Chapter 37: As The Crow Flies

It was the first time she heard her husband sing, and if T'Lara's enthusiastic participation on the 'dance floor' as the humans called the area designated for that activity, was any indication, he appeared quite talented too. Instead of ostracizing ensign Sato for her foolishness her human crew mates had supported her all the way through her therapy, most of them her brother and the captain. When Phlox had announced her fit for duty again the crew had spontaneously organized something called a karaoke party. She had still misgivings about letting T'Lara partake in too many human rituals, but right now the child was too pleased and disallowing her to participate in the human dancing ritual she apparently enjoyed so much would lead to conflict with Charles. Of all potential partners her adoptive daughter could have chosen, her current one, Lieutenant Reed, was perhaps the most unexpected. Considering that the song her husband and his sister were performing, came from the Lieutenant's home region was perhaps a reason for his uncharacteristic expressiveness.

The recent events did of course have repercussions for ensign Sato. Although Phlox had managed to break the substance addiction in only three weeks, there would be regular checks and her accumulated stash of substances had been destroyed. The young human had exhausted her financial savings for nothing, but seeing her now, renewed, and happily singing with Charles it seemed to her that the lost monetary resources were the least of the young woman's concerns.

According to the human database, the concept called karaoke came from ensign Sato's home region, however the music to which every participant sang did not come from an electronic device, as was usual according to the documentation. Instead it was performed by the 'Loose Screws', a peculiarly named group of musicians who all worked in Charles' engineering department.

Currently Charles and Hoshi were occupying the stage, performing a song that according to Charles' prior announcement was nearly two-hundred years old. It was performed in English but also featured two verses that were sung in ensign Sato's native language. Wanting to please his sister he had spent several days learning the perfect pronunciation of the words with the help of ensign Rao, who came from the same region.

I was still a fascinating sight, seeing how obviously displayed her Adun's emotions were in his eyes. Ensign Sato was not much different. As they held each others hand and sang to each other, T'Pol doubted that either of them was aware that they were surrounded by nearly sixty other humans. They only had eyes for each other and there was no doubt about the deep affection they had for each other. Without knowing Charles emotions and thoughts from several mind-melds, she would have been led to believe that the young human female could take her Adun away from her, but his affection for Hoshi was exactly the same as for his other sibling – Elizabeth. She wondered if Charles was even consciously aware any longer that Hoshi was not a biological child of his parents. They began another song, this time rather rowdy and again in a foreign language that the UT needed a few seconds to detect.

Her Adun and Hoshi were singing in a language called German, spoken by the two members of Engineering who supplied the ship with alcoholic beverages. They held each other by the had, singing enthusiastically. According to the UT the song was about a woman called 'Renate' belonging to a clan called 'the vikings', and allegedly she was perpetually inebriated, quite violent and expected all males who came in contact with her to sport an erection at all times, at least that was what the claim 'she preferred warriors with solid lances' suggested. It was certainly well that T'Lara was not wearing a UT headpiece right now and she began to understand why Charles had made sure to take it off her before the evening began. She doubted he would have had allowed the child to stay if there was even a remote chance of her understanding what kind of vernacular was in use. For T'Lara there was only relatively pleasant music on display, performed by her beloved adoptive father, with words that sounded like complete gibberish.

There was obviously more information to disseminate about this peculiar clan called the 'the vikings', as according to the latest presentation of Charles and his sister they had a rather promiscuous nature and not exactly a habit of asking before 'borrowing' property, celebrating their success by exacting violence among themselves. Apparently their habit of plundering the region from which Lieutenant Reed came was the 'first recorded case of extreme shopping' according to Charles' prior announcement, a statement that made no sense to her whatsoever. But then Charles had already imbibed several beverages...

She could see that Charles' diligence in supporting Hoshi throughout the therapy had had a positive effect. The only thing she didn't understand – why was Charles speaking so many languages all of a sudden? While she had willingly relinquished much of the time she had wanted to spend with him, in order to support Hoshi, T'Lara had not been quite as easily accepting of the fact that her adoptive father had been missing often. For a start, she was still too young to understand what had happened to her 'aunt Hoshi'. It was testament to her Adun's devotion to their adoptive daughter that he still found enough time to spend with the child. She had no doubt that he would have preferred to spend some of it with his wife, engaging in sexual relations, but for both of them the child's well-being had absolute priority over sating their intimate desires. She did doubt however, that she could make it through this night, and although it was a Wednesday, his sister had made it clear that she did not expect him to accompany her, having occupied so much of his attention before.

"We cannot meld today, Adun," she growled, and ripped his uniform off his body, destroying it in the process. "Tie me to the bedposts and ravage me or we'll have a tragedy at hand."

Thankfully her husband remembered what to do when she was overcome by her base instincts. Equally destroying her attire he forcefully removed it from her body, growling, and he shoved her forcefully onto the bed, much harder than he would ever do if it wasn't needed to deal with her unrestrained desires...

Swiftly fixing her arms to the bedposts, he imposed himself upon her and entered her forcefully. That was the last T'Pol remembered before the night descended into a series of frantic and violent physical encounters.

"I apologize," she offered when his eyes opened the next day. The fact that they were resting on the floor because their bed had not survived the rigors of last night was testament to the ferociousness of their repeated couplings.

"Are you uninjured?" she asked.

"Just a little sore," he groaned, but his attempts at standing up resulted in him falling to the ground again. "Okay, maybe more than a little sore," he muttered in obvious embarrassment about his helplessness.

"Stay where you are," T'Pol said and rose to get the massage oil.

"Well, not that I can walk anyway," he groaned.

"Stop it!" Jon ordered when Malcolm and Travis couldn't stop cackling after Trip had somewhat awkwardly staggered off the bride into the turbo lift. Everybody had a pretty good idea what had left the chief barely able to walk, but he knew that it not only inconvenienced the ship's science officer, he could also see that Hoshi, on her first day back on duty, was barely able to fight the tears, knowing that her therapy had been the reason for separating Trip and T'Pol long enough to cause a rather explosive night of something they didn't want to know too many details about. The request form for a new bunk that T'Pol had presented with a pronounced blush in the morning was indication enough that Trip had gotten a very practical demonstration of what it meant to be married to a Vulcan.

For the moment though there were more urgent matters to deal with. Their dilithium stock was running low and with none of the rare material available on Earth they had to find some of it out here. A warp five engine was not only faster than the engines of other human ships, it also consumed an amount of the rare material that was proportional to the speed advantage.

"Come," the captain groaned when the incessant door chime woke him up. He shook his head when a look at his clock told him it was three o'clock in the morning. The door opened and T'Pol walked in. If she hadn't been Vulcan, he would have thought she was pissed off.

Scratch that, she is pissed off, he thought with a shiver.

"The analysis you asked me for, captain. The dilithium deposits are of sufficient quality," she said gruffly and handed over, no, actually she shoved the PADD into his hand.

"T'Pol, I'll look at it in the morning."