una was the boss, and ‘do not argue with Number One’ was Enterprise’s golden rule for a reason.

“Then I promise I’ll take good care of La’an until you get home. But you have to promise not to kill my best pilot, chief engineer or science officer before then.”

He heard Ortegas snigger from the pilot’s seat just off screen. Fainter in the background, presumably somewhere near the engine access next to the bunks, Spock and Pelia were still firing technobabble back and forth. Being confined to close quarters for an extended period of time wasn’t a fun experience for any officer but Una was stuck with a particularly trying mix of personalities.

“I’ll do my best sir.”

He knew she would. 

“We’ll see you in about twelve hours then.”  

Una didn’t immediately sign off. She caught her bottom lip briefly between her teeth, as though she’d wanted to say something but had bitten it back. Chris knew exactly what she wanted to ask him before she’d second guessed herself about what was appropriate over an official comms channel whilst she was the officer in command.

Pike said it for her instead, “I’ll let La'an know you miss her.”

Una flashed a smile as she reached toward the console to terminate the call. The last thing Chris heard before the screen went black was Ortegas cooing, “Aww!” 

Getting up from the table Chris moved the cups and glasses back to the kitchenette in the far corner of the ready room. He’d leave the decision of what required cleaning and what should be recycled in the matter synthesiser to the yeomen; as if that was proof enough that he wasn’t micromanaging. 

Una’s administration of department schedules now included creating one just to keep track of their youngest crew member, a file which all of the senior crew had access to. It takes a village to raise a child, Chris’ mom was fond of saying. In La’an’s case it took a command staff. Una was meant to be back in time to collect the girl from whomever had babysitting duty that afternoon, so Chris asked the computer to pull up the schedule on screen. Currently La’an was down in the biology labs with Sam Kirk, which probably meant that she was on the receiving end of a third year academy lecture about the fine line between xenobiology and xenobotany, when all she really wanted to be doing was digging around in some dirt. 

La’an had gotten past her phase of sneaking off for an impromptu game of hide and seek through the ship so Chris was confident he’d find her where she was meant to be. La’an’s ‘Terrible Twos’, which had been around two weeks after the accident when they’d realised the permanence of her situation, had been pretty exhausting for everyone. By then La’an had gotten far more comfortable with how her new body worked, like a teenager getting the hang of their limbs after a growth spurt and learning how to ride the ups and downs of constantly raging hormones. With the reassurance of Una officially becoming La’an’s legal guardian and Chris securing her home on Enterprise as long as he was Captain the worst seemed to be over and no one had been expecting the onslaught of full throttle tantrums La’an had inflicted on them as she put every one of her new boundaries to the test. 

The rages and wailing had flared up every time La’an was told where she could, and couldn’t, go on the ship, and whenever she’d been reminded that she needed a certain degree of supervision. By far the biggest outrage though had been the establishment a fixed bedtime. Una had had enough trouble convincing the grown and perfectly rational La’an that she needed to actually fit sleep into her schedule, so they really shouldn’t have been surprised when the five year old ended up putting her through almost a week of sleepless nights. 

La’an hadn’t been a complete monster during that time though. It had been amusing to see her ordering around former colleagues who’d been of a lower rank than her only days before. More than a few humoured her; Kirk and Ortegas were both quick to snap salutes and carry out orders to retrieve cookies or play games. A single afternoon with Ensign Uhura had been what eventually put a stop to their little tyrant, and Nyota remained stubbornly tightlipped as to how she’d managed to return a contrite and far less demanding child to Una after just four hours together.

When Chris reached the hydroponics bay in the biology labs it was remarkably quiet, just a few hushed voices reaching him from hidden corners amongst the rhythmic sounds of water misters and pumps. There were usually a good number of crew around: checking in on experiments or tending long term projects, but with so many of the personnel assigned to the department down on Chaton the deck appeared almost empty. That was probably why Chris heard La’an long before he caught sight of her. 

“Me. Let me.”

La’an might have stopped ordering crew around but she was still unquestionably bossy toward Sam Kirk, and that was despite having softened in her attitude toward him over the past month. 

One of the bays being used to grow supplemental food for the galleys was crowded with hydroponics towers, making it look like a compact forest of symmetrical trees, with matte white durasteel trunks and green leaves of various shapes and sizes sprouting from the evenly spaced pods up their lengths. Chris stopped by a water filtration tank, concealing his presence as he watched La’an hopping around Sam’s legs, trying to take the seedling that he’d lifted out of the deep tray on the workstation counter. Despite the lack of soil to dig her hands in, the best part of helping his own grandfather in the small greenhouse and arid rock garden in the Mojave when he’d been a kid, La’an seemed to be enjoying herself. 

“Hold your horses,” Sam drawled at her as La’an stretched up for the plant. Chris smiled at the expression but La’an huffed.

Sam cupped the dark green seedling loosely in his hands, tendrils of pale roots slipping between his fingers, as he moved over to one of the pristine white towers with La’an trailing at his heels. The uppermost pods of the tower were already filled but Sam crouched down, elbows resting on his knees, beside an empty one.

“Careful now,” he cautioned as he held out his hands for La’an to take the plant.

“I remember,” she said, brushing off his guidance. Confidently but gently she took the plant from his hands, the wide dark leaves stark against her palms. La’an placed it gently in the empty pod, mindful of the delicate exposed roots. 

“Great job.” Sam beamed at her from beneath his moustache. 

At one time that smile would have been reserved solely for the occasions when Kirk could ramble freely about some new finding made in the fathomless depths of xenobiology. It was fair to say that Chris had been pleasantly surprised to find out that George Samuel Kirk was a pretty good teacher. La’an seemed to be helping his crew discover a whole lot more about themselves than they’d known before. Fortunately only a couple of those discoveries had been an intolerance for children.

The moment Chris moved out from the cover of the filtration tank La’an spun around.

“Captain!” She cried out in excitement as she ran right at him. Luckily he scooped her up before she barrelled into his shins. 

After a brief guided tour of the strawberries she was growing, and extracting a promise from Sam that she could come back to look after the young plants, La’an agreed to being put down and Chris led her out of hydroponics. They walked back through the bio lab corridors toward the turbolift, La’an’s small hand in his. Her head barely reached his hip now and even when Chris slowed his pace the girl still had to walk at a little skip to keep up with him. 

“So, what do you think we should make for dinner?”

La’an threw her head back to look up at him and her mouth twisted in deep contemplation of the question. 

“It has to have at least one vegetable,” he reminded her.  

“Can we make cheeseburger pasta?” It wasn’t the most sophisticated pasta recipe in Chris’ repertoire but it was Una’s favourite, and La’an liked nothing better than pleasing Una.

“That’s a great idea.” 

La’an grinned and Chris decided he might as well take the opportunity to get the bad news over with while she was still in a good mood. “Una’s going to be a little late getting back to the ship, so I think she’ll be real glad if we have some cheeseburger pasta waiting for her.”

La’an stopped dead in her tracks. Fortunately Chris’ reflexes were sharp and he pulled up short before he took another step and dragged her along with him. La’an had dropped her head, her eyes fixed on the deck. As he waited for her to process what he’d said Chris gave her hand a squeeze. 

Finally she peeked up at him. “How late?” 

“I don’t really know yet. But probably after you’ve gone to bed. It’ll be just the two of us for dinner.” 

La’an looked at the floor again and he heard a faintly whispered, “Okay,” before she started walking again. 

For once Chris was the one who had to catch up with the abrupt change of pace, as he tried to figure out if that had gone well or not while at the same time trying to adjust his stride to match the child now trudging determinedly along the corridor. 

When they reached his quarters and La’an didn’t immediately dive into her toy crate for something to play with, Chris helped her up onto a stool beside the kitchen counter and started his preparations for dinner. La’an showed none of her usual enthusiasm for helping him cook and gave brief, dull answers to all of his questions about what she’d done that day. 

Once they’d eaten La’an was even quieter, silently playing some game on her padd that beeped and dinged without raising so much as a smile, and rebuffing every one of Chris' efforts to engage with her.

When the sounds from the padd stayed as one insistent loop of low beeping for longer than a minute, which Chris had come to realise was the main options screen, he checked the chronometer. It was a little later than the time Una would usually leave with La’an for their quarters. That would explain the padd balanced loosely on La’an’s upturned palms and the girl fighting to keep her eyes open. It was definitely time to get La’an to her bed.

A team of Pelia’s engineers had finished the refit of Una’s quarters in only a couple of days, using space from the adjacent vacant cabin to create a separate lounge and two bedrooms. Chris would put La’an down to bed and then set himself up on the couch, if he found room amongst the insane amount of cushions on it, and finish the novel Joseph had suggested to him months ago while he waited for Una to get back. 

“Time to finish up your game, La’an,” Chris told her as he stood up from the armchair. 

On the couch La’an looked down at her lap. Her rapid blinking suggested she was surprised to find the game was still on, but she didn’t make a move to turn it off. 

“Come on La’an, let’s go.” 

La’an’s only response was to wriggle back slightly on the cushion, letting the padd slip down beside her leg. Chris stood in front the couch and reached down, intending to place his hands around her waist to lift her up. 

“No,” she said clearly. 

He and Una had had plenty of discussions with La’an about setting her own boundaries in regards to personal space, and when, as the adults now responsible for her welfare, they might have to overrule those decisions. They weren’t anywhere near to a situation like that at the moment, so no definitely meant no. 

Chris crouched down in front of her to try a different tact. “I have to get you back to your own quarters. Runa will be waiting for you.”

“I don’t want to,” La’an muttered, her voice shaking slightly. 

Chris could have kicked himself for not being clearer. La’an knew that Una wasn’t back yet, he should have made sure she understood that he wasn’t just going to just leave her alone in their quarters. He laid a hand on the couch cushion beside La’an’s knee. “Don’t worry, I’ll be coming too. I’ll stay until Una gets home. And I can read you a story before you go to sleep.” 

That was one of the things La’an would beg for when Una put her to bed, for someone else to come over to their quarters and read to her. Obviously it was a delaying tactic to eke out just a little more time before she had to go to sleep, but if Chris didn’t have anything going on he always came running when Una called with the request.

La’an pushed herself off the couch and Chris stood up to step out of her way. He offered his hand but La’an refused to take it. 

“No,” she said again. 

“La’an I’m not going to argue this with you. It’s time for bed.” 

He saw the slight shift La’an made on the balls of her feet just in time to make a grab for her, scooping her up in his arms before they had a repeat of the time she’d raced off down the corridors and he and Una had had to catch her. They’d already thought to lock recognition for the turbo lifts, except for in the case of ship wide emergencies, but the slippery little thing could wedge herself into all kinds of tight spaces neither of them could reach just on deck five. In the end they’d had to call Christine to come get her out of a maintenance hatch. 

“No.” La’an wailed the word this time, kicking her feet and twisting in his arms in an attempt to slip free.

He might still be new at this but Chris was sure that there was more going on in La’an’s head than a simple tantrum over bedtime. “Hey.” He adjusted his hold, settling La’an on his hip so that he could actually see her face, and waited for her to look at him. “Hey, La’an, come on now.” 

La’an pushed at his shoulder with both of her hands, refusing to meet his eyes. When she realised that wouldn’t work her breathing sped up and her eyes filled with tears. Chris pressed his free hand against her sternum and began to lightly rub in tight circles, both to get her attention and give her a physical sensation to focus on. Eventually La’an’s eyes flicked up to him, and then she ducked forward and dropped her head on his shoulder.

Chris freed the hand that had gotten trapped between the two of them and then reached up to smooth his palm over the top of her head. “You gotta tell me what’s going on in that head of yours kiddo. I can’t make anything better otherwise.”

It felt like an age before La’an gathered enough courage to say, “If I go to sleep Una won’t come back.”

Since the accident La’an had spent exactly one night away from Una. She’d stayed with Christine just to give Una a child free evening, in what Chris hoped had been a much tamer version of the kind of sleepover he imagined Chapel would have with anyone else. It had been pretty evident that not much sleeping was involved though, given how La’an had passed out face first on his couch the next morning instead of eating breakfast. There hadn’t been any tears at all then, but Una had only been three doors or a comms call away. This was the first real time the two of them had really been apart.

Chris didn’t know all of the details of what had happened to La’an’s family, he wasn’t even sure that La’an did, but now he wondered if at least one of them had been taken by the Gorn while La’an had slept. That along with her and Una’s history marked with so many partings must have meant La’an had woken up far too many times to find her world completely changed. 

“Of course she’ll come back La’an.”

With the girl quiet in his arms Chris felt like he’d avoided the worst of a storm, but as he moved toward the door he realised his promises hadn’t been enough. 

“No. Don’t want to.” The whine pitched upwards as La’an spoke and Chris stepped back into the room. Instead of trying to leave he fell back on the couch, pulling La’an tight against him and holding her the way he’d seen Una do. The pressure would eventually calm La’an down but for too long she was still loud in his ear, working herself up until her nose ran and her cries turned into wet coughs.

La’an’s pained wails always tore him apart, even when he knew they never lasted long and she’d be smiling and laughing and causing chaos as if it had never happened the next day. He was just as exhausted as La’an by the time she’d cried herself out, settling into slow, deep breaths only interrupted by the odd sniffle. 

The tightness of his shirt where La’an’s fists had gathered up the material lessened as La’an let go and brought one hand up to slip a thumb in her mouth. Taking a chance he stood up. La’an’s head flopped onto his shoulder and so close to his ear Chris could hear the vigorous sucking of her thumb. He carried her into the bathroom and ran a cloth under warm water. As he wiped her face around the balled fist, wide dark eyes looked deeply back into his. 

The little fist shifted aside and around her thumb La’an mumbled, “I want Mummy.” 

Was this the first time La’an had called Una that? It was definitely the first time he’d heard it. Even if it was, Chris wouldn’t be surprised if La’an had thought of Una that way for a lot longer, maybe even before the accident, and bitten down on the impulse to say it. She was too stubborn for her own good sometimes. A lot of the time.

“I know.” Chris dropped the damp cloth in the basin and hefted La’an in his arms so that he could hug her tighter. “She’ll be home soon I promise.”

Back in the living area Chris began to pace the cabin, not really sure what to do with himself or La’an. Periodically he checked the time with the computer and after a full twenty minutes with no more tears or protests he left his quarters and headed to Una’s. When they reached the door though La’an tensed in his arms and Chris knew he needed another distraction. He had one idea. 

La’an wasn’t a baby but it might still work, he thought, as he continued past the door to start a slow loop of the deck. He was on his fourth lap when Chapel stepped out of a turbolift ahead of them. She was out of uniform and barefoot, her shoes dangling from one hand. If her attire wasn’t enough of an indication that she’d been enjoying a night off duty, Christine’s cheeks were a rosy pink and her pale eyes were drowned out by dark pupils in the brightly lit corridor. 

Chris was pretty sure La’an was asleep by now, she certainly felt like a dead weight in his arms, but as the small head on his shoulder was turned away from him he couldn’t see if her eyes were closed. And he definitely hadn’t wanted to risk waking her by asking.

“Captain,” Christine greeted. He could see the question in the quirk of her dark eyebrow and the pull at the corner of her mouth. Why on earth are you wandering the corridors at this time of night carrying La’an?

“When I was a baby my mom used to have to walk me around outside every night until I fell asleep. Thinks it’s a cute story to tell anyone I bring home. Never thought to ask her how she knew when to stop.”

Christine came closer, moving silently across the deck, then pushed up on her toes to get a closer look at La’an’s face. “I don’t think you need to worry about her waking up Captain.”

Despite Chapel’s assurances, when Chris got La’an back to her quarters he was reluctant to risk putting her to bed in her own room. He nestled himself on the couch with piled cushions either side of him and let La’an sprawl across his chest. 

Chris opened his eyes with a gritty blink when he felt a hand on his knee. It took a second for him to register that someone was whispering close to his face. 

“Chris.”

Una. Una was back. 

“Is it morning already?” He asked groggily. He was sure that even after all the deck wandering he couldn’t possibly have been asleep for that long.

“No. Pelia and Spock managed to get enough power to the engines so we could start limping home. As soon as we got into range Enterprise picked us up with the transporters. Pelia will take an engineering team out for repairs in the morning. Well, later this morning.”

‘How come no-one called me?” He was the captain!

A blurry Una was coming into focus, towering over him. 

“I asked Jackson not to disturb you and La’an. It might not have worked.” 

Commander Jackson routinely took the chair on Delta shift. Knowing the guidance systems specialist was at the helm allowed Chris to sleep soundly, confident that his ship was in good hands. While he might have appreciated an update on the situation from her for himself, La’an would only have been more upset if her hopes had been raised only for the shuttle’s engines to fail again and Una hadn’t made it back sooner.

Una lifted La’an out of his Chris’ relaxed arms and up to her chest as though she weighed nothing. La’an certainly wasn’t heavy, she was a tiny little thing, but even Chris found his muscles ached after so long carrying her. With Una’s Illyrian strength she’d be carrying the kid around for years. If any child deserved that much cuddling it was La’an.

Una closed her eyes as her lips pressed to the top of La’an’s head and she took a deep breath. The serene moment slipped away from his friend when she opened her eyes and actually took a good look at La’an. 

“Chris she isn’t even dressed for bed.”

“We didn’t exactly come to an agreement on bedtime.”

Una smirked at him. “You got outsmarted by a five year old.”

“Not outsmarted”, he said defensively, trying to push himself up from the cushions he appeared to now be buried under. “Emotionally manipulated maybe.”

“Really?” She didn’t sound surprised, which was a little insulting. Fine, he was a pushover and he knew it.

“She was crying for her mommy.” 

Chris didn’t get to see Una stunned often, sometimes it felt as though his Number One knew every secret the universe planned to throw at them, but right now she looked dazed, and hesitant to believe his words.

“She called me mommy?” 

He so wanted to let Una to enjoy this moment but found himself adding, “She thought you weren’t coming back.” 

Almost imperceptibly Una’s arms tightened around La’an. Then she took a shuddering breath and re-centred herself before moving towards La’an’s bedroom. Chris followed her into the room which was lit by a soft orange nightlight just inside the doorway. Una sat down on the small bed and shifted La’an onto her lap as Chris pulled a pair of pyjamas from a draw, a little less at sea than he’d been that first night with her. 

Una waved her palm over the small sensor on the bedside table and a star projector that Pelia had made burst onto the ceiling. La’an slept on while her stars spun slowly across the walls and Una got her changed into the pyjamas, then under the covers. Una was brushing dark hair back from La’an’s face, her chrome painted nails catching the tiny specks of light hanging in the room, when the little girl murmured and her eyelids fluttered open. 

“Mummy,” she breathed sleepily.

“Hey baby.” 

Una’s smile lit up brighter than any star Chris had ever seen, the kind of smile he’d learned was reserved solely for La’an. If he was honest with himself, Chris was a little jealous that he’d never been able to draw a smile quite like that out of her.

“Came back,” La’an mumbled.

“I’ll always come back. I promise.” Una’s thumb brushed over La’an’s round cheek. “Close your eyes.” The instruction was wholly unnecessary as La’an was already asleep again, pink lips moving silently with whatever she’d forgotten to say. 

Chapter Text

La’an picked up speed, feet spinning with the cycle’s pedals as she hit the final downward slope towards home, leaving a spray of loose soil and pebbles in her wake. There was still a thrill to feeling the wind cutting through her loosely braided hair and stinging her cheeks even though it was pretty much a daily occurrence now. La’an Noonien-Singh might have grown up on Earth but that was a whole other lifetime ago and La’an Chin-Riley had spent her childhood on a starship, raised on recycled air and artificial light. At least the time she’d lived on Starbase One had given her the chance to adjust to trees and grass and lakes and skies again before her family’s move planet-side to Aigani, so that she hadn’t been completely overwhelmed by the change. Rain had taken a little more getting used to though. La’an hadn’t exactly felt the need to visit any of Starbase One’s glass domed habitats when their environmental systems went through a rainy cycle, but weirdly she kind of liked getting caught in a downpour on her ride home from school; when the raindrops were warm and the air became thick with the sweet smell of wet dirt. There was no rain today though. The sky above was the kind of clear ashen-blue that she’d come to learn promised not a hint of cloud cover for the rest of the day, and an icy morning to follow. 

Past the outskirts of town the road that La’an took toward home followed what was still a natural trail for various animals weaving through the region’s forests. The track hadn’t been resurfaced for vehicles so the tyres of the cycle’s three chunky wheels had thick cut treads for better grip where the road got rockier. It also had a springy suspension and a comfortable and wide saddle for the same reason. The cycle had been adapted with a solar powered motor too; because a daily commute was way more enjoyable when you weren’t feeling your leg muscles burning by the end of it or getting drenched in sweat from physical exertion. 

