Chapter 1: Azurro

{note}Authors Notes:

The credit for the title goes to Kevin Thomas Riley, who coined the phrase, when we were jokingly discussing the concept of a Vulcan soap opera/sitcom in the TriS forum. It started out as a series of short stories in various word prompt threads – those will reappear in longer form as chapters here.

This universe is deliberately wacky and is mainly meant for comic relief. Characters are more than occasionally acting out of such, so be warned if thou art a canon zealot. Several casualties of the show are still alive and there are some unusual pairings.

I've nicked Shran's name from Rigil Kents fantastic Endeavour series.{/note}

"Welcome aboard Shran and nice to see you again, too, Amanda."

"It's a pleasure to see you well, pink-skin."

"So, did he convince you to take his name, yet?" Archer teased Shran's wife.

"No way," she answered with a smirk. "Amanda Cole-th'Zoarhi – nobody would be able to pronounce that without breaking his tongue."

Turning to lead the way, Archer was left with no time to brace for impact, before he ended up on the floor. Henry, his son, who had just knocked him over, looked at him in shock.

Under the amused scrutiny of Shran and Amanda, Archer scrambled to to his feet and looked sternly into the eyes of his offspring, who was joined by an out-of-breath girl of the same age.

"Henry, T'Mir," Archer started. "What did we tell you about chasing each other around the ship?"

"You prohibited it, uncle Jon," T'Mir answered, looking at her feet with a guilty pout.

"Exactly; and you can see why. Henry, go to your mother and tell her what you did. T'Mir, you'll go with him. She'll decide on a suitable punishment."

"That means extra meditation, again," Henry mumbled to T'Mir dejectedly, took her by the hand and the two children trundled off to face the music.

"Uncle Jon?" Amanda asked with a grin.

"Not really, but they call all of us uncle or aunt. The blond she-devil is T'Mir, Trip and T'Pol's daughter and the truck that ran me over is our son Henry."

"He has pointy ears," Shran noticed with a wrinkled brow. "Does that mean, you also married a Vulcan?"

"T'Pau," Jon confirmed.

"You got married to the former Vulcan first minister?" Shran asked in disbelief.

"Long story and there'll be plenty time to tell it. Why don't you join us for our beer-bash in the Captain's mess at 1800?"

"I don't want to leave Amanda all alone for the evening," Shran refused.

"She won't be alone," Archer replied and turned to Amanda. "When Hoshi got the news that we'll give you a ride to Earth, she was thrilled to have a new addition to the weekly Ladies dinner. She'd be happy if you joined them."

"Ladies dinner?" Amanda asked.

"Yep, while we guys have our weekly bacchanalia, our wives meet for other, usually more civilized activities. I think today's program is an Andorian dinner, so you should feel right at home. Talas has been waiting for her chance to show off her cooking skills."

"Talas?" Shran wondered at the mentioning of his former tactical officer.

"Got hitched to Malcolm Reed, a year after Trip and T'Pol's wedding."

"And he's still alive?" Shran wondered.

"Surprisingly yes," Archer laughed as they arrived at the guest quarters. "He is my security chief for a reason, but he can tell you in person tonight. Let's get you settled in, shall we?"

"Evening, chaps," Malcolm quipped as he entered the Captains mess. "Hello, Shran, nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you, too. I heard some very interesting news..."

"I'm sure you did," Malcolm answered with a grin, scanning the the audience. "Where's Kov?"

"In sick bay," Trip answered. "He was doing some experiments today and made the grave mistake of asking T'Mir and Henry to assist him."

"He teaches physics at our school," Archer explained, noticing Shrans confused expression.

"You have a school on the ship?"

"We have 20 kids aboard," Archer answered with a chuckle. "We're a fertile bunch, ever since Phlox managed to combine human and Vulcan or Andorian genomes."

"How did they get Kov into sick bay?" Malcolm asked.

"They were experimenting with spring scales and Kov asked T'Mir to apply exactly one Newton of power."

"I can see, where that's going," Malcolm smirked. Everybody knew T'Mir's less than successful attempts at controlling her immense strength, which was unusual even for a non-hybrid Vulcan child.

"Yep," Trip continued. "She yanked that thing down to the tilt and let go. The weight hit Kov square in the face and knocked him out cold."

"Is he badly injured?" Travis asked.

"It speaks!" all men, except Shran, shouted and started laughing. Travis just rolled his eyes at Enterprise's most senior joke and joined the laughter.

"No, just a concussion and the mother of all green-eyes," Trip explained. "But I don't think he'll ask these two for assistance again any time soon."

"They seem to be dangerous," Shran noticed, while pouring out Andorian Ale, which he had brought for the occasion. "I saw them knocking over Archer today. So they maimed a Vulcan and knocked over the pink-skin all in one day?"

"Yep, was a quiet one today," Trip quipped, causing Shran to look at him in surprise.

"I think the record stands at 4 casualties a day," Malcolm clarified.

"Yeah," Trip recounted with a laugh. "First I was so stupid to take them on a tour of engineering. Henry prodded an open EPS relay, that Anna was working on and the thing blew up, sending me flying over the railing. That was their first kill of the day."

"Later they started a pillow fight," Jon continued, equally laughing.

"With T'Pol's meditation cushions," Trip butted in. "One of which hit T'Pol square in the face, when she came home to check in on them. She was caught off-guard and landed on her butt in a crowded corridor."

"No injuries, but her motherly dignity was seriously dented," he finished as all started to laugh again.

"Then there was the attempt on the life of the tactical officer," Malcolm said in a mock dramatic tone.

"Oh, yeah. They decided to 'play engineer' and disassembled and reassembled Henry's remote controlled model of Enterprise," Jon remembered.

"Needless to say they had some parts left after reassembling it," Trip continued, grinning. "One of them was the gyro-stabilizer. When they tested it, they of course lost control and smashed it into Mal's face, just as he came 'round the corner."

"That was one helluva black-eye," Travis remembered.

"It speaks!"

"Last victim of the day was poor Hoshi," Jon continued.

"Oh, dear," Malcolm said with a chuckle. "Henry had that new com device, which he'd nicked from T'Pau's desk and turned it on when he walked onto the bridge without permission. It wasn't calibrated yet and it caused a hideous feedback in Hoshi's ear-piece. She had a tinnitus for two weeks."

Shran looked around, antennae twirling in surprise as the pink-skins obviously found such hazardous antics amusing.

"Given half a chance, those two would break everything. But hell, we all love 'em to bits," Trip explained.

"And they're an item, that's for sure," Malcolm added.

"An item?" Shran asked.

"In ten to twelve years, those two are going to get married," Trip supplied and started chuckling. "When you'd ask them about when they started dating, they'll probably say 'when we were two'."

"They've been inseparable since earliest childhood," Malcolm explained further.

"At least it spares me the betrothal stuff," Trip continued. "Shortly after the kid's births both T'Pol and T'Pau were on the tradition trip. Must be some post-natal thing, considering they didn't go much by tradition themselves, us being humans and all. But before the two mom's could put their plan into practice the kids had taken things in their own hands."

Everyone laughed at that, while Shran refilled the glasses with a fresh round of ale.

"How come the children were born at the same time? I thought Vulcans can only conceive every seventh year?" Shran asked.