Yavana, the only town in the district, had been built in an unusually sparse region of the planet’s western continent. Where other towns of the colony had been woven deeply into the fabric of woodlands or jungles, Yavana grew outwards across the dip of a natural valley into small spiralling neighbourhoods, each with their own local administration buildings, markets, and sport and leisure facilities. The larger community buildings could be found in the centre of town- both La’an’s school and the Taruva Institute, the hospital, and various shuttle and transporter hubs to other settlements around the planet could all be found there. Around the outer edges of town were a few crop and wind farms; then the wild orchards and a scattering of homesteads creeping closer to the forests and the foot of the mountains. One of those homesteads was where her parents had chosen to settle- a single storey house just under an hours ride from the centre of town, set in a flower meadow beside a deep blue lake and overlooked by purple mountains. With their closest neighbours a good ten minute walk from the property’s boundary line somedays it could feel like the Pike/Chin-Riley family had an entire planet to themselves. Which was probably the intention. Every aspect of people’s lives on Aigani had been considered and planned for long before the colony was established, so that what they brought with them and what they built once here would have only a positive impact on the planet’s ecosystem and wildlife. It was all very Illyrian.  

And that was what La’an officially was now, an Illyrian. She’d seen the paperwork on Starbase One when Aunt Neera had come to formally end her family’s Federation citizenship and bring them under the protection of the Illyrian Free Colonies. It had been actual paperwork too, sheets of paper covered in the stamps of dozens of officials and departments and administrators and ambassadors. Copies of it all existed as data files of course but seeing the pages gathered together in a thick folder embossed with a shining silver Illyrian seal on the front, instead of the star map and olive branches of the United Federation of Planets, had been what finally made it all feel real to La’an.

Mum hadn’t exactly asked if it was what La’an had wanted. She’d told La’an that they could go to the Illyrians to help her dad. She’d said Dad wanted it. And what La’an had wanted was to be brave enough to say she would go anywhere and do anything for him. What she’d actually done was stay quiet for two days, imagining the furthest and most inhospitable planets of the Vaultera Nebula, where anyone not Illyrian needed to suck in oxygen through a face-mask so that the atmosphere wouldn’t turn their lungs inside out. Two long days, with one question burning in her mind that she’d been too terrified to voice- would she have to submit to genetic modification to stay with her family?  

Eventually being scared turned into being angry. Being angry had involved refusing to even be in the same room as her dad, which would have been a whole lot easier if he hadn’t actually been able to move his life-support chair from the guest room and through the apartment, shouting at Mum until her throat felt raw, and throwing a data padd across her bedroom so hard that the substantial dent it left in the wall panelling had definitely needed the maintenance crew to come fix it after they’d left Starbase One. 

Finally, when La’an was done being angry, she’d broken down crying in her mum’s arms begging not to be left behind.

Mum promised that she and La’an wouldn’t need to change anything about themselves to save Dad. Which technically hadn’t been true, so much had changed and they couldn’t help but be changed along with it, but Aunt Neera had found them a colony planet that La’an wouldn’t need any genetic adaptions to live on. In fact the Illyrian’s who’d come to Aigani centuries ago had modified themselves closer to human, just like those on Aunt Neera and Mum’s home planet. 

Genetic tweaks might not have been necessary but her parents had insisted that mental health support was, and it was a fight La’an knew she wouldn’t win. So far seeing a guidance counsellor wasn’t nearly as bad as the head shrinkers from Starfleet Recovery Assistance that La’an vaguely remembered. And Doctor Sanson didn’t seem to take her complicated feelings about genetic modifications personally. 

For the first two months living on Aigani La’an hadn’t done much more than attend school, see Doctor Sanson every other day, and visit the hospital where her dad was in recovery. Until Dad had finally walked himself through the front door of their home a week ago it hadn’t even felt like a home. It had just been a place for chores and homework, and synthesised meals and bed.

While Dad had been in the hospital Mum had deferred taking up her new post teaching at the Taruva Institute, so that she’d be there to support him, but of course La’an hadn’t been allowed to delay starting school. It wasn’t that she didn’t like school, it just didn’t seem fair to La’an that she wasn’t allowed to help too. Being the new kid on Aigani hadn’t been nearly as intimidating as it had been back on Starbase One. At thirteen and a half La’an hadn’t been at all prepared for attending a classroom every day, let alone sharing it with twenty other kids. She’d had a few group lessons remotely over subspace from the time she was seven, but mostly La’an was used to one-on-one sessions with the best tutors in the galaxy- Enterprise’s crew. She’d gotten used to it quick enough though and, probably thanks to that one good year on Starbase One before the accident, La’an had found it even easier to make new friends this time around. 

She still kept herself at a distance though. Friends were for laughing over a lunch table with, for sharing teams and projects or sending notes to each other’s padds in class without the teacher intercepting them. At the end of each day La’an left those friends, and that part of herself, behind when she finished her classes. Her parents needed her to be more than a kid caught up in the dramas of school, even if La’an wasn’t exactly sure who that meant she was expected to be. 

When Doctor Sanson had told her it was okay to feel unanchored for a little while La’an had rolled her eyes. She’d been sure that it was one of those phrases that therapists said which sounded all profound but didn’t actually mean anything real. Then Dad had come home and La’an had never felt more firmly rooted into the ground, safe and steady again. Sure she’d still said no to going over to Remi’s to study, and told August and Tarrin that she’d have to think about joining them on their next camping trip; but maybe tomorrow she’d go to the cafe after school with her new friends, and come home just a little later than she’d done today. She could only take one step at a time. Which was also a favourite saying of Doctor Sanson’s. 

La’an skidded to a stop outside the house, pulling her cycle in under the overhang of the porch roof. She unclipped her backpack from the rack behind the saddle and jogged up the front step. There were two doors into the house on this side of the veranda- one led to a boot room and the other opened right into the kitchen. La’an went for the kitchen and tossed her bag just inside the door as she bounded through. With Mum still at work for a couple more hours La’an had been tasked with checking on Dad right after school. For her mum that meant imagining the worst case scenario and leaving a long list of emergency contacts for the hospital and the Institute. For La’an it just meant sticking her head inside the house to check Dad hadn’t managed to set off all of the smoke sensor again in the kitchen that he was still getting used to, thanks to the clumsy hands that had forgotten how they were meant to work. Yesterday it had taken both her and Dad half an hour of fiddling with the sensor’s programming to get the alerts to shut up. 

There was no activity in the kitchen yet. They were still a few hours away from dinner and that had once been the time when Dad would be revelling in all of the leisurely and complicated preparations his meals usually required. La’an suspected that since the Burnt Brioche Incident her dad had finally accepted the less than subtle advice his physical therapists had been trying to give him, about not expecting to be able to do everything he used to right away. 

Maybe Doctor Samson should have given him the ‘one step at a time’ talk.

Past the kitchen La’an could see her dad stretched out on one of the couches in the lounge instead. The low table to the side of him was buried in books. Real books, made of leather and paper and not even synthesised. There wasn’t a single electronic padd in sight either. Mum might be the teacher but all that time dad had spent in a recovery bed while his genetic code was being rearranged by Illyrian doctors had apparently turned him into an academic. If La’an ever chose to write a history report on pre-spaceflight sea faring cultures she’d be set for research material. Not that she would want to. Because it was a really, really boring subject. 

Dad didn’t seem to be reading the open book that was laid across his lap; he was staring out through the long wall of windows that made up the whole length of the lounge at the lake and mountains in front of him. He’d already promised La’an that they’d go swimming as soon as the weather got warm enough, and after they’d scanned the lake for anything that might object to people sharing their home. It was still only early spring but the warmer weather was expected to come around the same time that her dad would be back to his full physical health. While Dad spent his time sitting around the house waiting for both of those things to arrive, La’an would catch him gazing at the view like it was a dream he still couldn’t quite believe, one he didn’t want to wake up from before he’d had the chance to get out there and test that it was real. 

“Hey Dad.” 

He turned his head to her, already smiling. La’an had never really paid much attention to the extra lines that had crept across Dad’s face over the years, not until the radiation burns had taken them away. After the accident she used to search that stranger’s face for signs of her dad. It had taken a little time but finally she’d found him, and every smile and word and hug, in those sharp blue eyes that were watching her back. There were no burns now of course but the lines of age, the creases of a lifetime of smiles and worries, weren’t back either. Instead there were new and fainter markings on his skin, like faded courses charted on an ancient map. La’an could only see them strike across Dad's forehead and cheeks when he was caught in a certain light but it was too bright with the afternoon’s two suns pouring in through the glass to see them at the moment. Right now he just looked like her dad. 

Dad snapped the book in his lap closed and returned it to the top of the stack on the table next to him, then turned and swung his feet off the couch as he asked her, “How was school?”

La’an shrugged. Tarrin wasn’t talking to Elio, her chemistry teacher absolutely had a vendetta against her, and the American black bear she’d tried to sculpt out of clay in art class had turned out looking more like a potato. All of which was enormously uninteresting. Especially compared to the mystery box that she’d just spotted sitting on the kitchen counter. 

It was a dull metallic case, pretty standard for inter-planetary shipping, with a neatly printed address label on the top for ‘Christopher Pike'. It was still strange to La’an to see her dad’s name written anywhere without Captain at the front of it. It hadn’t been on any of his hospital charts at all and no one called him by his old rank except for Mum or Aunt Neera, and both of them only did it when they were teasing him. Along with his name the parcel had a bunch of stasis labels and transport hub scanner codes. It clearly wasn’t for her but that just made La’an want to know what was inside it all the more. 

“La’an?”

Her head snapped up to find Dad was grinning at her and she wondered just how long she’d been staring at the package. 

“Good, I guess. What’s this?”

“Some supplies from back home.” La’an rolled her eyes at the complete non-answer, then glared at her dad until he caved and told her. La’an hadn’t been sure if he’d meant ‘home Earth’ or ‘home Enterprise’ until he started to list of the contents, “Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, peanut butter…”

La’an stopped him there. “Grandma sent you stuff to make cookies?” 

Food synthesisers, even after Mum had altered their programming to the Una Glucose Matrix, just didn’t taste the same as cookies baked with the fresh, real ingredients. Especially not Grandma’s peanut butter cookies.

“Get your chores done and you can help me bake some before Mum’s home.”

La’an didn’t have many chores. There was a small bot that scooted around the floors in the house so as long as she didn’t throw her dirty clothes on the floor and bury him under them there was no sweeping up or dusting to be done. Now that Dad was home there was a controlled mess in the kitchen to tidy up almost every night and La’an would clear up and do the dishes. Mum would be happy if La’an could just kept her room tidy (there wasn’t much chance of that) and it surprised almost everyone that Dad was actually the one making sure that she had chores to do. La’an assumed that was because her mum had spent way too many years organising starship departments and wayward ensigns, and now that she was keeping classes of young adults on track with lectures and seminars and study groups, she didn’t need to be doing more of the same at home.

Dad hadn’t been around to tell La’an what to do when they’d first moved to Aigani, so aside from clearing the table and staying out of the way of the cleaner bot, La’an had decided for herself that she would take on the duty of looking after the horses. Even though that had already been someone else’s job. 

Aunt Neera hadn’t just gotten them the horses and left it there, she’d arranged for someone to care for the animals until Dad was able to do it himself. In the mornings before school La’an had watched Ehsan get them fed and watered, muck out the stables and brush them down. He’d worked in the Terik Forest caring for Aigani’s local wildlife since he’d left school about five years before but he was obsessed with alien animals of every kind and had jumped at the chance not just to see Terran horses, but to take care of them. La’an hadn’t acted brilliantly toward him at first. She’d been determined that she should be the one to look after the horses, to show that she was useful and dependable, and to let her dad know that she’d remembered all of the things he’d taught her when they’d visited Montana while she was growing up. She’d known it wasn’t Ehsan’s fault but regardless he was standing in the way of all of that.

Spock had been the one to point out to La’an that logically two people sharing the workload of caring for five horses, would gain both of them more leisure time with the animals. That had been a lot easier to accept than the truth of Erica telling her she was acting like a brat. So La’an and Ehsan had come to a truce. Well okay, La’an had ceased all hostilities and Ehsan had stopped wondering why she was stomping  moodily around the stables whenever she was home and never spoke to him. 

The stables were close to the road and anyone visiting would have to pass it and the fenced in paddock out front to reach the house. During the day while Ehsan was nearby the horses would all have free rein to wander the enclosure. Ehsan would unlatch their stall doors every morning and La’an or Mum round them up in the evening. 

With only a little interference from the horses, La’an checked that all of their water buckets had been topped up as well as the shared trough, and then she filled the hanging nets in their stalls with hay and grasses. Ehsan had scoured the planet for the best oats and barley and his special mix was what La’an tipped into the buckets she’d lined up outside of the stable. Four of the horses immediately went to inspect her offerings while one continued to wander along the fence line, happy to wait until the others had finished. 

While La’an was watching them eat she heard the door clatter open up at the house and looked behind her to see Dad making his way over. Walking around outside, at least without Mum hovering beside him, was definitely not part of her dad’s agreed physical therapy routine. He was still slower than La’an was used to, with every step more deliberate than it should have been. La’an remembered when she was younger and Dad could just scoop her up and swing her through the air as he carried her across to the kitchen or down from a shuttle ramp. He obviously hadn’t swung her around like that in years but she hated seeing this frailty in him, perhaps even more than when he’d been restricted to the life-support chair. 

La’an cut across the paddock to meet him at the fence and when Dad reached one of the wooden posts he leant against it. He tried to play the stance off as causal but La’an could see the pain that just walking over from the house had caused him in the tightness around his eyes. 

“You know Mum’s home soon,” she warned. 

Only this could scare former Captain Pike; the threat of his Number One finding him doing something he shouldn’t be doing. 

“Then I don’t need you playing warden too,” he sniped back, but he said it with a smile. Dad knew that La’an would keep his secret; just yesterday afternoon they’d strolled to the near edge of the lake and back and she hadn’t breathed a word. They’d just have to make sure Dad was back inside before Mum did actually get home, because La’an wasn’t going down for him. 

“So what are their names?” Now they’d been fed one of the horses had wandered back over. He nudged at Dad’s shoulder until he adjusted his stance and patted the animal’s broad nose. “If they’re part of the family now I should probably know what to call them.” 

La’an had avoided talking about the horses too much before now, even after Dad had come out of the hospital. She felt a little guilty about spending time with the animals that had clearly been intended for him, especially when she’d go out riding with Ehsan on days that she didn’t have school. She’d try to sneak out while Dad was distracted cooking, well distracted ordering Mum around like a sous chef, or she’d leave early enough in the morning that they would both still be in bed. 

She felt bad enough for being able to enjoy the things that Dad couldn’t yet, without having to rub it in by telling him all about it. But as dad kneaded his fingertips deeply under the horse’s chin La’an saw the weariness seem to lift from him, like all of the physical aches had been forgotten and she suddenly wondered if Aunt Neera had known that they’d have this effect on him. 

La’an pointed over to the white horse wandering at the far end of the paddock first. “I named her Galileo,” she said. “After the Enterprise shuttle.” 

Galileo always wanted to be out on an adventure. Mum had already ridden her a couple of times and seemed to be the only person able to keep the animal reined in. With Mum, La’an felt sure than Galileo would always be guided safely back home no matter how far away her exploring took her.

The stallion still nuzzling up to Dad, butting against his arm repeatedly with his nose until he got the attention he wanted, La’an had already decided would be perfect for Dad once he was allowed to ride again. She was pleased to see that the horse seemed to agree. With his deep chestnut coat and the white stripe down his nose he looked just like Tango, one of Dad’s old horses that La’an had seen in loads of old pictures that Grandma had shown her. 

“That’s Montana. I knew he’d like you.” 

Montana was a reminder of all of the good things in their old lives that they’d made sure to carry with them to their new one.

The three remaining horses were still over by the stable and their food. La’an gave the bucket in her hand a quick shake and the few remaining oats in the bottom rattled. The biggest horse, who was always the first to the food, trotted over and immediately shoved his head in the bucket, even though La’an had given them plenty of feed.

“This is Cheeseburger.”

Without a doubt Cheeseburger was Ehsan’s favourite, probably because he spent most of his time being followed around by the ever hopeful, and perpetually hungry, horse. Ehsan and Mum had both had to drag the animal out of the meadow more than once to stop him from eating all of the wild flowers after he’d made an escape from the paddock.

Trailing after Cheeseburger was the littlest horse, who was La’an’s by default. The thing about not sharing your parents’ DNA was that you were never going to be as tall as either of them, so she and the small palomino were well matched. He was gentle, even a little timid, but once he had somewhere to run he became lightning. He was just La’an’s and he’d been the first to receive a name, painted in thick white lettering on the door of his stall. 

But now La’an felt kind of silly saying it out loud to her dad. 

“That’s James.”

She could feel her face getting hot but Dad didn’t laugh or tease her about her reaction, or the horse’s name. 

Cheeseburger had gotten bored with the now empty bucket and was trudging back to the ones in front of the stable, which had all been nudged out of line by their eager feeding frenzy. James stayed beside La’an. 

“And that one?”

Dad pointed to the final horse in their stable who had her head dipped into the drinking water. She was a creamy, golden brown with a deep black mane and tail, both of which had been braided. She was the only horse aside from James who’d stand still long enough to let anyone even try it. And Ehsan had been desperate to try it. La’an imagined she was the kind of horse that would win those coloured rosettes she’d seen nailed up in the barn at Grandma’s in Mojave.

Neither La’an nor Ehsan had been able to settle on a name for the mare so far but La’an suddenly thought of one that felt just right. 

“She’s called Number Five.”

Dad barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “At least you didn’t call her Number One I guess.”

Chapter Text

As soon as the doors of the turbolift closed behind them Una slumped against the wall, feeling so heavy she could happily have slid right down it into a heap on the floor. Not particularly dignified of a ship’s first officer. Ferrying an ambassador from his home planet to a neighbouring moon in the same system for trade negotiations should not be this stressful, but going over Ambassador Deron’s ‘requirements’ was becoming exhausting. This was already the third meeting Deron had called and he’d only been on Enterprise for a day and a half. They’d arrive at Ralara Four tomorrow evening, beginning the trade negotiations the following day, but that still gave the ambassador far too many hours to call more meetings.

“You, need a cheeseburger.” Una glared at her captain. Chris was grinning at her. She knew he felt as wrung out as she did but she definitely did not appreciate how well he could hide it. 

“I really do.” 

Neither of them had any more energy for small talk, especially not about the mission, so they rode out the rest of the journey to deck five in silence. Una had already planed on having dinner in the captain’s quarters but with the additional promise of that cheeseburger she swore she could feel her tensed and knotted muscles beginning to relax. 

When Chris and Una entered the cabin they were met with Uhura seated on the couch across the room. She was nestled into one corner with her legs folded up under her, and glanced up from the padd resting on her thigh as the doors hissed closed behind them.

Chris held up his palms to ward off any reprimands the young officer might have planned due to them being so late, “Sorry Nyota, we got held up.”

Surprisingly she just said, “I anticipated that.”

“Oh?” Una asked. She was intrigued to find out what the ensign knew that they didn’t. 

“I see the whole ship’s comms traffic Sir, including the ambassador’s call logs.” A knowing smile played on Uhura’s lips. “He… likes to talk.”

“That he does,” Una sighed. 

She reached a hand up to the back of her neck, digging her fingers into the corded muscles. She hadn’t had to force herself to sit that straight and attentive since attending Professor Errak’s classes at the Academy, only it had felt like they’d been trapped in the conference room for longer than any lecture. Probably because she’d actually enjoyed subspace theory; trade routes and tariffs didn’t have quite the same appeal.  

Uhura began gathering up a stack of the padds that had spread across the coffee table. Una had never known the ensign to turn up anywhere without at least one thing that she was reading. Gods knew what she was translating currently, but Una was sure Ortegas would be teasing her about it tomorrow morning on the bridge.  

Chris was already in the kitchen, ducking through the neck strap of his apron then reaching to the small of his back to secure the ties. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner. We’re having cheeseburgers. Habanero sauce optional.” 

Una was tempted to poke her tongue out at him but she chose to be more dignified than that, and simply glared at him again instead. She could literally hear Chapel sniggering in her head that Number One was even more terrifying when she was hungry. 

“No thank you, Captain. I’m meeting Spock in the galley.”

Uhura held the gathered padds to her chest, catching one with a quick adjustment of her grip before it slid from the pack to the deck. 

“Where’s La’an?” Una asked.

That probably should have been her first question when they’d arrived, but in Una’s defence it had been a very long day. 

Uhura grinned and she straightened to attention to report, “She and Runa are leading a landing party to Alpha Mu.”

Despite the aches and the exhaustion Una found herself smiling back. “And where might Alpha Mu be?”

“In the bathroom.”

From the short corridor leading to Chris’ bathroom Una could hear La’an chatting away to herself but when she stepped inside the room the girl wasn’t in sight. Which left only a couple of spots she could be hiding. A few more steps and Una could see the round oval bathtub tucked into the far corner of the bathroom behind the sonic shower. And in the middle of the empty bathtub was La’an, on her hands and knees facing away from the doorway. Around La’an’s neck was a black strap and Una caught sight of the boxy shape of a tricorder swaying back and forth between her arms. Spock had given La’an the tricorder weeks ago; it came with limited functions obviously but it made all of the fun noises and it was still La’an’s favourite toy, aside from Runa of course. Fortunately he’d been smart enough to scale the thing down in size or La’an would probably be dragged down by the weight of it around her neck. Spock had tried to claim the gift was purely educational but Una had seen him willingly participate in enough games of pretend to know a Vulcan half-truth when she heard one.

La’an was so busy explaining to Runa what the tricorder readout was saying that she hadn’t noticed Una’s entrance. Una assumed that La’an’s imagination was filling in a lot more of the details than what she was reading on the device’s small screen, otherwise the atmosphere in Chris’ bathroom was now predominantly nitrogen and they were all in trouble. 

“Anything to report Lieutenant?” 

La’an’s head whipped around instantly at the sound of Una’s voice. “Mummy!” 

Una never wanted to get used to hearing La’an call her that. Every single time she did Una felt her heart catch in her throat; it didn’t matter whether it was a shrill giggle or a sleepy sigh. Even a protesting whine in response to being told to eat her vegetables made Una feel like she’d been placed as the centre to La’an’s universe.

Una knelt down beside the tub and folded her arms on the edge. La’an used her flattened palms to pull herself closer, sliding on her knees until she was close enough that their noses touched. For that small moment looking into each others eyes it could have been just the two of them existing in the whole of space and time. 

Then La’an sat back on her heels to animatedly deliver her landing party report.

Mysterious alien writing, strange looking plants and animals, and a phaser fight with some ambiguous bad guys made for a lively mission. Una probably didn’t need to remind Spock not to make La’an a phaser if she asked for one, but she would have to have words with Pelia just in case.

“Sounds like a successful mission. Time to beam up from Alpha Mu and let the captain have his bathroom back.”

La’an’s head tilted to one side and Una thought that she looked just like Spock when he was trying to puzzle something out. It was funny how the habits La’an would have made fun of the Vulcan for when an adult, she was now starting to copy from her new big brother. 

“Why don’t you have a bath?” La’an finally asked.

“Because I prefer sonic showers, so I never asked for one.”

La’an’s eyebrows furrowed together as she thought that answer over. “Why didn’t I have one?” 

This seemed to be happening more and more often lately, La’an having to be reminded of things from her old life. While Joseph’s tests showed no damage to La’an’s permanent memories he’d concluded that her neural pathways had been altered enough by the Talvin device that she might have trouble consciously accessing some of them. He’d even speculated that like adults who were unable to recall memories of their very early childhood La’an might find herself with only the implicit long term memories, the procedural skills and emotional conditioning of her former life, and lose the explicit ones- such as her detailed experiences of events and some of the more complex knowledge and concepts she’d learned.

All of it was unexplored territory still and the only thing they could do for La’an was have patience and try to explain what they could in a way that a child, one still grappling with the concept of having been an independent adult only months ago, could understand.

So, why didn’t La’an have a fancy bathtub in her quarters when she’d been all grown up?

“Well, that would be because you weren’t the captain or the first officer.”

La’an’s fingertips were brushing over the brass faucet on the wall that lined up with the centre of the bath. It was wide and flat, so that when the water was turned on it would spill over the lip like a waterfall. 

“Can we have one now?” La’an asked hopefully.

Una reached into the tub and gave La’an’s sleeve a light tug, pulling her rapt attention away from the faucet. “I think we’ve had engineering teams re-fit our quarters quite enough, don’t you?”

La’an slumped back in the tub, sliding down the side until she was lying in the deep base of it. She pulled Runa tight against her belly and her fingers dug into the golden fur. “No,” she mumbled. 

“Maybe if you ask nicely Chris will let you come use his.” 

Una had gotten as far as ‘ask nicely’ when La’an began pulling herself up. Or at least trying to. The girl’s socked feet slipped on the smooth surface until she’d hauled enough of her upper body over the lip of the bath to tumble inelegantly over the side onto the deck. 

Before Una could help her La’an had picked herself up and was running off out of the room shouting, “Captain!”

Una sighed and reached into the bathtub to pick up the cast aside Runa. Well, at least she’d have bubblebath and rubber ducks to distract from the oncoming tedium of trade agreements.

Chapter Text

Six

Una was no expert but she was pretty sure that typical children’s birthday parties came with a small horde of over-stimulated kids. Life onboard Enterprise tended toward the atypical though so it was fitting that this particular party only had the one over-stimulated kid- who was currently climbing up onto Spock’s lap, completely oblivious to where her knees and elbows were going. Una saw the wince that even Vulcan composure couldn’t hide the moment La’an planted a knee directly into Spock’s abdomen and tried not to laugh. 

There wasn’t a single child besides the birthday girl within a couple light years, not since Enterprise had left the closest habitable system behind a day and a half ago, but between the senior staff they’d managed to tick off just about every other party requirement. 

As expected Chris volunteered immediately to bake and decorate the cake, which was now the centrepiece of a buffet vast enough to feed an entire intake class at the Academy The end result was a beautiful mess of sponge and frosting. It hadn’t quite lived up to Chris’ vision but that’s what he got when La’an was ‘helping’ too.

A crazy amount of red and gold balloons arrived with Chapel and Spock. La’an had spent a good ten minutes trying to catch the trailing ribbon on one that floated up to the ceiling while Uhura was meticulously placing the rest around the captain’s cabin where they’d complement the bunting of fabric silver stars that the ensign had arrived early to hang. Before she’d grown too frustrated Spock had hoisted La’an up to claim her prize and then tied the ribbon around Runa’s waist to keep the balloon grounded. 

Pelia turned up with so many gift-wrapped boxes in her arms that she’d been completely hidden behind them when the cabin doors slid aside for her. Una didn’t have the first notion how the chief engineer had managed to navigate the corridors and turbolift carrying them all. Una also had no idea where exactly she’d find the space to put all of the things La’an would find inside those boxes- unless Pelia’s structural engineering team had built a hidden room to their upgraded cabin that she hadn’t been informed of.

Joseph’s contribution was the party games to come, once they’d finished eating and La’an had made a wish and blown out her candles. The doctor had remained steadfastly tight-lipped on the details of these games but the grin that had been flitting across his lips for weeks whenever anyone asked him about them left Una a little afraid of what he had in store. 

Finally, and most importantly according to Enterprise’s pilot, Ortegas insisted on party hats. For everyone. No exceptions.

A wriggling La’an finally settled on a comfortable position on Spock’s lap. Una suspected that either Christine or Uhura had gotten ahold of the science officer before the party to wrangle him out of his uniform and into the buttoned shirt he wore now, steely blue silk with a little embroidered detail at the collar. La’an was still learning to embrace the colour in her new wardrobe but for this evening at least she’d chosen a jade green t-shirt. Una had yet to convince her to wear anything, no matter the colour, that couldn’t be paired with her favoured black leggings and boots. Both La’an and Spock’s outfits were completed with Erica’s ridiculous foiled-gold paper party hats adorned with glittered stars. 

Sensing a perfect opportunity Chris swooped in, camera in hand. His own party hat sat slightly askew on his head, probably so that it wouldn’t flatten his perfectly sculpted hair. Her captain’s aversion to certain technological advances meant that Chris insisted on using an outdated slim-padd style camera- handheld but without even a flexible display screen. Honestly Una was surprised he didn’t have one that still used reels of photographic film instead of one capable of sending the digital images it captured directly to the computer. As he leaned over the coffee table blocking Una’s direct view of La’an and Spock sitting across from her, Una glanced to the image of the pair on the camera’s wide screen. Chris touched his thumb and index finger to the screen then spread them apart, zooming the image in on La’an grinning so hard that her nose, flecked with freckles, scrunched up. Above La’an’s head Spock was trying to look as dignified as he possibly could under the circumstances. 

The camera emitted a burst of soft imitation shutter sounds at the the tap of Chris’ finger on the screen. When he was satisfied Chris stood back up, grinning as wide as La’an, and began to skim through the dozens of near identical shots to find the perfect image.

“That one I’m sending to your mom,” he told Spock, flicking a finger across the screen in a well-practiced gesture that would send the file off through the ship’s comm channel. 

Una appreciated her enhanced Illyrian vision at that moment when it allowed her to clearly see Spock’s blush in response; a faint green tint to his cheeks that human eyes wouldn’t be able to detect. 

“I wanna see,” La’an demanded as she threw herself off Spock’s lap, her heels kicking against his shins to propel herself forward. Too distracted with teasing Spock, Chris didn’t respond immediately so La’an climbed up onto the coffee table then drew herself up on her knees so that she could tug at his shirt sleeve. “Daddy, let me see.”

If not for the music that was playing softly over the room’s speakers, and Erica’s sputtering as she almost chocked on her drink, the cabin would have been plunged into a silence as deep as the vacuum of space. 

Well, Una thought, they were all going to find out sooner or later.

Chris’ immediate response to La’an calling him daddy was a proud grin. Which was a step up from his panic the first time he’d heard it. A fraction of a second later though he realised that this time he had a wider audience than just Una and his cheeks flushed just like Spock’s had; only bright red and very, very visible to everyone. 

Oblivious to the fact that all eyes in the cabin were on her daddy, La’an managed to tug down Chris’ now slack arm. Met with the grid of small preview images displayed on the screen La’an frowned.

Giving Chris an out Una suggested, “La’an, maybe you could look at the pictures on Daddy’s’ terminal?” 

Despite blushing harder hearing the word again, Chris seemed mostly relieved as he scooped La’an up under one arm and bundled her off to the computer on the desk in his bedroom. Given a day or two, Una had no doubt Chris wouldn’t give a second thought to being called daddy in front of his crew, or even Admiral April. The next mission Enterprise had he’d probably be bragging to some planetary governor about his daughter at the first opportunity.

Returning her attention to their friends Una noted first that Nyota seemed about to split apart with barely contained joy and a torrent of questions. Christine was standing behind Spock's chair directly across from Una and she’d seen nurse’s eyebrows shoot up at La’an’s declaration. Now Spock had joined her in the Vulcan equivalent- a single raised eyebrow. 

Infuriatingly, and entirely expected, Pelia let out a small amused chuckle. Una’s old professor at least tried to hide her reaction behind the cuban slider she’d just picked up from the buffet spread.

After a whole minute where no-one spoke Christine licked her lips and ventured, “When did...” She let go of the chair back she’d been gripping as though it was the only thing holding her upright and gestured vaguely with her hand, searching for the best way to phrase what she said next “…when did Daddy become a thing?” 

The blonde bit down on her lip to suppress what was clearly a wicked grin, trying to play the question off as entirely innocent and free of any double meaning. Erica snorted regardless, and in Una’s peripheral vision she saw Joseph shake his head even as a smile touched his lips.

“Technically?” Una started, and both Christine and Erica pulled themselves together to listen. “An hour ago.” 

Una had spent almost half of that hour, from the moment of La’an’s declaration that she’d helped her daddy make the cake, easing Chris down from spiralling panic before their friends started to arrive for the party.

Joseph’s quiet smile over his colleague’s phrasing grew into a grin and a rumble of amusement rose from deep in his chest. He’d been one of Una's closest confidants the past few months and even without having had this particular discussion Una knew Joseph would be of the same mind as her- La’an considering Chris to be her dad had clearly been coming for a while. It had been as obvious as a course charted on a stellar map, even if it had hit Chris as hard as being blindsided by a shuttle going at warp one. 

Surprisingly Christine, Erica and Pelia all held off on teasing their captain once he returned the birthday girl to her party. There’d been drinks and games, cake and wishes, and now La’an was passed out on the couch while Una gathered up the empty glasses, plates and bowls that had somehow found themselves scattered around the cabin as if they were part of a scavenger hunt. 

“I think it went well,” Chris said as he took the last glass from Una at the sink and drowned the lingering aroma of Uhura’s too-sweet fruity cocktail in soapy bubbles. 

Una had finally admitted to him the previous night just how worried she was about the impending party. A year ago La’an would have hated being the centre of attention, and despite all of the changes that had come from La’an’s de-aging Una had discovered over and over again that the little girl she now cared for was still the friend she’d had all these years at her core. The party could easily have ended abruptly in tears or a tantrum, or continued only with a reticent La’an clamped to Una’s side the entire evening. 

Una suspected Chris was talking about more than La’an’s delight in having everyone dote on her for an evening though. 

“So you’ll be fine when Erica calls you daddy on the bridge?”

Chris’ blue eyes widened and his cheeks flared red. Discovering new ways to fluster her friend never got old

“She wouldn’t,” he gulped.

Una took the glass from his open palm before it slid back into the water and wiped it dry with the tea towel Chris had been using while she searched his quarters for crockery.

“Oh, she will.”

Una set the glass on the counter beside the others, ready for Chris to return to their correct cupboards. She’d long ago learned that he had an organisational system that she was not permitted to mess with, one she had no interest in learning. 

Since Una’s last pass of the couch La’an had rolled over in her sleep. Now she was lying face down in the cushions with both of her arms thrown above her head, one hand firmly wrapped around Runa’s leg. Both child and stuffed toy still had a party hat on, even though the adults had all managed to miraculously lose theirs throughout the evening. Except for Ortegas. Una hoped that wouldn’t be making an appearance on the bridge in the morning. 

In her current position La’an’s hat had slipped down from the top of her head. Una walked over and crouched down beside the couch, carefully slipping her hand under La’an’s chin. The girl gave a little moan in her sleep but barely stirred as Una raised her head up a little and eased the elastic strap off before La’an managed to strangled herself with it. 

“She should be thirty-three.”

Una only realised she’d murmured the thought out loud when she noticed Chris leave the kitchen area to gravitate towards them. She pulled her eyes away from La’an, looking down at the paper hat in her hands and the silver glitter that had stuck to her fingertips. “Right now she should be doing shots of Nueva Tijuana tequila in the port galley with Chapel, Ortegas and Uhura. And pretending to be miserable about it. Not crashed out from a sugar high.”

There was nothing left of the cake but crumbs, because of course it had tasted better than it looked, and far too much of it had ended up inside La’an. A lot more of the buffet remained so Chris had divided it up between Pelia and M’Benga, who’d both swung by their departments after leaving the captain’s quarters to feed the officers they’d assigned to delta shift. 

Clearly amused by the image of La’an unenthusiastically partying in the galley, Chris snorted out a laugh. In her sleep La’an grumbled into the couch cushions. Then her head rolled to the side and she blinked a few times, a small scowl settling across her forehead.

Una inflicted her most devastating glare on Chris. Hopefully La’an was so exhausted that she’d drift back off to sleep before she got too interested in what she might be missing out on. Too many times Una had discovered La’an awake in the middle of the night; sat in centre of her bedroom rug fiddling with some puzzle Spock had given her or snuggled up at the top of her bed in a nest of pillows reading a book in the dimmed light of her star lamp. She might still have the same ability as adult-La’an to stay awake for unnaturally long periods, but little-La’an was twice as grumpy when that lack of sleep caught up to her. 

“Go back to sleep baby.”

The scowl faded but was replaced with confusion, La’an’s tiny eyebrows pulling together. “Am I six yet?” 

Una had seen La’an’s birth certificate, the original one, plenty of times. On a mission debrief screen, and medical and social care records. Bundled in with an Academy application then in a Starfleet personnel file. La’an had been born at twenty-three zero-seven hours. Una remembered the pair of them sat out on a deserted San Francisco beach, more swaying grasses than sand, toasting the minute La’an turned twenty-two with champagne in tin camping mugs. Thick blankets over their laps and a fire pit dug into the sand. Talking, but mostly not, under the stars.

“Computer what time is it?” Una asked.

The familiar disembodied voice responded, “The time is twenty-three eleven hours.”

Una stroked her fingers through La’an’s hair, adding more glitter to what was already there. Una was sure she’d find a bed and a sonic shower full of the stuff tomorrow. 

“Six, and a whole four minutes too.”

Fifteen

Two. Three. Zero. Seven.

La’an had tapped the screen of the padd beside her bed just in time to see the six in the top corner blink into a seven. 

She was fifteen. 

She wasn’t sure it felt any different than fourteen. 

She’d told Mum she didn’t want a cake or presents or a party. The notifications on her padd from the group chat she had open with Emerson, Torin, Sienna, Caelan and Na’Toth had been exploding all day as they sent her birthday messages and ridiculous animations they knew would make her smile. And she definitely appreciated it, but La’an had wanted to spend the day at home in the apartment, just her and Mum and Dad. 

So there’d been no party and no cake, but clearly her parents couldn’t stop themselves from giving her a gift. 

It had come in a simple rectangular box; not slim enough to be the latest gaming padd and definitely not the right shape for a book. The tag attached on top had been in her mum’s handwriting, of course. 

From me and Dad.

La’an had actually gasped when she’d wriggled the lid of the box free and flipped over the edge of the rolled chestnut coloured leather inside to reveal polished steel and the rich, cherrywood handles of a set of chef's knives. 

“We think you’re responsible enough now.” Mum said, glancing to Dad who’d pulled his life-support chair up close to her side of the couch. La’an had gotten used to imagining the smile on her dad’s face and it would have transformed into a wicked grin if it could when Mum added, “They are NOT for throwing. Understood.”

La’an had ran her fingertips over the smooth wood, then briefly touched the cold metal before pulling her hand away and wrapping the knives up again in the supple leather. She didn’t want to cry and she was sure she would if she looked at them any longer just then. Dad’s hands had always been the ones guiding hers when they cooked together, but now it would just be hers. 

An hour ago she’d been tempted to bring the fabric roll to bed with her, like she’d once held on to Runa during the night. But La’an was pretty sure Mum would have stopped her if she’d tried, so she’d left the knives on the kitchen counter instead. She’d get up early and before either of her parents were awake make western omelettes for them all for breakfast. Though maybe it would be worth the risk of Mum catching her crying when she touched the knives again to see just how nervous La’an could make her by fine chopping the peppers and onions at speed.

La’an rolled back onto her pillow and stared up at the ceiling. She really did try to close her eyes again but somehow she just couldn’t. After a whole bunch of useless wasted minutes she threw the cover off.  The overweighted heap of blankets slipped from the mattress to the floor as La’an climbed out of bed. She left them where they landed and padded to the bedroom door. 

It was only a couple of paces across the width of the corridor to Mum’s bedroom but La’an paused half way there. There was a dimmed light creeping up from the living room. Well from the old guest room off of the living room, which Starbase One’s engineering team had fitted out with the necessary utilities so that her dad could come home. 

When they’d finished the re-fit the room had been transformed from a warm and welcoming cocoon, shelves full of trinkets and artefacts from dozens of worlds, into an identical copy of the sterile suites on the medical wards. Only it didn’t smell of antiseptic. Before Dad had come home La’an roped Caelan into helping her paint the walls, and while Mum was on duty they’d used a dozen or so aerosol cans to recreate a huge sky reaching up onto the ceiling, grey mountains, and every shade of green they could find for the trees and grasses under the shifting light of a setting sun. 

La’an still wasn’t used to the type of quiet that sometimes filled their apartment now. Instead of Dad humming as he pottered around his kitchen, or muttering his way through a report on a padd, or playfully teasing Mum, there was just the mechanical whir and chitter of the machines keeping him alive.

La’an hurried the last couple of steps to Mum’s door and it slid open before she could place her palm on the panel. There was no way she’d catch her mother by surprise or startle her awake but her entry didn’t trigger any movement from the bed. Mum was still sleeping on the left side of the bed, even though she didn’t share it with anyone anymore. The wall screen just inside of the door was set to a swirling nebula of blues and greens and it looked more like being under an ocean than in space. In the liquid light the swirls of Mum’s dark hair stood out starkly against the pillow. 

La’an crept around the end of the bed then gently raised the corner of the duvet and slipped under it. 

Mum’s eyes were open and watching La’an as she settled down on the cold pillow that had been her dad’s.

“Happy birthday,” Mum whispered. The fact that even her mum didn’t want to disturb the quiet of the apartment made La’an feel a little less stupid about trying to tiptoe into her bed.

“You already said that,” La’an whispered back.

Mum’s mouth twitched into a small smile. There were more of those now; for both of them. 

“Go back to sleep baby.”

“I’m not a baby.” La’an said, but she didn’t grumble at the choice of words.

“Fifteen year olds still need to sleep.” La’an scoffed a little but closed her eyes and snuggled closer. She tucked her head under Mum’s chin and pressed her forehead to Mum’s throat. La’an both felt and heard when her mum said, “And you’ll always be my baby.”

Chapter Text

“La’an, I said it was time for bed.”

At the sound of Una’s voice La’an’s head whipped up from the padd in her hands but she seemed only mildly surprised to find Una standing in the bedroom doorway, perhaps because this was the fourth time that Una had been in to disrupt the five year old’s post bed-time activities. 

When La’an returned her attention back to the padd after barely a second’s contemplation Una had to fight off a deep sigh. The strict ‘no electronic devices after eighteen-hundred’ rule had been a lot easier to enforce when Una had been tucking La’an up into their shared bed and then dimming the lights and settling in on the couch just a few feet away.

Before Pelia and her team transformed Una’s standard single occupancy quarters into something that better fit the new family, Una had meticulously planned out La’an’s room. She’d wanted it to feel as close to the adult La’an’s former living space as possible while still addressing the needs of the child La’an now was. In the end the practical and minimally decorated bedroom more closely resembled an Academy quad dorm than the multi-bunk junior officer cabins that already existed on Enterprise; only with a bed and desk proportioned for a five year old. Rather than cadet uniforms the built-in drawers were full of pint-size clothing, and the shelving that stretched across the back wall held a growing collection of children’s books instead of the scattered components of term projects or revision padds.

The little library made Una smile every time she saw it; each book was a favourite from childhood that someone on board Enterprise wanted to share with their youngest crew mate. La’an had so many fabricated and original books now, containing stories from almost a dozen worlds, that they couldn’t all be displayed on the shelves. The majority of the books were stored in the footlocker at the end of the bed along with another growing collection- toys. 

La’an had been pretty resistant to playing with anything besides Runa at first; and of course she’d bristle at anyone suggesting that caring for her stuffed toy was ‘playing’. The unbridled enthusiasm of her former colleagues turned out to be the key to La’an overcoming her hesitations, and now she threw herself into being a little kid with the same single-minded focus that she’d once applied to carrying out her duties as a Starfleet officer. Which meant that at the end of each day the fluffy rug in the middle of La’an’s bedroom was inevitably covered with a scattering of games and puzzles. 

Fortunately a large part of the evening routine that Joseph had helped Una put in place was getting La’an to pick up after herself before bedtime. They hadn’t yet managed it without a degree of grumbling, and far too many attempts at distraction, but once La’an forgot she was doing a chore she’d happily fuss over returning her things to their rightful homes. Obviously Una appreciated the end result of having orderly quarters again but what she enjoyed most was La’an sharing every thought that happened to be racing through her head as she went about her task. 

Una had always known that La’an’s mind was constantly in motion, assessing and evaluating everything around her, but too often she’d felt locked out from fully understanding her friend. Now, at least when it was just the two of them together, La’an didn’t censor herself at all. Just this evening Una had been treated to an interesting interpretation of archeological medicine, an almost exhausting list of every little thing that La’an had done with Spock that morning, and a scathing assessment of the lunch she’d been forced to endure in the galley because Chris and Una had both been busy on the bridge. 

The next stage of the nightly schedule was the only one to ever go smoothly. La’an remained as fastidious as ever about personal grooming so Una barely had to ask before La’an was racing off to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get changed into pyjamas. When she was done La’an would settle herself between Una’s knees to have her hair unbraided; her head tipped back, eyes closed and freshly scrubbed face shining pink, as Una worked a brush through the loose silky strands.

Bedtime itself was a whole other mission though. One which felt like a trial of endurance each night.

The previous evening it had taken Una almost five hours to get La’an to sleep in her own bed. Every attempt to tuck the girl up under her covers led to wailed appeals for Una to stay or to let La’an come sleep with her, and La’an clutching desperately to her sleeve. Defeated by the heartbreaking pleas Una could only sit on the floor beside La’an’s bed, one arm resting on the mattress for La’an to cling to. As sleep gradually claimed La’an, Una had eased herself free of the tiny fingers and began to edge across the room in increments between each tiny whimper or fast paced breath. 

Even when Una was convinced La’an was fast asleep she’d stayed another twenty minutes in the doorway, sat on the deck with her back against the doorframe, unwilling to tempt fate by leaving too soon. When she’d finally fallen into her own bed Una’s head had barely hit the pillow when she heard the hiss of the door opening and the light pattering of approaching footsteps. She’d rolled out of bed and caught up La’an just as the girl was climbing onto the other side of the mattress and returned her to her own bedroom, starting the whole process over again.  

This morning Spock had been handed a sleepy little girl far too tired to cause her usual trouble, and Una had spent an early shift fighting off exhaustion, aided by a constant stream of black coffee supplied by a sympathetic bridge crew.

Just to keep things fresh, La’an’s performance tonight was a tour de force in defiance. 

Una stepped into the bedroom and dropped to a crouch beside La’an, bringing herself down to the girl’s eye level. La’an shuffled away from Una across the thick rug without otherwise acknowledging her presence. In the room’s low lighting the bright animated colours of the cartoon playing on the padd seemed to burst from the screen. The pictures moved without any sound so clearly La’an had been smart enough to think to turn the volume down so that it couldn’t be heard in the next room. Una recognised the children’s programme as one Joseph had introduced La’an to a few days ago. She’d gone to collect La’an from Sickbay and found Joseph writing up patient reports at his desk terminal with La’an sat on his lap, absolutely captivated by the cartoon playing on a propped up padd. 

Una slipped her hands under La’an’s arms to pick her up and in response the girl tried to make herself as small as possible, curling up tight in an attempt to thwart Una’s grip. La’an wasn’t quick enough to stop Una from getting a sure hold though and as Una stood she lifted the girl with her. A second later she deposited La’an onto her bed with a little bounce. 

Without engaging La’an in conversation, and giving her the chance to argue or debate, Una took hold of the padd and tugged it from La’an’s steely grip.

“Nooo,” La’an raged. She didn’t make a grab for the padd though so Una set it on the nightstand out of the girl’s reach. Turning back to La’an, Una tried to pull the duvet up over her; not an easy feat against the five year old’s thrashing and kicking.

Shouting ‘no’, ‘I hate you’ and ‘not fair’ might have become La’an’s most consistent form of protest but that hadn’t made Una any more resistant to it. As La’an threw the words at her in a furious stream Una did her best not to let them get to her. She picked up Runa, who’d been left perched on top of the pillow, and attempted to tuck the stuffed dog in with La’an. Still flailing, La’an batted the toy away and it landed at the bottom of the bed.  

After a few minutes spent attempting to get back out of bed and past Una, La’an’s dissatisfied growls died down and her head fell back onto the pillow with a soft thud. When Una reached down to retrieve Runa and offered it up a second time La’an snatched the dog from her hand and hid her face in the soft fur. 

Satisfied that La’an would stay put, at least for the short term, Una left the bedroom taking the padd with her. In the living area she collapsed onto the nearest couch and let her head drop against the cushions, closing her eyes against the brighter lights of the main cabin. When she felt the padd being taken from her limp grasp she opened her eyes to Joseph smiling down at her.

“Here.”

Tilting her head slightly Una saw the glass tumbler he held out toward her, half filled with a burnt orange liquid. Carried on the crisp purified air of the cabin Una caught hints of sweet cinnamon and bitter coffee. Joseph had clearly found the bottle she’d opened with Chris after their return mission to Rigel VII. When Una accepted the glass from him, Joseph glanced down at the padd he’d taken in exchange. A smile played across the man’s lips when he saw the cartoon that was still playing, the bold colours dancing across his dark skin for just a moment before he turned it off and sat down beside her. 

This evening it was Enterprise’s chief medical officer who’d been called in as Una’s backup. 

The first night she’d tried to get La’an to sleep in her own bedroom had been such a spectacular failure that Una simply gave up and let La’an back into her bed. 

The second night Chris volunteered to help… and had been none whatsoever. La’an effortlessly manipulated him into story after story, with big eyes and pouting lips, leaving Una to be the bad guy who said it was finally time to sleep. She and Chris then spent the rest of the night trading off on returning La’an to her room whenever she peeked out of her door. 

With Chris, La’an had sobbed and begged, with Una she’d yelled and fought.

“I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” Una confessed after a single gulp of the whiskey which drained the majority of the glass. 

“You’re doing fine Una.”

“Fine isn’t good enough.” 

She wanted La’an to have all of the opportunities that she’d missed out on after losing her family to the Gorn. After Una had handed her over to a string of foster placements. This time Una thought that she’d be able to do more, that she could actually be the parent that La’an deserved; but pathetically she couldn’t even give La’an a place where she felt safe and comfortable enough to sleep through the night.

“For a Starfleet officer maybe,” Joseph hummed. “For a parent, fine is pretty damn good.” 

Not for the first time Una marvelled at Joseph’s ability to balance the teasing tone in his voice, when he was clearly laughing at you, with comforting reassurance.

“Tell me it gets better.”

“It’s her terrible twos,” he said with a light chuckle. “She’ll grow out of it.”

Joseph had started calling La’an’s latest phase the terrible twos after a particularly spectacular meltdown in sickbay. Rukiya, he’d said, had been the same when she’d been learning how to assert herself while struggling with a lot of new and big emotions. Una just missed the sweet clingy baby the Talvin device had left them with only a couple of weeks ago. The kid that didn’t scream “I hate you” at the top of her lungs when Una told her that the captain couldn’t make her pancakes for breakfast every morning.

The door to La’an’s room had been left open, because a closed door was just begging for trouble, and from the corner of her eye Una caught a shadow dancing across the warm golden light of La’an’s starfield nightlight.

Una tipped back the remainder of the whiskey and passed the empty glass to Joseph. 

“La’an,” she called out firmly as she rose from the couch. 

When a pyjama clad La’an darted back to her bed at the warning Una felt herself caught between the tug of a forgiving smile and frustrated tears. Whichever won out it was sure to be another long night. 

Chapter Text

La’an stood up, wobbling slightly as the soft cushions of the couch gave way under her socked feet, and stretched one arm out to touch the dark wall paneling beneath the rim of the window.

“La’an.”

The warning came from Una, who was sat at the dining table with Captain Pike. Una’s back was turned to the couch so La’an had no idea how she could have known La’an was standing up on the furniture. But the captain was looking definitely looking right at her and La’an froze in place for a moment, trying to judge what his opinion of her misusing his couch would be. His blue eyes were sparkling and he was smiling. At least a little bit. He probably didn’t want Una to notice. 

It was Captain Pike’s quarters, La’an thought, so maybe she’d be fine as long as Una didn’t turn around. She counted to ten slowly in her head and then lifted a knee so that she could straddle the back of the couch. 

“Do not make me come over there.” 

Una didn’t shout but La’an recognised the flat, clear tone of her voice. It meant Una was very serious and La’an really had to pay attention to what she was being told. La’an slid back down to the seat cushion with a thud.

“I just wanted to see it.”

La’an wasn’t sure if she’d meant to grumble the words to herself or say them loud enough for Una to hear, but her mouth had gone with loud.

The it she wanted to see was the ion storm Enterprise had been sent to study. When La’an had had to sit in the ready room waiting for the senior staff meeting to end she hadn’t been paying any attention to the discussion about which department was sending what probes or using what sensors. She could barely hear them talking anyway when she had earbuds in, playing sound from the cartoon she’d been watching on her padd. At the end of the meeting though she’d caught sight of the anomaly on the wall monitor, all bright-angry colours churning and swirling. When La’an didn’t immediately run to follow Una from the room, too captivated by the display, Spock had shown her all of the other images of the storm Enterprise had already taken. 

But pictures and videos weren’t as good as seeing the real thing. 

La’an glanced over her shoulder and above the back of the couch to the curving view of space outside the high windows. There was more emptiness than stars out there. A sea of deep, dark blue instead of real black but no other colours.

“La’an, the storm is on the other side of the ship,” Captain Pike told her. “You’re not going to see it by hanging off the couch.”

Una and the captain were still working but instead of staying in the ready room, with La’an getting bored and restless, they’d decided to come back to Captain Pike’s quarters. Now they sat opposite each other at the end of the curved table, sharing a single data padd. The captain would stare at the padd for a bit, tapping notes onto the screen, then pass it over to Una; who’d add notes of her own or circle something on the display with a finger before passing it back again. Back and forth. Over and over. 

La’an didn’t mind them doing boring stuff, so long as she didn’t have to do it too. She had plenty of things that she could do in Captain Pike’s quarters, La’an just hadn’t decided on one. Two of her favourite books lived on the desk in the captain’s bedroom, but those were better when he read them to her. She had a whole new holo-game from Erica that she hadn’t even started yet, but she’d only have to stop playing at a good bit when it was time for dinner. Runa was next to her on the couch and La’an could usually imagine hundreds of adventures for the two of them to go on without even leaving the captain’s quarters, but all she could think about right now was the ion storm. 

“Can we go to the other side of the ship to see it?” 

If La’an asked nicely enough Captain Pike would usually let her have whatever she wanted. Annoyingly it was Una who answered, “Pelia said she would show you tomorrow. The storm isn’t going anywhere.”

Commander Pelia hadn’t just said; she’d made a Lanthanite promise. Pelia told La’an that Lanthanite promises were good for hundreds of years, but she wouldn’t make La’an wait that long. Pelia would take La’an to the shuttle bay, put up a force field and open the bay doors so that La’an would get to see the whole angry purple storm twisting around in space like ball lightning in a planet’s night sky. Una had made a small growly sound in the back of her throat when Pelia mentioned force fields and open space, but she hadn’t said no. 

None of that would happen until tomorrow though. And not even tomorrow morning, because Pelia had to work on the stupid plasma conduits first. Tomorrow afternoon was ages away and La’an was just supposed to wait for it. Because she wasn’t allowed to do anything on her own anymore. Which was a stupid rule.

“I know the way to the shuttle bay,” La’an tried, wriggling forward to drop off the couch. “I can go now, and you can finish work.” 

That was when Una turned around. 

“Not a chance.”

One of La’an’s toes was touching the deck. 

“I won’t get lost. I’ll go straight there.” 

“You,” Una even pointed a finger toward her, in case La’an wasn’t sure who Una was talking about, “Are going to stay right there until Chris and I are finished. Then we’ll have dinner. Tomorrow you can see the storm.”

La’an didn’t want to sit. And she didn’t want to wait. She wanted to go to the shuttle bay and see the ion storm. 

La’an waited for the perfect moment, when the captain turned the padd toward Una again and they were both focused on the screen, then launched herself off the couch and raced across the cabin. The doors were slower to open than La’an expected but luckily when she reached them the gap between was just big enough for her to slip through. 

La’an’s socks slid on the polished deck, sending her clear across the corridor and into the bulkhead. She scrabbled for a moment to get her feet back under her before taking off running again around the curving hallway toward the turbolift. When she skidded to a stop in front of the ‘lift doors they didn’t react at all to her presence. La’an bit down on her bottom lip thinking, then jumped straight up and threw her arms above her head, hoping that the sensor was just a little higher than she was. But the doors refused to open. 

As La’an was trying to figure out what to try next she heard Una call her name. Thinking would have to wait; the only choice La’an had if she didn’t want to get dragged back to the captain’s quarters was to take off running again. 

La’an had always been fast. For a long time it had been what kept her safe, then it had helped her beat a bunch of records at the Academy, but La’an felt so much faster now. She wasn’t stupid though; she knew that Una was faster and that she’d catch up, and catch La’an, eventually, so as soon as she saw an open hatch ahead of her La’an darted for it and scrabbled up the ladder into the service crawlway. Which was fine, because La’an knew every bit of the ship and she’d be able to find her own way to shuttle bay, even if she had to climb most of the way there. 

But as soon as she reached the top of the first ladder and took a moment to look around La’an realised the space felt all wrong. No longer sure she knew exactly where she was, La’an assessed her options. She could keep climbing, or take either of the tunnels that led off from the main shaft. Left, or right, or up? She’d have to choose, and she’d have to do it quick because La’an could hear noises, footfalls and voices, getting closer to the open hatch below.

La’an dove left, moving so fast that she clipped her head on the bulkhead, and found herself in a smaller crawlway than the main one. Even La'an had to crouch over to move through it quickly. After scrabbling forwards a little ways she reached a dead end of smooth flat wall panels plastered with different coloured signs; ODN, Water Pipes, Power Conduits. 

 La’an bit down on her lip again, hard this time, and told herself not to cry. It wouldn’t make anything better.

Turning back the way she’d come La’an almost launched herself right into Captain Pike, who’d reached the top of the ladder. Reacting on instinct alone she darted back into the tighter space, narrowly avoiding his hand snagging her shirt. 

“La’an. La’an?” 

She didn’t reply. 

“You’re not in trouble kid, come on out.” 

Staying silent, La’an crouched in the dark and thought she heard the captain move back down the ladder. She didn’t want to risk checking though, and falling within the captain’s reach again. After a few moments his and Una’s voices travelled up the shaft, mixing with the sound of La’an’s own panting breaths bouncing around the too close walls. 

After what felt like a really long time the voices got louder. Not shouting loud, just more people loud. Someone was talking to Una and Captain Pike, La’an thought. Then she heard boots hitting the rungs of the ladder below. These footsteps weren’t as heavy as the captain’s and just for a second La’an wondered if Una was coming to drag her out. La’an was already pretty convinced it wasn’t by the time white-blond hair rose above the top rung of the ladder and then Christine Chapel’s head and shoulders were framed at the end of the passageway. 

In a sudden rush La’an found herself mad at her friend. Hot-shouting-headache-mad. She didn’t really understand why but she definitely was. Just like she was mad at Captain Pike and Una. La’an just wished all of them would leave her alone and let her do what she wanted. If they’d done that then La’an could have gone to the shuttle bay and seen the storm. She wouldn’t be stuck in a stupid maintenance crawlway feeling too warm and sticky. Aching from being all scrunched up, with her head hurting from when she’d hit the bulkhead and red imprints of the metal mesh decking pressed into her palms.

Christine turned to look at La’an, leaning her shoulder against the top rung of the ladder. 

“Hey beautiful girl.”

La’an’s angry feeling melted away instantly. 

She didn’t want to be in here any more. She didn’t even want to see the ion storm. 

She wanted Runa. 

And she wanted to watch the captain make dinner, then curl up on Una’s lap for a story while they shared a bowl of strawberries for dessert.

“Is Una mad at me?” La'an sniffed.

“I wouldn’t say mad. But she’s definitely not happy about chasing you through the ship.” Christine’s icy blue eyes flickered around the crawlway. “Literally.”

La’an rocked back on her heels and wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn’t even look at Christine without her stomach starting to hurt.

“Time to come out and face the music.” La’an lifted her head but didn’t move. Christine’s mouth was set in a firm line. When La’an still didn’t respond Christine said a bit firmer, “Let’s go.”

La’an crept out of the passage on all fours, pushing herself from the decking into Christine’s arms. La’an wrapped her own arms around Christine’s neck and held on tight as Christine slowly descended the ladder, one hand on La’an’s back pressing her close and the other moving down the rungs with each step she took.

When Christine’s boots touched the ground she bent over to drop La’an onto the deck. When the nurse straightened back up La’an pressed against her legs, burying her face in the white jumpsuit. There was no more hiding though. Christine’s hands landed on her shoulders and forced her to turn around to face Una and Captain Pike. 

Una was frowning, hard, tight lines streaking across her forehead. Her eyes were stormy and her lips were pressed tight together. Una took a slow, deep breath before asking La’an, “Anything you want to say?”

If Una wanted to be big and mean then La’an could be bigger and meaner. She crossed her arms tight over her chest and tilted her head back, lifting her chin up. 

“No.”

“Then we’re going back to our quarters and you can go to bed. We’ll talk about what happened tomorrow.”

“NO.” 

La’an’s arms dropped to her sides and she clenched her fists. Christine’s hands were still on her shoulders but La’an didn’t want them there anymore. She jerked forwards and Christine let her go. It felt to La’an like a big crackling force field had gone up around her, pushing everyone away.

Una didn’t seem to notice or care. “Yes, La’an. Unless you want to apologise.”

“No. It’s not fair,” La’an shouted. She kicked back at the wall like a bad tempered horse before she could stop to think about it, then her eyes flicked up nervously to Captain Pike. He looked upset. Probably because she’d kicked his ship. Maybe because of the shouting too. 

“How about I take La’an back to my quarters for the night?” Christine offered.

“She doesn’t need a reward,” Una growled at the nurse. 

“No.” Christine stayed calm, her words cool and steady. “But I’m sure you could do with a quiet night. And a little time apart might be good for both of you.”

La’an’s imagined crackling forcefield sputtered out as an uneasy feeling writhed in her belly. She’d made everyone around her angry. She closed her eyes but it wasn’t enough to block out everyone crowded around and towering over her. La’an scrunched her eyes tighter and began to hum, feeling the sound fill her head and shake down through the rest of her body.

When a hand fell onto her shoulder La’an opened her eyes. The buzzing feeling she felt in her skin slipped from her like water when she realised the adults around her were calmer and quieter. She tilted her head back to glance up at Christine. 

The nurse smiled down at La’an as if she hadn’t done anything bad at all. “Looks like we’re going to have a sleepover.”

La’an couldn’t remember any sleepovers from when she’d been little the first time round. She wasn’t sure if she’d had them or not before the Gorn, but after… well Una coming to visit her foster homes during shore leave didn’t count. When the doors to Christine’s quarters closed behind them La’an just stopped at the edge of the room, shuffling from foot to foot, unsure what was supposed to happen next.

Christine’s quarters were full of colour- rainbow splashes across the bedding, the pictures on the walls, and all of the objects on the shelves. And there were way more things on the shelves than La’an had in her room. More even than Captain Pike had in his ready room. The cabin was kind of messy too. If Una came in here she’d probably tell Christine to tidy up the books and padds scattered all over the desk. She’d definitely tell her to pick up the clothes that were lying on the floor. 

La’an voiced the first question that popped into her head, “When do I have to go to bed?”

Christine had paused a few steps ahead of La’an when she’d topped following the nurse further into the cabin. Using her most serious voice Christine told her, “First rule of sleepovers, there’s no actual sleeping.”

Christine broke into a grin and La’an couldn’t help but copy her as she was tugged over to the couch. La’an became almost dizzy with excitement as Christine told her that they would get a bunch of different snacks from the matter synthesiser instead of a real dinner, then build a nest of pillows and blankets, and watch one of the cartoons she’d seen Joseph and La’an watching together in sick bay. 

By the time Christine was done describing her plan for their evening La’an had her head in the woman’s lap, gazing up at her as Christine’s fingers played with the fluffy strands of hair that had escaped La’an’s braids. When the door alert chimed and Christine got up to answer it La’an groaned and snuggled back into the mountain of soft cushions on the couch. There were so many that La’an was wondering if maybe they could make an outpost with them. 

The door opened on Una holding a black kit bag. She came into the cabin and placed the bag down on the closest chair, which was a little too far from the small round table to be considered tidied away. Una unzipped the bag, listing off for Christine the items she’d brought and outlining what La’an’s bedtime routine should be. La’an was ready to argue, to tell Una that there was no sleeping at sleepovers, but then she noticed Runa tucked just inside the bag, packed on top of a folded pair of pyjamas.

La’an rolled off the couch and crept over to the table, stopping just short of the chair that the bag was on. Maybe Una was still upset and angry with her for running away. Maybe Una would bring all of La’an things  over and La’an have to live with Christine now instead. 

There was a nudge at the small of La’an’s back. Christine was standing behind her, giving her a little push toward Una. 

La’an threw her arms around Una’s legs and held onto her tight. When she felt Una’s hands rest on the top of her head La’an chanced a peek up and was relieved to see Una's eyes and mouth were soft again, not mad anymore. Una’s hands slid down to cup La’an’s cheeks, holding her face in her warm palms, then she bent down and kissed La’an’s forehead. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Una almost whispered to her.

Now La’an wasn’t sure she wanted to let Una go. But she didn’t know how she could say that so instead she forced herself to choke out, “Okay.”

Una’s eye’s narrowed a little as she studied La’an. “Think you can be good for Christine?”

“Yes Chief.” 

La’an emphasised her answer with a little nod. She could be good for Una too. She really did try. She wanted to promise that she’d try harder but her throat felt too thick to say it.

Maybe Una could read her thoughts, because she let out a big sigh then let go of La’an’s face. Her hands dropped down to take hold of La’an’s wrists, gently unwrapping La’an’s arms from around her legs so that she could step back and out of their hug. Una kept hold of them as she knelt down in front of La’an. 

“Tomorrow we are going to talk about what happened.” La’an’s heartbeat sped up a little bit with that promise. “But I want you to know I’m not angry with you.” 

La’an swallowed and found herself nodding again. 

“If you need me, you tell Christine. Okay?”

La’an tried to say okay back with a voice that was big and confident, but the word barely made it past her lips. 

La’an thought that maybe now she really would cry, only Christine swept her up from the deck, her arms locking around La’an’s middle and La’an couldn’t help but squeal at the sudden giddy rush to her head as Christine swung her up into the air.

Instead of putting La’an back down Christine settled her on her hip. “We’re gonna be just fine, right La’an?” Christine’s fingers gave a not quite ticklish squeeze just below La’an’s ribs and her nose scrunched up with a smile. “We’ve got girls night all planned.”

Blankets, Runa, and too much sugar. It was a good plan.

La’an didn’t feel like crying anymore but she did let her head drop onto Christine’s shoulder.

Una reached into the duffel bag, pulled out Runa and tucked her into La’an’s arms. “Then I’ll leave the three of you to it.” 

Chapter Text

La’an’s toppled queen was the final chess piece Spock returned to its starting position on the tri-dimensional board. Months ago La’an had begged him to teach her the game and she’d turned out to be, as with most subjects, a quick study. In Spock’s estimation La’an would rank well if she ever chose to compete against her peers, but the girl had shown little interest in playing against anyone other than him. And after two games this evening La’an’s interest in even that had waned. 

When the captain reminded Spock of his babysitting duty over breakfast that morning La’an had attempted to persuade her mother and father that she no longer required supervision. The seven year old presented some well reasoned, and clearly pre-prepared, arguments in her favour but neither of her parents had been convinced and so while Number One and Captain Pike attended a function on the icy planet of Saliphus below, Spock had been left in charge of both their ship and their child in orbit.

Spock’s name had initially been top of the captain’s list of officers to make up Enterprise’s delegation, until Una suggested that Uhura’s linguistic skills would likely be necessary given the glitches the universal translator had been having with Salien phrasing. Whilst clearly the logical decision, Spock noted the way Number One touched his shoulder on her way out of the ready room following the meeting; a barely perceptible flex of her fingers intended to be sympathetic and reassuring. Since La’an’s de-aging Enterprise’s first officer had become far less reserved with the physical gestures of support that she bestowed upon certain members of the crew. 

Number One had surely observed over their years serving together that Spock had never been especially comfortable attending large formal occasions; the kind which reminded Spock far too much of the social gatherings Sarek would host during his childhood. Sarek’s colleagues and associates weren’t known for their easy and engaging demeanours, and as a child Spock had been relieved to have Michael to keep company with. Together they would find a quiet, unobserved corner of their overcrowded home to hide, surfacing only to ensure their presence was noted in the regular scans Sarek would make of a room, or to snatch food from the buffet table. As he’d grown older, and the rift between himself and his sister had grown too, Spock orbited closer to his mother at such obligatory functions. And once he’d been assigned as a new ensign on board the Federation’s flagship he’d found himself pulled to Una’s side more often than not on such occasions.

La’an hadn’t enjoyed those types of official gatherings either when she’d been older, as Spock discovered mere days after her joining Enterprise’s crew when the ship had been assigned as Starfleet’s representative at an extravagant three day gala on Rion Four. With no security risks involved necessitating the chief of security, or functions specific to a science officer, the captain had breezily suggested that only one of them needed to attend.

The moment the ready room doors closed behind Captain Pike’s back at the end of the senior staff meeting, La’an had snatched up one of the artefacts from his desk, specifically an ancient Caitian coin a fellow captain had gifted upon theirs. In several meetings Spock had watched the captain roll the coin across his knuckles while intensely focused on his desk monitor or padd, but that seemed unlikely to be the purpose La’an intended to use it for.

“Flip you for it,” she’d said.

As he’d stared back at her blankly La’an held the coin up between the two of them. Like coinage from most cultures one of the sides depicted a state or nation’s leader and from this particular coin the crowned and jewel-beaded face of a Caitian Empress long dead stared back at him. 

“Heads I go.” La’an spoke slowly, as if explaining to a child, and then spun the coin between her fingers to show him the reverse; an intricately detailed image of two Caitians fighting each other with claws and swords. Spock assumed that the impressive Caitian looming above the other was meant to be the Empress pictured on the ‘head’ side of the coin. “Tails, you do.” 

La’an had thrown the coin in the air, and then as gravity pulled it back down she caught it on the back of her left hand, slamming her right palm on top before the coin could fall. La’an then lifted her hand, revealing the Caitian Empress’ stoic face. 

La’an’s reaction had been less stoic. 

In fact she’d appeared greatly dissatisfied with the result. 

When she narrowed her eyes at him as though he bared some part of the blame Spock told her, “Need I remind you Lieutenant that this was your idea.”

Conversely La’an’s grumbling on this occasion ensued from being told directly that she wouldn’t be allowed to attend the planet-side party. Spock suspected her disappointment had less to do with being excluded from the party, and more to do with missing out on something that her parents were doing. Either way Spock deduced that distraction had been the order of the day. 

With no lessons scheduled Spock took La’an to the gym after they’d seen her parents off in the transporter room. She’d lasted through exactly seventeen and a half minutes of Spock’s guided meditation and stretching exercises before making a break for the climbing wall, barely standing still long enough once she got to it’s base for Ensign Protschka to get the safety harness around her. In fact Protschka had had to give a sharp tug on the braided climbing rope to bring La’an back from the lowest holds of the wall so that the harness straps could be adjusted for a tighter fit before letting the girl go.

In the late afternoon, once Spock had finally convinced La’an to come down from the highest perch of the wall, almost the full height of Enterprise’s shuttle bay, they’d met with Nurse Chapel in the busy port galley for an early dinner. After that the pair returned to Spock’s quarters to play chess. 

Spock remembered to follow Una’s explicit instructions that he make allowances for La’an’s skill level when they played, which had resulted in two close-run matches that Spock eventually won. Losing was an important component of learning Spock had reasoned, and Una’s directive hadn’t specified allowing La’an to beat him. 

Spock glanced across the room to the couch where La’an was curled up amongst the corner cushions, a padd resting on her knees. He’d succeeded only twice in tempting La’an away from the seemingly endless stream of flight simulators Lieutenant Ortegas plied her with in favour of logic puzzles on her padd. La’an wasn’t playing a hologame right now, but she did not have the tell-tale frown of concentration which he associated with the puzzles; bottom lip caught between her teeth and focused intently on her screen. La’an’s gaze darted to different points on the screen as flashes of vivid light drove across her features and her fingers occasionally tapped against or swept across the padd, leaving Spock to conclude that she was playing an interactive story of some kind. 

Spock would have preferred a more educational form of entertainment but he hadn’t yet been able to convince La’an that education could be an enjoyable and rewarding part of her leisure time. La’an already complained that she had too much school. And in fairness her academic schedule had changed quite drastically in just a short period of time. Where she’d previously been completing her educational modules under the supervision of various crew members, La’an now also attended lessons via subspace, participating in virtual classrooms made up of Federation children whose starships, space stations or planets happened to share whichever time zone Enterprise found herself in.

Having had a direct hand in structuring La’an’s education over the past two years Spock was interested to know all about her new lessons. La’an, unsurprisingly, hadn’t been interested in sharing any of the details. Spock picked up his own padd from a side table and navigated to the shared files containing La’an’s scheduled lessons for the next five days. The biology module looked intriguing, but Christine Chapel would no doubt be La’an’s first choice of tutor there. Spock could certainly help with geometry, but the details of the one music assignment intrigued him far more, asking the students to compose a simple melody for any instrument. As Spock considered if a composition for the Vulcan lute might be too complicated for a seven year old, he noticed a flagged file at the bottom of the list and tapped the file to open it and immediately a notification flashed across the screen- Assignment Overdue.

“La’an, this morning you said you had no school work to complete.”

“I don’t.”

Like most humans, especially young ones, La’an was a terrible liar. Spock glanced up at her. La’an’s back had stiffened against the cushions and she'd dropped her head, refusing to look in his direction. The slight reddening of her face darkened the string of freckles arching across the bridge of her nose. 

“That is not true.” Spock held up the padd even though La’an wouldn’t be able to read the incriminating evidence it showed from across the room even if she had been looking up. "You had an assignment that was due today.”

“It’s stupid. I don’t want to do it”

Christopher Pike would have sighed at that. What Spock told La’an was far more likely to have come from Una Chin-Riley, “That is not how school works.”

Glancing down at the padd again Spock read the assignment outline. Each student was to produce a family tree and Spock followed the linked folder to a template provided by La’an’s teacher. The visual structure was a literal tree, an artistic representation of one at least. Across the wide trunk ‘La’an Chin-Riley’ appeared as though etched into soft bark. Among the flourishes of stretching branches were empty text boxes for the names of parents or guardians, siblings, older and younger relations of all kinds. With a couple experimental taps Spock found that the boxes were movable into any number of configurations, spreading out or grouping together to represent a variety of families.

And La’an certainly had a family which would require a unique arrangement.

Spock moved across the cabin to sit down beside La’an. The padd she’d been using had slipped into her lap when she’d pulled her knees closer to her chest and the vivid colours of the forgotten story were flashing against her shirt. Even though she still refused to look at him, Spock kept his own padd on his lap where La’an would be able to see from the corner of her vision as he entered additional names close to hers on the lowest branches. On one side of the tree, amongst green spring foliage, he marked La’an’s parents and brother, her biological family. On the other side he manipulated the settings to generate contrasting gold autumn leaves, an artistic flair a teacher night appreciate, before adding Chris and Una’s names.  

Spock had always felt different as a child, forever distanced from his peers simply for having a human mother and sister. There had been many occasions when he’d wanted nothing more than to have a boring Vulcan family just like everyone else, and he understood La’an’s reluctance to complete the assignment, to mark herself out as different from the rest of her class. 

“There are many kinds of families in the Federation, La’an. None will be exactly the same.”

With a huff of breath La’an leant over and swiped her hand across the screen, obliterating one side of the tree. Spock didn’t react. Instead of pushing her to explain herself he gave La’an a moment to process the impulsive gesture. 

Eventually La’an whispered, “I don’t want to put my mum and dad and Manu on there.”

Despite the admission La’an’s palm remained hovering over the screen and Spock wondered if she wished she could undo the action. 

Curling her fingers up into a tight fist La’an asked, “Does that make me a bad person?”

“You do not have to share everything about yourself with anyone, not even your teachers or friends. Some people’s memories can be just for you.” Spock waited until La’an hesitantly lifted her head, to be sure her eyes locked onto his and she was ready to listen to his words before continuing. “It doesn’t mean they are of any less importance to us.”

Spock was aware of many cultures across the Federation, and outside of it, that believed when someone’s name was no longer spoken that person was forgotten to the universe. But Spock knew, beyond reason or science, that so long as he kept Michael in his thoughts she still burned as bright as any star. He was certain it was the same for La’an’s brother and her birth parents, just the way it had been for Michael’s parents once she’d come to be a part of his family. Names did not have to be spoken to feel their weight in a person’s heart or katra.

On the padd Spock tugged the boxes with Chris and Una’s names closer to La’an’s at heart of the damaged tree and the trunk and branches reshaped themselves in seconds, a healing process that would have taken decades in nature. To finish Spock added a third text box to the admittedly small family. 

“You will need to ask the Captain and Number One about their own parents and grandparents in the morning, but I am confident you can have the assignment finished before your next class.” 

Spock passed the padd over to La’an and watched her face carefully as she studied his contribution. Christopher Pike and Una Chin-Riley were still titled as La’an’s parents, only now Spock’s own name appeared beneath theirs too. An elder brother honouring two lost siblings. 

Chapter Text

La’an tried not to squirm in her chair. Somehow when they were pulled in front of the desk instead of circling the conference table the seat cushions felt rock hard under her, the backrest unyielding, and the metal arms cold and sharp. The look Dad was giving her across the desk didn’t help either. No, not her dad. This was full, disappointed, Captain Pike mode.

“So. Una has asked me to handle this one.”

It was usually a first officer’s job to discipline a star ship’s crew. Punishment-wise La’an knew she should be glad it was her dad having this ‘chat’ with her, the end result would probably be a lot less painful and not so drawn out as anything Number One could come up with. But if Mum had passed the job over to Dad that meant she was super mad at La’an.

“Want to say anything in your defence?”

A jumble of possible excuses ricochetted around La’an’s brain but before she could pick one that might work Joseph beat her to it. 

“It was a scientific experiment, for purely educational purposes.” 

Joseph was sat right beside La’an. He’d always told her that if they got in trouble together then they would face the consequences together. When she was seven La’an had wanted glittery foam bubbles in her bath. Long story short, neither of them were great at chemistry and Joseph had joined her every night for a week  of washing the dishes the old fashioned way; including all of the pots and bowls and pans that Dad used for cooking. Bubbles hadn’t been as enjoyable after that. 

This time their experimentation had set off an environmental system alert. Now that she thought about it, La’an was sure that at one time, before she’d de-aged, she would have known how to work around that computer response, but she hadn’t even thought about it before they’d decided to do this particular stupid thing.

La’an had been doing her physics homework in Joseph’s office. She was way past watching cartoons while sat on Joseph’s lap but the office was still one of her favourite places on the ship. When she’d lost interest in the assignment Joseph had tried to coax her back to it by telling her all about Earth’s early space age experiments to study the effects of gravity on the biology of plants and animals, and especially on people. 

And it had worked. La’an had been a hell of a lot more interested in gravity after they’d sealed off the office and adjusted the localised environmental controls and La’an was spinning in a tight ball through the air, with only Joseph stopping her from literally bouncing off the walls. 

Only then Mum had come busting into Joseph’s office, which had triggered a system reset and sent La’an tumbling to the floor. Holding back laughter Christine had had to patch up Joseph (who’d fallen harder than La’an, what with him being a lot bigger than she was) while First Officer Commander Chin-Riley fumed silently over them. 

“Yeah,” La’an chimed in, giving her most winning smile in the hopes that that too might help their case, “It was for science.” 

Chapter Text

The bathtub Una sank into was so luxuriously long and deep that even with her shoulders beneath the foamy bubbles her toes would only touch the end if she stretched. Which she had no intention of doing. In fact, she planned on using as few of her muscles as possible for the next hour. Maybe two. And with that in mind Una sent a silent thank you out into the universe to the beautiful nerd who’d come up with the design for a bathtub that could keep the water, and therefore the bath’s occupant, at a constant temperature. Una supposed she should thank Chris too, for installing one in his home. 

Chris was the one to thank for the entire getaway in fact, insisting on a family vacation to Bear Creek as soon as they’d completed the relief mission to Namai Four. Well, the family minus their older ‘kids’ who’d been left back on Enterprise with Spock in charge. 

While Chris had gently bombarded Spock with debriefs and encouraging pep talks in the lead up to their departure, Una offloaded her duties onto Commander Jackson in a hurried exchange in the transporter room. To prepare for the luxurious two weeks without duty rosters and landing party reports that Chris had promised her, Una worked literally right up to the micro-second the transporter took hold of her. The relieved sigh Jackson gave as she sagged against the control console, clutching the padd Una had given her  to her chest, did not go unnoticed.

La’an had been given promises of her own from Chris- lessons in both how to ride horses and how to make the perfect snowball. Two essential life skills apparently. Then during the shuttle ride between Starbase One and Earth Chris had gotten her entirely too excited over the marshmallows they’d be toasting that night. Setting the scene of a roaring fire pit and the three of them all bundled up in scarves and knitted sweaters and winter hats that could be pulled down over their ears. A very literal world away from the experience of making traditional North American s'mores over the mostly ornamental fireplace hanging in his perfectly temperature-controlled quarters on Enterprise. 

Even more exciting to La’an than the horse riding or the marshmallow and chocolate was getting to spend time with her grandmother in person, rather than via subspace calls. Grandma’s arrival was still a few days away though so they’d spent their first full day planet side out riding; taking the horses that Chris’ far too nice neighbours cared for when he wasn’t home on a long waited for trek. 

During the slow meander back from the stables afterwards, with La’an bounding through the snow ahead of them, Chris teased Una that her aching muscles were down to being out in the stars for too long. While she couldn’t dispute that fact Una noticed that Chris, who hadn’t been on horseback in quite some time either, didn’t seem to be showing any sign of the adverse effects of a saddle that she was experiencing. 

Now that she thought about it, Una realised Chris hadn’t been back in Montana since Robert April dragged him out of his self-imposed isolation after the loss of Discovery; specifically for the mission to rescue Una and her USS Archer crew from Kiley 279. The mission that had come with a newly transferred Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh as his temporary Number One. 

If only Una had been able to tell Chris back then a different prophecy to the one that had almost made him give up on the stars for good. To tell him that just four years in his future he’d be visiting home again, only this time with a seven-year-old La’an hanging off his arm calling him daddy. She suspected that the Christopher Pike of four years ago would have been even less ready to believe that scenario than some Klingon monk’s grim vision of his future. 

But Una wanted to banish all thoughts of that particular future from her mind. She and Chris had agreed to live in the present, and right now her present was a relaxing hot bath. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of cedar and citrus in the rising steam, and focused on her skin tingling in the prickly heat of the water and the deep throbbing in her hips and lower back easing away.

The small bathroom’s interior walls were exposed grey stone, softened by rich-caramel floorboards and woodwork trims. Within arm’s reach of the bathtub, if Una cared to lift her arm from the water, was a single paned window taking up almost the entirety of the exterior wall span. Una rolled her head on the freshly laundered towel she’d folded over the end of the tub and opened her eyes to a perfectly framed view of snow, mountains and sky. By the time they’d circled the horses back toward home the sun was dipping below the mountains, leaving blazing streaks of orange and pink across the darkening sky. Now in the glittering dark of evening the crisp white snow and sharp grey mountains had become a single shadow beneath the pinpricks of stars hanging in a swath of black.

The longer Una gazed out into the depths, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark, the more stars appeared before her, marking trails to the hundreds of worlds they’d already visited and the countless number they’d yet to see. There’d been a time in Una’s life when every moment she’d been away from those stars had physically hurt. Now she knew they weren’t going anywhere without her.

A light rap of knuckles against the door pulled her attention away from the dark tableau outside.

For quite some time now Una had given up on any concept of personal space. What was once hers had become hers and La’an’s, and alone time was no exception. If it were La’an at the door there wouldn’t be any knocking- her kid would have come barreling right on in without even the hint of a warning. That left only one possibility for who was on the other side, asking for permission to enter her small sanctuary.

Una was sure that if she said nothing Chris would step away and leave her be. He’d been looking forward to spending evenings warming cocoa in a copper pan on the stove then reading to La’an while they both snuggled under a horse blanket on the couch in the den. But La’an was already tucked up in bed, worn out after a morning of intensive riding instruction from her dad then a full afternoon out on the creek trail. He’d mentioned a list of repairs that needed to be made around the house too, loose floorboards and busted door hinges that would probably keep him busy for a month, but it was far too late in the evening now to hope he’d go find a hammer, and Una suspected what Chris was looking for was company rather than for something to keep his hands busy.

She mustered a deep hum of assent and hoped he’d work out the rest. 

In the snowy quiet that had fallen over the house he easily heard her and there was a soft click of the handle before the door opened a fraction. Chris slipped in through the smallest gap possible, quickly nudging the door closed behind him, but even so Una was sure she felt a chill creep in with him and sunk lower into the water to escape it. The movement caused little waves to lap at the loose strands of hair which she hadn’t managed to pull up into the messy bun on top of her head, and the bubblebath foam crackled loudly beside her ears. 

“Thought you might appreciate this,” Chris offered, holding out a wine glass somewhat awkwardly as he tried not to look directly at her. 

With a wicked grin Una drew herself up out of the water and reached out to take the glass from him. 

A wave of merlot sloshed up the bowl of the glass as Chris’ eyes caught more than he’d anticipated and for a moment Una worried that her drink might end up on the floorboards. A heavy price to pay if it did, just for teasing him. But the wave settled after she took hold of the stem and she sunk back satisfied below the bubbles. 

“Chris, we’ve seen each other naked before,” She reminded him before taking a sip of the wine. Hints of tart cherry and smokey tobacco danced across her tongue. He really did know how to pick the good stuff. 

Rather than answering, Chris shook his head wryly and turned his back to her. Una had thrown a large towel over the warming rack but a couple smaller ones were still folded and stacked on the wooden stool at the foot of the tub. Chris picked the stack up and set it on the floor before taking the seat for himself. As soon as he was settled he made a deliberate effort to look at her, which was cute. His cheeks were pinker than the arm Una had draped along the edge of the tub and his eyes remained strictly above the waterline. Which was even cuter.

A cautious smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “This has a very different ambiance to a decontamination chamber.”

That was true. But… “You’re the one responsible for the ambience,” she reminded him.

Not long after dinner Una settled La’an into bed and Chris had gone out to do a final check on the horses for the night. She’d heard him come back inside a short time later; the distinct thump of the back door closing, heavy boots being kicked off and hitting the floorboards, the padding of socked feet through the kitchen below. After a couple more pages Una heard his footsteps on the stairs, followed by some puttering about down the hall. In shorter time than usual, unsurprisingly given that La’an had barely kept her head up and eyes open as they ate, Una had kissed a sleeping La’an goodnight and quietly pulled the bedroom door closed behind her. She’d found Chris waiting at the other end of the landing looking simultaneously guilty and proud of himself. Without a word he beckoned her over.

As she reached him Chris pressed his palm to the bathroom door and pushed it open. The overhead lights were off but Una could see the steam rising from the polished granite shell of the bath in the flickering flames of a half dozen tealights scattered across the floating shelves along one wall, and another handful grouped at the corner of the solid oak pedestal the tub sat on.

Now Una was sunk deep in the warm water, watching the reflections of candle flames dancing in Chris’ pale blue eyes. 

The smile he’d been resisting bloomed on his lips. “I figured you needed it after today.”

The horse he’d chosen for her to ride, Aurora, had been an absolute delight. The saddle, not so much. Una was never going to complain about how uncomfortable it was to go crawling through maintenance tubes ever again. She had no idea how simply sitting could hurt more, but it did.

“Oh I definitely needed it,” Una acknowledged.

“And the wine.”

Una raised the glass just a touch in salute to him and then brought it to her lips for another sip before admitting, “That too.” 

Chris relaxed back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. The stool creaked a little with the movement but then settled into silence. The only sounds in the room were the two of them breathing, the bath water lapping gently, and the crackle of candle wicks burning down ever so slowly. They’d always been comfortable with each other’s silences, but it felt like more than a lifetime ago that the two of them had begun spending time together like this. Well, not exactly like this. There hadn’t been a bathtub involved in all the late nights they’d spent together at the end of their shifts serving under Captain April. The nights when they’d been too exhausted to even talk about their day and would just pass a single bottle of whatever drink they’d been able to liberate from the galley between them. 

Moments like those had fallen a little by the wayside once Chris made captain and Una became his Number One. There’d been plenty of time spent together for sure, but too much of it had been filled up with the busy work of their duties. There wasn’t much time for themselves, or each other, once they both had a crew to care for. 

Una realised now how much that had changed in the past couple of years. Somehow raising La’an together had actually given them back more time for each other, even if some of that time had been steeped in bone-deep exhaustion. 

The shared silences seemed different now though. Charged with something indefinable. 

As if he could read her meandering thoughts Chris asked, “Anything else you need?”

A very long time ago Una had learned that being a good first officer meant knowing your captain’s mind so well that they never needed to waste time trying to find the right words. It was the same with being a good friend she’d concluded. And a good co-parent. A good… whatever else they were. Or were going to be.

Una didn’t even try to restrain her playful smile. “I’m sure I could come up with a few things.”

She reached across herself, passing the wine glass from her left hand to the right, then came up out of the water again. She leant over the side of the bathtub, setting the glass down carefully on the floor and exposing the taught muscles of her back to Chris. She heard him gulp but by the time she’d settled back into the warmth of the bath he’d composed himself. 

It had always been fun to play with Chris. Making him blush was just difficult enough to be a rewarding challenge and never an impossible one. But this didn’t feel like playing.

In response, or maybe retaliation, Chris moved as if to stand but instead lowered himself to his knees beside the tub. Una heard the dull clink of the wine glass base against the soft wood as he moved it further away from where he knelt. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he leant into the steam swirling between them, then suddenly stopped short. 

The expectation of her meeting him halfway was clear. And she did.

The warmth and the wine that had settled low in Una’s belly unfurled with a roar as their lips touched. Pressing forward, Una’s belly brushed against Chris’ knuckles, which were raised by his vice like grip on the lip of the bath. His other hand reached up to cradle her head, fingers tenderly curling behind her ear and entwining with damp strands of her dark hair. 

When they parted to breathe Una's eyes flicked down to his lips. He hadn’t tasted like the wine so Una figured he’d gotten his courage from some other bottle. She watched his mouth open slightly then close again without a whisper coming out and knew he was trying to find any words that would rationalise and categorise what just happened.

Now is not the time for thinking Chris. 

Instead of admonishing him aloud Una surged up onto her knees and a crest of water went with her. Her hands cupped his face and tugged him closer until his mouth was on hers again. Rivulets of water snaked down her forearm as one hand moved up into his hair, messing up the perfect styling that not even the Montana winds had dared put out of place. Then both of Chris’s arms were around her and there was only a single layer of soft cotton keeping her from him.

Eventually they had to separate again for oxygen and Una bit down on her lower lip, hoping that would hold her back at least long enough to catch her breath. In the moment of calm, of shallow breaths and quieting thoughts, their hands dropped away from each other and only their foreheads remained touching. 

Without a racing mind Una took the finite time to evaluate what she’d done. What they’d done. Nothing felt wrong. The stars behind the fogged-up glass, and the people they both were when they were out amongst them, felt distant. Close to lost. But Una had no desire to turn away from the man in front of her to reassure herself that they were still there.

A smirk crept onto Chris’ face. “You got my shirt wet.”

She laughed, dropping open kisses onto his mouth as she did. “I don’t anticipate you needing it on for much longer.”

Una woke to a comfortable, heavy, weight throughout her body. She was still aching. All the hard work of the relaxing bath had been undone in the hours that followed it. It didn’t help that the mattress beneath her was nothing like her own on board Enterprise; this one she sunk down into, making it easy to give in to gravity. While she had no intention of getting up she did roll onto her side. The slight chill of the room brushed her bare shoulder as the duvet slipped down with the movement. Underfloor heating did only so much in a house designed to be primarily heated by the various fireplaces throughout. Fireplaces that had to be built up and lit by hand rather than turned on with a command to a computer.. 

Una shrunk below the covers and was drawn toward the other source of heat in the bed.

Some time between Una falling asleep and waking Chris had put on pajama pants and her legs wrapped around soft flannel as she snuggled against his chest. He shifted in response to her proximity, moving from his own pillow to hers until his chin rested on the top of her head. Then he took a deep breath that rolled into a yawn as he slowly awoke. 

With what seemed to be a conscious action this time his arms wrapped over her shoulders and he pulled her almost impossibly close. 

“Good,” she heard him mumble. 

Una hoped that wasn’t his assessment of the previous night. She was a lot better than ‘good’. She tried to lift her head to glare at him but Chris stiffened his hold to keep her in place. She could hear the smile in his voice when he added, “It wasn’t a dream this time.”

“This time?” Una asked with sleepy amusement. 

Before Chris could elaborate they both heard a door open down the hall beyond the bedroom door, followed by the distinct beat of a seven-year-old’s footsteps. La’an likely heading right to Una’s room having realised she was the first one up and out of bed. 

Una was alert in an instant. Since becoming a parent her immediate reactions to the sound of her child waking up had become as reflexive as her response to red alert klaxons. Before she could say ‘shirt’ Chris had let go of her and rolled onto his back. He stretched an arm off the side of the bed and half a second later the matching plaid shirt to his pants was flung in her direction. Una slipped it on beneath the duvet as the now thumping footsteps headed toward Chris’ bedroom door after finding nothing in Una’s room. She had just enough buttons done up for modesty’s sake when La’an burst in. 

Chris had his arms raised about a millisecond before their daughter launched herself toward the bed and he caught her right before she cannonballed directly into his stomach. What he hadn’t accounted for was the longer legs from La’an’s latest growth spurt. Despite the slight groan of pain as he got caught by a flailing foot Chris kept his grin, holding the girl in the air over him as he said, “Morning kiddo.”

He lowered La’an to his chest then twisted to deposit her in the space between him and Una. La’an probably hadn’t even realised Una was there until she was caught up in a hug and Una placed a kiss on the top of her head. La’an tilted her chin up and deep brown eyes, so very unlike Una’s or Chris’ shades of blue, went wide with surprise at finding her mum here too. Una could practically see La’an’s brain trying to fit this new piece of information into the world she knew; one that only continued to get bigger and more complicated as she grew.

Before La’an had the chance to fire off a barrage of questions Una released her and ordered, “Scoot up.”

Free of the hug La’an obediently scrabbled up onto the pillows so that Una could lift the cover, then the seven-year-old darted under. Una dropped the bedding and snuggled down, wrapping an arm over La’an’s belly and holding the girl against her own. La’an’s little head tucked right under Una’s chin like she’d always been meant to fit there. 

Across the pillow Chris was smiling at them. His eyes were a mirror of hers, and not just in colour. Content. Complete. After last night Una knew everything had changed and yet none of this felt new or unexpected. She and Chris would both have a lot of explaining to do in the near future, starting with their far too curious kid over breakfast Una suspected, but right now it was just the three of them in a warm cocoon of rumpled bedding and flannel pajamas and Una really was home.

Chapter Text

Una

Una stopped a couple steps outside the sensor range of her cabin door and took in a slow, steadying breath. The ship lighting had returned to its usual sharp white in the corridors. The pulse of the red alert alarms had been replaced with the quiet but determined bustle of repair crews, punctuated by the occasional hiss or sparks from shattered control panels and ragged power conduits. And the heat from turning Enterprise into a gods damn star had finally dissipated. Yet Una still faced a challenge ahead. 

As she stepped into her quarters Lieutenant Markov shot up from the couch, tugging at the hem of his red shirt to straighten it. As soon as Starfleet Command gave the approval for La’an to stay aboard Enterprise, the Security division had amended their red alert response to include an officer locating La’an and taking her directly to the relative safety of Una’s cabin to be watched over until the situation was resolved. Honestly Una expected to find one of the newer ensigns nervously shuffling around her cabin not Markov, who had been serving on Enterprise as long as Spock. The man hadn’t been a fresh faced ensign even back then but now he was in his fifties with the gruff look of a roughneck who’d been working cargo haulers all his life. Jakob Markov was the man you called on when you needed a security team as menacing and physically imposing as possible. He wasn’t the type anyone pictured giving babysitting duties to. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I know this isn’t exactly what you signed up for.” 

Markov, who’d been at rigid attention since he got to his feet, rumbled out, “It’s our duty to keep every crew member safe, Sir. That still includes the chief.”

Despite the circumstances Una allowed herself a tight smile. What other ship in the fleet had an entire department of elite security officers who refused to call a diminutive five-year-old anything other than Sir, Lieutenant or Chief. She sent Markov on his way with a quick dismissal and another round of thanks. The second he was clear of her door Una knew he’d be joining one of the security details helping out the engineering repair crews rather than heading back to his bunk or to the galley. La’an had left a solid, well disciplined team behind for her successor. 

Before leaving, Markov had lifted his chiseled chin toward La’an’s bedroom, indicating where Una would find the little girl. She touched the panel beside the door, activating a chime that sounded like tiny bells caught in a light breeze, before she entered. 

It was late into the ship’s night cycle but Una hadn’t realised she’d expected to find a scattering of stars from the nightlight painted across the walls until she was assaulted by the full glare of overhead lights. The room’s temperature had been altered too, set much lower than the main cabin. Immediately Una had flashes of her worst memories; a scrawny, barely-teenage kid hiding beneath a bed or in a closet in too bright and too cold rooms. But La’an’s new bedroom only had recessed drawers for her clothing and a solid base bed, allowing her nowhere to hide except for the four, maybe five blankets that she’d bunched up around herself at the top of her bed. 

It was heartbreaking to know that La’an’s past experiences with the Gorn were so deeply a part of her that even though many adult memories had slipped away she’d known exactly how to make an environment as unwelcoming as possible for her monsters. She’d also known to get herself hidden and, judging by the toes of black boots peeking out from the bottom edge of a fluffy red blanket, prepared herself in case she needed to run too. All of that rational thinking contrasted starkly with the little-kid-brain logic that hiding beneath the bed covers would keep her safe.

Una sat down on the bed beside the bundle. 

“La’an?”

The edge of a grey & teal saddle blanket inched down until tousled black hair was revealed, followed by wide dark eyes. 

“The Gorn are all gone,” Una assured her right away. “They won’t be coming back.”

La’an just shook her head in response and Una saw the tears well in her eyes that she was too stubborn to let fall. 

“I promise.” 

Una held a hand out toward La’an and the girl’s eyes shifted from Una’s face to the offering. It felt like an eternity until La’an moved but Una’s fleeting moment of relief was dashed as La’an ducked back beneath the covers. Una sighed, already preparing herself mentally for an extremely long night, then the blanket mound crumpled as La’an crawled her way out from beneath them. Without a word La’an climbed right into Una’s lap and instinctively Una wrapped her arms tight around the girl. 

“They’re gone, I promise they’re all gone,” she breathed into La’an’s hair. She met La’an’s ongoing silence with gentle rocking. “But it’s okay if you don’t believe me yet.” 

Despite the cocoon of blankets La’an had made for herself Una could feel a chill seeping through her shirt from the tiny body. She stroked La’an’s cheek with a finger and La’an leaned into the touch and the warmth Una’s skin offered. “Can I turn the temperature up?”

A small fist gathered the bottom of Una’s shirt and pulled tight before La’an nodded her consent. 

“Computer, raise room temperature to standard.”

Then they simply sat together in the quiet. Una listening to the hum of the ship around them, irregular but strong again. La’an probably only hearing Una’s heartbeat, she was pressed so close up against Una's chest.

“It’s late, we should get you to bed.” Una expected a fight on the matter but all of La’an’s usual fierce energy had been drained from her. “Think you could stay in my bed tonight?” Una asked her. “I don’t want to sleep alone.” 

It wasn’t even a lie to make the whole process of bedtime easier, Una really didn’t think she’d be able to get any sleep herself without knowing La’an was safely tucked up right beside her.

“No.” 

“No?” Una swept hair away from La’an’s eyes and angled herself to try to see her face more clearly. “No, you don’t want to stay with me tonight? Or no, you don’t want to go to sleep?”

After letting go of Una’s shirt La’an had tangled their fingers together, and while La’an tried to avoid Una’s direct gaze she nervously rubbed the pad of her thumb over Una’s metallic-gold nail polish. Una recognised the silence and the fidgeting for La’an trying to translate her thoughts into words, with all the tiredness and anxiety of the day slowing the process significantly. 

“Is the captain in bed?”

That wasn’t even remotely close to any of the thoughts Una had been expecting to hear, but at least the question had an easy answer. 

“He’s looking after Captain Batel in sickbay. She got hurt down on Parnassus Beta.” The last time Una checked in with La’an directly she’d said only as much as Enterprise was heading toward a rescue mission for the Cayuga and the colony planet they’d been helping. Una could only hope that Lieutenant Markov hadn’t been any more generous with the details.

“Is Joseph in bed?"

Now Una could see where this was going, and before La’an got the chance to work her way through the entire landing party and on to the rest of the bridge crew she assured her, “Everyone’s okay. The landing party are all back. They’re getting looked over in sickbay.”

It looked as though she’d be having words with Markov before his next shift to remind him exactly how much information should be shared with five year olds during red alert. Though Una wouldn’t be surprised if she found out La’an had simply ordered him to tell her.

“Would you feel better if we checked on them before bed?”

Una got an emphatic nod this time, La’an’s whole body bouncing with the gesture.

She gathered La’an up in her arms, bringing along the red fluffy blanket with the security logo stitched in the corner too. She wasn’t happy at all that La’an had sat in a freezing cold room for hours, even if it had obviously helped La’an to feel safer while Una hadn’t been there. And she’d felt a whole lot better once some of the warm pink returned to La’an’s cheeks. 

When they entered Medical Una immediately clocked Nurse Chapel across sickbay. Christine had taken the time to get into a fresh uniform but running a regenerator over the superficial cuts across her face had clearly been a far lower priority. Beneath her palm Una suddenly felt La’an’s chest flutter and her breathing catch, and it took Una’s exhausted brain a second longer than it should have to recognise why. 

How could she be so stupid? She should have realised La’an would have no idea Christine was back on board. 

“Chapel?” Una raised her voice just enough to carry the distance across sickbay but not be so loud to disturb the relative calm the head nurse had achieved. The blonde woman turned and a smile instantly lit up her tired face when she spotted Una. Or, more likely, when she spotted La’an in Una’s arms. 

“I wasn’t expecting a welcome home committee,” Christine drawled as she walked over. 

La’an had tensed up entirely, making passing both her and the blanket over to the nurse more than a little awkward. But as soon as Christine had her on her hip La’an collapsed into her, pressing her face into Christine’s neck. 

Una heard the crying that Christine undoubtedly felt against her skin. “Hey, why the tears?” 

Chapel threw a bewildered look at Una as she gave La’an a slight bounce on her hip. Delicate fingers swept through La’an’s hair then Christine placed a kiss on the girl’s head. Una wanted to reach out for La’an too; she wanted to be the one who La’an took comfort in, the person she finally let her walls crumble for. But right now this little broken but healing soul needed someone that wasn’t her. 

Maybe more than one someones.

“La’an wanted to come check on everyone herself.”

“Oh yeah?” Christine asked, ducking her head to catch La’an’s red rimmed eyes. “Did you steal my job while I was away?”

After assuring La’an that Joseph and Erica were going to be just fine, Christine pointed to two sleeping forms on biobeds in a dimly lit corner of sickbay. “See, all tucked up in bed like you should be.”

La’an sniffled then, voice cracking a little, she mumbled, “Captain?”

Chris

Chris leant forward and rotated his shoulders in an attempt to bring some relief to his aching back. His protesting muscles were not entirely ready give up the tension that had been built up through the chain reaction of crisis’s they’d faced today, followed by the two hours he’d inflicted on it sat in a desk chair at Marie’s bedside. 

His back shouldn’t complain- the doctor’s chair was extremely ergonomic. 

After convincing Marie to get some more sleep he’d dumped his jacket and body armour on the floor by his feet but that hadn’t made him all that much more comfortable. Now some muscle in his lower back was spasming so much it felt like his body was screaming at him to get up and do something, anything, other than just sitting here.

Maybe it was more psychological than physical. To be honest he felt more than a little useless. Captain Pike’s current mission was over; he had his crew back on board, the remaining colonists and Cayuga crew were safe, and the Gorn threat to the Federation had been successfully neutralised. For Christopher Pike it was the beginning of what he suspected would be an agonisingly drawn out recovery for someone he cared about deeply, and he couldn’t think of a thing that was in his power to do that would help her. 

The door to Joseph’s office chimed and then hissed open, allowing Christine Chapel’s entrance. Christine and La’an, bundled up in a fluffy blanket, with Una following close behind. 

“Hey kiddo.” 

Neither Chapel nor Una seemed put out at his not greeting either of them directly. Christine even handed La’an over to him with a smile. 

Chris hugged La’an to him hard. When he realised he was likely overcompensating for not being able to hug Marie yet he eased up a little. Even then he might still have been squeezing La’an tighter than necessary but he couldn’t help it. His mind flashed to how he’d practically barrelled into that unplanned hug with Una when she’d come back to Enterprise after her trial, and how reluctant he’d been to break away from it, from her. 

He’d convinced himself after that the fact that the hug had told Una he was something solid and strong that she could depend on, he was the person that had her back no matter what. But honestly it was more like the other way around. Having Una, and Marie, and this little girl, in his life might just be the only things that kept him on his feet some days. 

Chris felt himself finally relax into the high padded chair and the tilt mechanism eased him into a recline that made it easier for La’an to curl up in his lap and nestle against him.

Chapel had stayed close to his side and once La’an appeared settled she said, “While I have you both here.” Chris assumed she meant him and Una, not La’an. “I can give you the official update from Medical.” 

He could certainly do with a distraction from the wall monitor readouts and gentle beep of medical equipment, but Una put a stop to the idea fast. 

“You’re off duty until at least tomorrow.” Number One’s piercing blue eyes shifted to Marie, who was sleeping peacefully through the room invasion. 

Una took a step toward Chris, presumably to take back La’an. He raised his arms higher around her slight shoulders to keep her with him and La’an wriggled in his lap, getting herself more comfortable. Chagrinned he dropped his arms to a less defensive posture but tucked the edges of the blanket in around the little girl. “La’an can stay here.”

Christine hummed, surely doing her very best to bite back a comment about La’an having him wrapped around her little finger. Una searched his face for a moment for something Chris wasn’t quite sure of, then told him she’d come back to fetch La’an when they were done before leading Chapel out of the lab. 

La’an valiantly fought to keep her eyes open but within minutes sleep claimed her, fluttering breaths hitting Chris’ shirt. She’d wormed an arm out from beneath the blanket and her curled fist lay against her cheek, thumb grazing her lower lip. Now that he was watching her face closely Chris noticed the redness of her cheeks and the tacky trails of dried tears down them, but he didn’t want to disturb her by wiping them away. Una would take care of that tomorrow. And tomorrow they’d be able to tell La’an that the cause of her nightmares were finally gone. That they’d beaten the monsters. 

For now at least. 

How old would she be when they came back he wondered. He tried to picture what a scrappy teenage La’an would be like. How different an adult she’d turn out to be after a childhood being surrounded by her doting family instead of growing up feeling alone in every crowd until finding her way to Enterprise. He hoped he’d still be around to be a part of her life, that he’d be standing beside her to fight if the Gorn ever came back. 

But he was running on finite time.

A murmur traveled from the bed, almost a chuckle, and Chris looked up. Marie was awake again, though her eyes were still heavy with sleep and who knew what drugs (he’d seen a fairly extensive list scrolling on one of the lab’s screens)

Marie tried to sit up straighter on the bed but gave up on the attempt pretty quickly with a huff. She locked eyes with him then a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 

“That’s a good look for you.”

“Day old uniform?” He needed a fresh shirt and pants. And a shower. 

She made the frown that expressly told him he was not amusing, and he should stop trying to be, before elaborating further, “Captain Dad.” 

A denial was quick to his lips but he stopped himself from actually saying the words. 

He’d told Marie all about the Paesh mission and it’s unexpected consequences over the comms and he’d been both looking forward to and slightly dreading how to introduce Marie to the kid he was now partially responsible for. He was aware of the uneasy truce between his then security chief and girlfriend whenever they crossed paths in the corridor or during family dinners while Marie was visiting. Una had forgiven Marie’s role in her arrest and trial a lot quicker than La’an had and Chris didn’t even want to imagine how things might have gone if La’an were onboard when Una had been taken away by armed escort. But he’d been excited for Marie to get to know this new version of La’an who’d unexpectedly become the heart of his crew, a bright new star at the centre of Enterprise’s very own solar system. 

“You even have worry lines.” Marie lifted a slightly shaky hand to sweep her index finger in front of her brow indicating exactly where she meant. 

“Oh those are because of you,” Chris assured her. 

The resulting stuttered laugh caused Marie’s hand to drop down to clutch her stomach but she waved off his reflexive attempt to stand. The flash off pain passed from her face a second later, which Chris suspected was largely in thanks to the drug cocktail she’d been given by Chapel. 

“Don’t you dare wake her up,” Marie admonished him, but La’an had stirred only enough to finally slip her thumb into her mouth. “At least one of us should be having good dreams.”

Chris knew there was nothing for him to say to magically make everything better. He slowly inched the wheeled chair closer to the biobed with his heels, trying to keep the movement as smooth as possible so that he’d still be obeying his orders to not wake La’an. Marie’s fingers were curled over the armrest of the bed now and Chris laid a hand on top hers, his thumb brushing over her knuckles.

“How about you both sleep, and let me worry about keeping the nightmares away."

Chapter Text

Reading departmental reviews on her padd while navigating Enterprise’s corridors didn’t slow Una’s pace in the slightest. Of course she had the advantage of crew stepping aside to give her right of way wherever she went. While Una tried not to abuse her position as first officer, sending the odd new ensign scrabbling for the walls to clear the way for Number One did keep them on their toes. 

At the end of the corridor, without too much of a wait, the turbolift doors opened onto an empty compartment. After requesting her destination Una switched off the padd and slumped against the interior wall; her shift had officially ended well-over an hour ago and Una was done with work for the day. The only task she had left to complete was collecting La’an from her lesson, then they could head up to Chris’ quarters for dinner and Una wouldn’t have to give another thought to Sam Kirk’s persistent need to restructure his department every two months… at least until tomorrow’s duty shift.

La’an’s class for the afternoon was physics with Commander Pelia, one of the newer teachers to be added to the roster of Enterprise officers contributing to La’an’s schooling. Una had drawn a hard line at La’an crawling through maintenance tubes to learn about energy transfer, but Pelia still managed to find elaborate and theatrical ways to demonstrate scientific principles. To avoid reaching blood pressure levels Joseph would need to be alerted of, Una usually left Spock or Chris to collect La’an from the Lanthanite. Logically Una knew she should be onboard with any teaching methods that got La’an eager and interested in her schoolwork, but Pelia never missed an opportunity to point out the fact that the techniques that made Una bristle back at the Academy seemed to work just fine for Una’s kid.

When the turbolift doors opened, the cavernous engineering bay appeared to be empty; only after coming around the intermix chamber did Una finally spot a couple of lieutenants and a fourth-year cadet scurrying about on the lower level. The rest of Pelia’s team seemed to be scattered throughout the ship, like busy worker bees not yet recalled to the hive, as La’an was stood alone at an environmental control panel on the tri-console, her back turned on Una’s approach. The seven-year-old had just gone through a growth spurt (with all the chaos of a never satisfied appetite, fatigue and barely regulated emotions that came with it) and was now tall enough to rest her hand flat on the console’s panel without bouncing up on her toes. Unable to switch off from her job completely Una glanced to the screen above the console and was relieved to see the pulsing light indicating the input controls had been locked so La’an wasn’t in danger of setting off an icy blizzard in sickbay or turning the bridge into a sauna. 

The first thing Una noticed about her girl was that La’an had removed her boots. Sweeping her gaze over the immediate area Una found them tossed haphazardly beside an adjacent console. She’d gotten a little too used to finding child-sized Starfleet issue boots, laces still knotted, kicked behind the couch, or almost tripping over them abandoned in the middle of Chris’ kitchen, but La’an’s little trail of chaos was usually more controlled elsewhere in the ship. Una held off her immediate urge to reprimand and focused on La’an instead, head down and seemingly focused intently on her socked feet. After a couple of motionless seconds La’an lifted her head, tipping her chin high so that the end of her braid dipped down to the small of her back, and rose up onto the balls of her feet, arching her right arm gracefully above her head. 

Was that… ballet? 

Una had attended enough theatre productions on Earth during her Academy years to recognise the technique, but her brain wasn’t quite able to compute why she was seeing her daughter using main engineering as a dance studio. 

Pelia suddenly appeared at Una’s side with a degree of stealth that should not be possible, especially for a several-hundred-year-old woman who was holding a half-eaten bagel in one hand, while balancing a stack of padds on her forearm, and tucking some kind of calibrator into her ever-present utility belt with the other.

Una narrowed her eyes at the Lanthanite. “What’s going on?”

Pelia switched the bagel to her now free hand, getting a firmer grip on the padds. 

“La’an was finding Newtonian physics a little challenging,” Pelia told her with a dismissive wave, sending a spray of crumbs to the deck.

There was no point telling the obstinate chief engineer that simply shrugging off a subject because it was a challenge was not how school was supposed to work. Or even arguing that when Pelia had been Una’s teacher the same excuse most definitely would not have gotten her out of an assignment.

Pelia continued, oblivious to Una’s weary eye-roll. “Entirely understandable. I found him to be quite a tedious man.” 

“Pelia,” Una interjected.

Pelia tilted her chin up to meet Una’s glare with wide, innocent eyes. 

“Why is La’an doing ballet moves…”

“Positions,” Pelia corrected.

Una ploughed on. “…in Engineering?”

“She wasn’t interested in learning science from me. Like mother, like daughter I suppose.” Pelia absolutely caught Una’s eye-roll that time. “But fortunately, I have other skills to pass on.”

Ignoring the obvious jibe Una asked, “You were a dancer?”

“I spent a few years with the Imperial Russian Ballet at the turn of the century.”

“Which century?” Una couldn’t help the raised eyebrow and smirk that came with the question.

Never to be outwitted by Una, Pelia responded with, “A lady never discusses her age.”

Over at the console La’an transitioned into another position, a brief wobble the only indication that she might be uncertain about committing to the pose. Even when her movements were a little hesitant La’an was nothing but graceful. Una suddenly recalled the videos foster parents would send her of La’an competing in Taekwondo tournaments during her high school years; the too quiet, too small teenager standing tall and confidently on the mats. But the movements now, and the girl herself, seemed so much lighter than the one back then; no longer weighed down by the grief and anger that had her fighting for every step.

Pelia hummed beside her and Una glanced down at the older woman.

“You know, if she puts in the work, she could be quite exceptional.”

La’an must have heard the two of them talking finally as her head whipped around, the spell of concentration broken. The minute La’an registered Una’s presence though a broad smile chased away the little frown that always settled between her eyebrows when she focused too hard on a task. 

Una smiled back. “She already is.”

Chapter Text

USS Martin Luther King Jr.

La’an flung herself heavily onto the mattress of her bunk then threw a look over her shoulder to see if her dramatic gesture had been noted. Una hadn’t even looked up from the padd in her hand. The ensign (La’an’s saviour from the Gorn lifeboat and current guardian/roommate) was curled up on the armchair in the corner of the cabin, focused entirely on her work. Una had said something over lunch about charting an upcoming course for the ship around a stellar nursery, but La’an hadn’t understood enough of it to retain any details. 

La’an scrabbled all the way to the back wall of the enclosed bed then turned around, settling with her legs crossed, elbows resting on her knees and chin in her hands. She was bored. Not bored enough to have gone to the rec room with Ensign Cayson (not without Una anyway) but definitely bored enough that she wanted Una to know about it.  

La’an sighed loudly. 

Una continued to ignore her. 

Fine. She’d find something to do herself then. 

The problem with that plan was that aside from the altered pieces of crew uniform that made up her current wardrobe, La’an didn’t really own all that much stuff to do anything with. She had her own padd, tossed somewhere at the end of her unmade bed, but all that had loaded onto it was schoolwork she’d missed out on over the last two years and the stupid diary she was told to keep by the counsellor she’d been made to speak with in sickbay. And obviously she didn’t want to spend time on either of those things. La’an did have an electronic game too, which she suspected was actually some kind of cognitive test from the medical team, but she’d already completed that twice. 

The stuffed toy dog she’d been given, who La’an had named Runa, was a lump beneath the rumpled duvet where it wouldn’t be seen by any unexpected visitors to their cabin. Una knew about Runa of course, but La’an was pretty sure Una didn’t know about the nutrition bars that Runa was strategically placed to hide until La’an could transfer them to the secret spot in the clothes drawer with her socks. 

The final thing La’an owned was a novel; a tatty paperback she’d left on the shelf inside her bunk. The captain had given it to her while she’d still been in sickbay, in what La’an assumed was an attempt to keep her occupied in her bed instead of continually leaving it and tormenting Doctor Hayes. 

La’an certainly wasn’t going to play with a stuffed toy, so she picked up the book instead and thumbed the edge of the pages. The dusty smell of old paper hit her immediately and she had to shake off the urge to sneeze.

“What have you got there?” 

So now she had Una’s attention.

Honestly La’an wasn’t entirely sure what she had (she’d not even read the summary on the back cover) but she pulled the book close to her chest protectively anyway. “The captain gave it to me.”

Una shifted in her seat, pulling her legs out from beneath her and turning to face La’an’s bunk. She tucked her padd between her thigh and the arm of the chair then held out her hand, asking wordlessly for the book. La’an didn’t move until the single raised eyebrow appeared, and then she sighed (not as loudly this time) and dropped down from the bunk. She landed with a soft thump on the deck and crossed the room to hand the book over to Una. 

Una studied both sides of the cover and then flicked through the pages, stopping occasionally to scan a paragraph or two. She was probably checking if it was ‘appropriate’. The medical files La’an had tried to read in sickbay had not been appropriate for her to read according to Doctor Hayes, even though they were about her. And the best movies in Lieutenant Oren’s collection hadn’t been appropriate either, even though nothing in them was any more graphic than things La’an had actually lived through.

“I’m not a child.” 

Una’s eyes narrowed on La’an. “Yes, you are,” Una told her with just the slightest smirk on her lips. 

La’an was ready to argue over that but then Una handed the book back and La’an didn’t want to start a fight that might make her change her mind. 

Una retrieved her padd and went right back to what she’d been doing. Instead of returning to her bunk La’an dropped to the floor where she stood, landing cross legged on the plush round rug. Una removed the stylus from the top of the padd but instead of making additions to the file right away began tapping it lightly against the device. Getting more comfortable La’an shuffled closer to the chair until she could lean against Una’s leg. The idle tapping stopped and La’an felt fingers brushing over the lines of her braids as she opened the book to its first page.

USS Enterprise

“Wow.” Nyota was knelt on the floor of La’an’s bedroom, peering into the trunk at the bottom of her bed like it was a pirate’s treasure chest. “That is a lot of books.”

La’an was letting Nyota help choose the new books to put out on her shelf, which was almost as fun as reading them. La’an hadn’t thought the books were fun at all when she’d first been given them. And Una had had to remind her to say thank you a lot. She’d gotten really tired of reading when Joseph and Christine made her do so many tests in sickbay after she became little. Then when there were no more tests, she’d mostly been mad that she couldn’t read the books from her own quarters because too many words didn’t make sense. 

After a lot of practice La’an had gotten better at reading, but there were still words and books other people had to read for her. La’an hadn’t liked that either, it made her feel stupid. Joseph had told her she shouldn’t call anyone stupid, especially herself, but she didn’t feel any better about not being able to do something so easy by herself until Captain Pike started to come and read to her before bed. When he did La’an would get to snuggle up with Runa and close her eyes and see the words as pictures in her head instead before she fell asleep.

La’an dove forward for one of the books in the trunk, immediately recognising the coloured spine. It was a story about a little Aenar boy who got lost in a snowstorm and was saved by an Andorian polar bear. It wasn’t a polar bear really. Polar bears were from Earth. Andoria didn’t even have bears. But it looked like one: big and white and cuddly. 

La’an hung off the end of the bed and stretched for the book before climbing to her feet. She thrust it out to Nyota to be added to the pile, wobbling a little on the mattress. “This one’s my favourite.”

“This week,” Una said. 

Una was leaning against the wall next to the door with her arms folded over her stomach, waiting for La’an and Nyota to finish so that La’an could go brush her teeth before bed and a story. Una was still wearing her uniform but after they’d eaten dinner together in the galley and come back to their quarters she’d taken down the braid that ringed her head like a crown. Now it was all loose and wavy over the shoulders of her gold shirt.

La’an bounced on the mattress and poked her tongue out at Una. Una did it back, which La’an thought she probably wouldn’t have done it if Nyota had been looking. First officers didn’t stick their tongues out at ensigns.

Una just didn’t understand. The Very Impatient Sehlat was only La’an’s favourite when Captain Pike read it to her, and he was on Ixia Station for another two days. Nyota reading it to her, even if she read it in Vulcan, wouldn’t be the same. The captain did the best Vulcan voices. Even better than Spock

“Is this meant to be here?” 

La’an tried to see the cover of whatever book Nyota found but the ensign had already turned around to show it to Una. It was a real paper book so it probably came from Earth or a human colony. It was all cracked down the side so La’an couldn’t tell what the title was, even if she could have seen all the letters under Nyota’s fingers. La’an had been given a few books that were old like that; Erica even brought one back from her last shore leave that her abuela used to read to her and her brother Beto when they were kids.

La’an dropped down onto her knees and when Nyota lowered her arm she could finally see the picture on the front cover. It wasn’t one of the books she’d been given by any of the crew, it was one that had come from La’an’s old quarters. She remembered that she’d had it a long time, as long as she’d had Runa. But she couldn’t remember the story, only the name of the woman on the cover: Amelia Moon. 

La’an dropped the Andorian book on the bed and stretched out to grab this new one from Nyota’s hand. 

Una reached it first though.  

“You’ll have to wait a few more years for this one.” 

Before La’an could argue that it was her book Nyota stood up, her arms full of the other books they’d already piled onto the floor next to the trunk. “Okay, I think this is all we can fit out for now.” 

La’an snatched up the book she’d dropped and shot to her feet as Nyota struggled over to the empty bookshelf on the wall above La’an’s desk and over the top of her bed. Nyota set her books down on the desktop then began to fill the shelf, making sure to put all the covers that were same colour next to each other, until they started to look like a rainbow. 

La’an took three bounding steps up the bed to her pillow and tucked the Andorian book in with the matching blue covers. That was definitely the one she’d ask Nyota to read to her. It was probably way better than an Amelia Moon book anyway. 

Starbase One

If not for the roof of stars over Starbase One’s main concourse it would be hard to believe you were in space at all. The standard sterile white walls of the cafes and stores were softened by multicoloured moss, small wildflower meadows covered rooftops, and climbing plants wrapped around shop signs and electronic noticeboards. La’an always thought it looked a little like the plants and flowers from the original seed pods the starbase was built for had escaped and crawled all over the rest of the station.

The school district was on the same level as the concourse, a looping corridor of classrooms without the explosion of foliage, and at the end of a school day a tide of students would wash out to join the crowds of visitors and residents that always seemed to be present. The majority of kids headed off towards the transit station for turbolifts to their quarters on the lower levels of the central structure or transits out to the domes. Today one large group of girls were weaving their way over to the Efrosian boba shop, the stragglers pushing their way past La’an to keep up. They’d actually asked her to join them, or at least one girl who seemed to have been given the authority to speak for them all had. At the time there’d been too many kids around La’an all shouting happily as they grabbed up padds, jackets and backpacks for her to think straight and she found herself saying no before she’d even processed what she was being asked. 

It was fine. La’an didn’t know how to act in a group of ten girls anyway. 

Adults she was used to; kids were like an alien species. 

After her first day at school La’an had gone straight home where Mum and Dad were waiting to ask her too many questions about how it went (fine), and if she had made any friends (shrug). It was the same routine on the second day and the third. Today had been her fourth day attending classes. Mum had a big project meeting which would run well past dinnertime, Dad was off inspecting the Tarabin which had docked this afternoon, and La’an had nowhere to be except their empty quarters for the next few hours.

Two Vulcans stepped into La’an’s path in an attempt to avoid a couple of boys who were tussling over a padd paying no attention to anyone around them. La’an narrowly avoided a collision by ducking into the alleyway down the side of the Stellar Arcade to reach the less busy park grounds encircling the concourse. The arcade had antique video games from a bunch of different worlds as well as modern VR ones. They even had a holodeck like the one Enterprise had tested years ago, but there was a crazy long waiting list to use it. La’an had visited the arcade with Erica, Spock and Nyota before Enterprise had been assigned her new Captain and left their old one behind on Starbase One. They’d made Spock play every zombie game they could find because Erica was convinced she’d get at least one jump scare out of him. But in the end Nyota had been the only one screaming. 

Thinking about the trip made La’an’s stomach drop a little and she picked up her pace to reach the gardens, the heavy sinking feeling in her belly only easing once she cleared the building. While the seed pods branching off the central station housed forests from Earth each section of the gardens previewed the biomes of a whole bunch of different planets. On this side of the concourse, behind a noodle shop where the smell of garlic and honey was thick in the air, was a gently sloping hill of pale purple grass dotted with silvery-pink blossomed trees. La’an preferred the desertscape with Vulcan succulents sprouting up around rusty red rocks, but here she could at least lie on her back in the grass and look up at the stars outside; and maybe try to guess how far away Enterprise might already be.

As she scanned the area for a good spot La’an noticed a boy from her class sitting alone beneath one of the trees. He was reading a book, or at least trying to. Messy, curly blonde hair fell over his eyes and twice he reached up to irritably push it away but it only fell back the moment his hand dropped. Eventually he gave up, probably deciding that his book was more important than fighting with his hair.

La’an could feel the weight of her padd in her satchel. She had a whole bunch of books on it. Ten girls might be intimidating but one boy definitely wasn’t. This she could do. 

La’an marched up the hillside, intending to get close enough that she’d be able to make a polite introduction without disturbing the peace of the gardens. She was still some distance away though when she recognised the art on the book’s cover: a human woman with dark-red painted lips curling up into a smirk, eyes hidden by the brim of a hat in matching scarlet. 

“Amelia Moon,” she blurted out. 

The boy startled, shaking blonde locks from his face like a wet dog trying to dry off. He stared blankly at her for a moment in confusion and then said cautiously, “Most people say that like a question.”

La’an rushed forward as she told him, “Oh no, I know Amelia Moon.” She threw herself down on the grass next to him. “I’ve read them all.” 

La’an had all one hundred and twelve books from the series in her personal files (her favourite five on her padd) and a single paperback that the captain of the USS Martin Luther King Jr had given her a very, very long time ago. She’d gotten the physical book back from her mum a couple years ago once she’d grown out of the collection of little kid ones she’d been given by Enterprise’s crew. 

Right after finishing the book La’an wanted to access the rest of the Amelia Moon series in the computer library. Dad hadn’t exactly been keen on her reading murder mysteries, especially not ones written during the mid twentieth century on Earth. But he’d probably prefer if she were still reading The Very Impatient Sehlat. Reminding him that she’d actually read all of the novels decades ago hadn’t been the winning argument La’an hoped it would be, but after a little negotiation (and Mum’s mediation) they’d agreed on a compromise. Dad had read every single one of the books before La’an was allowed to add them to her collection. He wouldn’t admit it, except maybe under torture, but La’an was convinced that after the first ten he’d actually started to enjoy them.

The boy swept his hair away from his eyes again, flashing the darkest blue La’an had ever seen for a human, and broke into a grin. “Me too!” 

“Emerson Al Najjar.” Emerson offered his hand out, presumably for her to shake. 

It was a weird thing for a kid to do but La’an took it anyway and shook as firmly as she could. “La’an Chin-Riley.”

IFC Private Transport Sun-Deer

After stuffing her face with cereal from the food synthesiser in the Sun-Deer’s passenger galley La’an made her escape to the communal lounge of the transport shuttle before anyone else woke up, or at least made an appearance outside their cabins. La’an figured that she didn’t have to worry about anyone joining her- Mum and Dad’s large cabin had a private lounge and for the last two days they’d stayed there so that Dad’s medical equipment and the two medics monitoring him for the journey were close to hand. And Aunt Neera had been working on a pending legal case mostly holed up in her own cabin, venturing out only to refuel on fresh coffee. The medics and the three person transport crew who split the piloting and engineering duties were all too busy to make any use of what would be considered one of the transport’s more luxurious facilities.

La’an left the lights set low and slumped against the cushions on the largest couch, throwing her head back to look up at the viewscreen arching across the whole ceiling like a window onto the stars. Even if they weren’t at warp the constellations seemed to rush past, taking them further and further away from home every second. She’d gotten too used to home being one place. She should have known better. She wasn’t ready to start over again, and this time she’d be even more of an outsider. La’an wouldn’t just be the newest kid in a long line of ‘new kids’ who’d found their way to Starbase One. On Aigani, the colony world they were moving to, she’d be the only kid who wasn’t Illyrian, who didn’t really belong.

La’an had gotten all of her ‘angry’ out of her system about seven days ago by throwing things and screaming at her mum. Then she’d gotten her ‘sad’ out by crying in Mum’s arms until Aunt Neera had arrived to complete all final paperwork and rubber-stamps needed to take them away from the Federation. Now La’an was just… she didn’t know anymore.

The sound of the doors at the other end of the lounge whooshing open startled La’an. She turned her head to see Aunt Neera stepping into the room, the clacking of her heels on the corridor deck suddenly deadened by the thick carpet. She didn’t seem surprised to find La’an sitting alone in a dark room, but nothing ever surprised her aunt. Neera Katoul knew everything, always. 

Aunt Neera stopped at the minimal bar just inside the doorway. She held a small package in one hand and had to tuck it under her arm so she could remove the glass stopper from one bottle of deep purple liquid and lift it up to take a sniff. It seemed to pass inspection because she took one of the upturned glasses beside the collection of rainbow filled bottles on the countertop and filled it halfway. 

Aunt Neera glided over to the couch and sat down beside La’an, parcel still under one arm and swirling the purple drink with a flick of her wrist. La’an smelt sweet summer berries and maybe something like mint along with the sharp hit of alcohol and wasn’t sure which scents came from the drink and which came from her aunt’s perfume.

“It’s a long journey,” Aunt Neera said before taking a first sip. La’an pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Are you going to sit up here looking at the stars the whole way.”

La’an shrugged deeply, her shoulders touching her ears. “I have school work.” 

She didn’t want to do school work. There wasn’t really any point if she’d be starting an Illyrian school now anyway, she certainly wasn’t going to need to finish her history paper on the founding of the Federation. Maths and science would probably be the same though. Or maybe not. Aunt Neera could breath the atmosphere on the planets in the Vaultera Nebula. That definitely wasn’t covered in any of La’an’s biology textbooks.

“How about something a little more fun than that.”

La’an threw a sideways glance at her aunt. “If it’s watching one of Mum’s movies forget it.”

Aunt Neera smirked. They both had an eversion to Mum’s taste in Earth cinema. She reached forward to pull a coaster from the neatly stacked pile at the centre of the highly polished coffee table and set her glass down on its edge.

“I wouldn’t be that cruel.”

The package that Aunt Neera had walked in with slid into La’an’s field of vision as she stared at the table’s surface. Up close La’an could clearly see it was a gift; wrapped in textured paper made out of pressed olive-green leaves and lilac flowers. Aunt Neera always brought gifts when she visited them on Enterprise or Starbase One. In a well rehearsed routine Mum would tell her she was spoiling La’an, and Aunt Neera would tell Mum she was making up for all of the birthdays and holidays she’d missed. La’an was sure her aunt must have been counting the years before she’d been de-aged too because Mum was absolutely right- Aunt Neera did spoil her. 

Taking the gift from Aunt Neera’s hands La’an slipped her thumb along the seam of the wrapping, carefully pulling back the paper to reveal a book inside. La’an blinked a couple of times; she’d only ever seen a digital copy of this cover art before but it was definitely the original Amelia Moon novel. The book itself looked just as worn as the single paperback La’an already owned, number seventy two of the series. It hadn’t been synthesised new, or kept in a plasti-steel case to protect the fragile pages; it had been read and re-read so many times that cracks had been left in the spine, once crisp edges were tattered, and lines scarred the tops of pages where corners had been folded down.

La’an thumbed the edge of the book and the smell of the ruffled paper evoked a flash of memories: sitting cross legged on the floor, her head resting against Mum’s leg. But not her mum. Before then, when she was La’an’s Chief. And at a foster home, reading ‘just one more page’ in the slither of light that reached her hiding spot under the bed. Then much later, sprawled in the shade of a tree at the Academy, swapping frustration inducing revision notes for the comfort of familiar words. 

Aunt Neera gave La’an a nudge with her hip to draw her eyes up from the book.

“You do not have to give up any part of yourself La’an. You are important and unique and worthy as you are.”

Chapter Text

Chris wasn’t entirely sure how long he’d been staring down at the same page for but the book’s large-printed letters and pastel illustrations had definitely lost their focus. Or, more accurately, Chris had lost his focus. Fortunately his audience of one hadn’t noticed. In her bed La’an was deep asleep with Runa tucked up under her chin, her slight breaths ruffling the toy dog’s fur. She’d barely stayed awake through four pages. 

Chris remembered Juliet being just the same at this age- living every day at full speed right up until the moment her head hit the pillow. 

Then he remembered that Juliet hadn’t been at all. 

And yet he had such a clear memory of the squirming newborn being placed into his arms and pulling her tight against his chest. He could still feel the slight flutter and then tightening grip of her tiny fist wrapping around his finger, and meeting Marie’s tired smile with a grin so wide his cheeks burned.

In the life he’d lived with Marie during that suspended moment of time on Vadia IX, La’an had been almost eight when the baby came; wide-eyed with excitement over the new addition to her family. She’d loved his little girl from the moment Una had helped her to hold the tiny baby on her lap for the first time. Looking out from his kitchen window Chris had watched over years worth of the girls’ little moments together. The pair spinning in the falling snow of sparkling bright winter mornings, catching snowflakes on their tongues. Countless long summer afternoons sharing secrets and stringing daisy chains together in the shade of the old willow tree.

The La’an in front of him, muttering silently in her sleep at who knew what dreams, would never get to know Juliet, and Chris was the one person left in the universe that she’d even existed for. 

Juliet was gone. Marie was gone. And Chris didn’t know yet what that meant for the man they’d both made him. 

“All you have to do is look up at the stars. Know I’m waiting for you there,” Marie had told him in their final moments. There were no windows in La’an’s bedroom on Enterprise so the only stars Chris had to look up to were the ones from her night-light, their constellations spinning slowly across the ceiling and walls. He didn’t think he could face the real stars just yet.

A knocking across the room startled Chris from his thoughts. Too many times that sound had come to drag him away from that other life, and he was tired of saying goodbye, tired of time running out. Fighting against the fear that seemed to be clawing to get out of his chest, the creeping certainty that answering the knock would mean he’d be letting go of another thing that was precious to him, Chris forced himself to turn away from La’an.

Una was silhouetted in the doorway. She must have rapped her knuckles against the bulkhead to get his attention when the sound of the door opening had failed to do so. Her long shadow spilled into the dimly lit bedroom, reaching for him across the space between them. 

She leaned her shoulder against the frame. “Did you tell her?”

That was the door Chris was afraid he had to answer- telling La’an that Marie was gone.

After their last encounter with the Gorn Marie had stayed onboard Enterprise for three months of recovering under Doctor M’Benga’s professional, and Chris’s amateur, care. With the senior officers equally busy making repairs to the ship or off enjoying shore leave, Marie had stepped up to babysit La’an more than once, and almost all of that time the pair could be found settled on the couch in Chris’ quarters locked in epic battle over a game of Go Fish.

He’d noticed the deck of cards when he’d returned from the High Chamber on Skygowan, still fanned out across the coffee table as though the Universe had simply been put on pause. He’d have to face the things left behind sooner or later though- Marie’s hairbrush resting on the bathroom counter, the dappled dregs of tea leaves in the bottom of a fine china cup, her favourite jumper thrown over the back of the couch. And a little girl who’d known too much loss already.

Chris looked down at the book in his lap. For tonight at least La’an had only known fairy tales with happy endings. 

He had handled too many calls over the years telling families they’d lost a loved one but he didn’t have the first idea how to break that kind of news to a child. All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t simply leave the task to Una. He wouldn’t.

“Chris?”

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

Even in the dim lighting Chris could see Una studying him, trying to decide whether to be the firm voice of cold, hard reason, or the steady silently support. Finally she said, “Spock’s here to watch her. I’ll walk with you back to your quarters.”

Chris tried to smile. “He babysits La’an, you babysit me?”

“All part of the job.” 

What would he do without his Number One? They’d seen each other through some rough times over the years and she’d been his second long before gaining the official title once he’d made captain.

“Promise me you won’t leave,” he blurted out. 

Una’s brows scrunched together in confusion, which he couldn’t fault her for. He was tired, overwhelmed, and clearly not making sense. 

“Enterprise. You and La’an. I know I’m not going to be around for…”  

In the life he’d lived with Marie there’d been no radiation leak, no horrific consequences, but he knew he couldn’t escape his fate twice. 

“Just, promise you won’t go anywhere before then.”

Una stepped into the room, her shadow enveloping Chris as she did. In the eclipse she held out her hand. Chris took it and she pulled him to his feet. She gave his fingers a gentle squeeze with her own and he knew that while he was held in her orbit he was safe. He’d never slip away, alone, into the infinite darkness of his losses because she wouldn’t ever let him go without a fight.

The night-light stars swam in Una’s eyes, a glittering reflection in her unshed tears. For him. For Marie. For the sacrifices they’d all signed on to make when asked to. 

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Spock stood at one of the tall cocktail tables arranged around the edges of the dance floor, nursing the drink that Una had thrust into his hand almost an hour ago. The wedding turned Federation Day celebration appeared to be going well and while he certainly didn’t begrudge his crew mates enjoying themselves, Spock simply wasn’t in the frame of mind to be joining them.

The party came to Spock however when a grinning Lieutenant Scott stumbled from the dance floor. Doctor M’Benga followed close enough to catch the engineer’s elbow before he, or his drink, could hit the deck. The doctor propped the younger man up on a table a couple over from Spock’s where they began a strident discussion about the varied alcoholic beverages they’d both sampled across the sector, and surviving their after effects. Scott’s voice rose in tone as he emphatically warned the doctor of the strength of Aldebaran whiskey, which M’Benga met with a low rumble of agreement that hinted he had firsthand experience of the drink. Their voices joined the dozens of others in the large space all vying to be heard over the heavy base of the music. 

Amongst the noise Spock suddenly caught La’an’s high squeal. Instinctively he glanced in the direction it came from to confirm if he was hearing a happy squeal or one which would require medical attention. Spock was relieved to find La’an safely perched on Captain Pike’s hip amongst the crowd, giggling as the captain straightened from dipping the little girl dramatically toward the dance floor. 

Captain Batel swatted at Pike’s shoulder as she stepped closer to the pair; unrepentant, Captain Pike only grinned at her over the top of La’an’s head. Though Pike was in full dress uniform Batel had opted for a dark green gown and as they resumed their dance, spinning around with La’an at their centre, her skirt swept out like a fan. La’an seemed unconcerned as the two captains came closer together, presumably to hear each other over the music, pressing the girl between them. La’an’s only interest lay in playing with Captain Pike’s medals. She’d been fascinated by Spock’s and Lieutenant Ortegas’ tunics before the ceremony for the same reason. La’an had been very clear that she would rather have been wearing the medals she’d earned herself, as well as the dress tunic and trousers, but Christine had worked her magic to persuade La’an into an ice-blue flower girl dress. In place of her customary braids, La’an’s dark hair had been pulled up in a bun with a few loose ringlets tumbling down and a crown of flowers completed the outfit, matching the one inflicted upon Roger Korby by their omnipotent, interfering, wedding planner.

Bored with either the medals, the dancing, or both, La’an flung out her hands to push herself up between the two Captains, using Pike’s shoulders for leverage. Her lips came close to his ear and a moment later the captain was setting La’an down on the floor, allowing her to dash across the room. Spock cast a glance toward the bar where his other commanding officer was standing. Una had also forgone a dress uniform in favour of something a little more dramatic: a chrome-gold gown, her dark hair tumbling over one bare shoulder. It was entirely possible, Spock thought, that the Commander was engaged in flirting behaviour with the bartender though he would need to seek out Uhura’s input on his assertion later before making any definitive conclusions. Regardless of where her attention had been a second ago, Una’s eyes followed La’an until the girl safely found her way to another trusted family member. Who, on this occasion, turned out to be Spock.

La’an skidded to a halt beside Spock’s leg. As there were no chairs around the table, Spock picked her up under the arms and deposited her onto the tabletop so that they were eye level.  

“Why aren’t you dancing?” La’an asked. 

There were a number of reasons but only one that would satisfy La’an’s curiosity without opening him up to further questions on the matter. He hoped. “It is not an activity I have much experience with.”

La’an nodded, then sucked her lower lip between her teeth. She was thinking over his response. Whatever internal monologue took place La’an decided a moment later to move on to another topic. 

“Why aren’t you and Christine going to get married anymore?”

“It was not real La’an.”

He had overheard Una trying to explain to La’an after Captain Pike’s speech why there wouldn’t be a wedding ceremony anymore. While Starfleet officers adapted to the rapidly changing context of a situation with relative ease, five year olds required more in depth explanations.

La’an’s brow furrowed in seriousness. “But you wanted to marry her, didn’t you?”

“It was a possibility I welcomed.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

La’an considered this for precisely two seconds. “Then you still could.” 

Spock’s eyes searched the room for Christine and found her in a quiet corner at the end of the bar. She still wore the sea-foam green wedding dress though the train that swept up her back and over her shoulder like a wave was gone. Doctor Korby had divested himself of the comically oversized bowtie, ruffled waistcoat, and flower crown, but none of that seemed relevant to Christine as her eyes never seemed to leave Roger’s face while they talked.

“Christine does not have the same feelings for me as I do for her. She loves Doctor Korby.”

La’an’s features transformed into her ‘yuck face’, familiar from many family dinners whenever Una attempted to get her to eat a vegetable she didn’t like.

Putting his own discomfort aside for a teaching moment Spock added, “He loves her and is kind to her.” La’an remained unconvinced. “We should want Christine to be happy, and Doctor Korby makes her happy.”

“Fine,” La’an huffed before looking over her own shoulder toward Korby and Christine. Roger had his hand held out like an old fashioned suitor and when Christine took it he led her back out onto the dance floor. 

La’an turned back to Spock and with an earnest tone to match the most solemn Vulcan told him, “I preferred the dog.”