The 17th of T'lakht in the year 14,781
T'Lyra heard the snap a half-second before Lin started screaming. She scooped her daughter up off the floor and held her close. Lin stopped crying almost at once, but her breathing came in huffs and tears rolled down her cheeks when T'Lyra pulled back to look at her.
"Box bit!"
"The box closed on your fingers," T'Lyra said. She took Lin's hand and examined it. There was no sign of injury. "You are unharmed."
"Hurt!"
"I'm sure it did, but you are well now." She recalled her parenting classes. The child took her cues from the parent. If T'Lyra was calm and confident, Lin would be also.
Just as she had been assured, Lin seemed convinced by this simple statement. She looked at her hand and, assured now that it was whole and undamaged, began to squirm to get down.
T'Lyra set her down and watched her begin playing again. May I always be able to take away your pain so easily. But even as she thought it, she knew it was a hopeless wish.
The 4th day of K'riBrax in the year 14,801
Lin was curled up on the pillows in the common area. T'Lyra sat down next to her, close enough to be of support, but far enough away that Lin was not forced to engage with her. Lin picked her head up and then let it drop back down. She ran her hand over the pillows. "He doesn't want me."
T'Lyra pursed her lips. "That fool does not know what he wants. He is suffering from the discontent of late adolescence and is acting out by rejecting his heritage and family in the hopes that it will help him to find the peace he does not even know he is seeking."
Lin sat up. "He said he has no use for a girl who cannot see past the indoctrination of the Cult of Ch'thya."
T'Lyra looked at the ceiling. "Someone who resorts to calling any ideological system he disagrees with a cult is not someone whose opinions I am inclined to credit."
"He said I am mentally under-formed and closed minded and too stupid to understand that he's trying to save me from a system which represses free thought and neuters artistic expression."
T'Lyra raised an eyebrow. "I refer you to my previous statement." She got up and poured a glass of water. "But what I credit is not the issue here. Do you believe him?"
Lin tucked her hair behind her ears. "I have never considered my thoughts repressed or my artistic expressions neutered by the Vulcan way of life."
"I am pleased to hear that, but I was referring to your mental formation and intellectual abilities." T'Lyra sat back down next to her, closer this time and handed her the water. "I consider you to be a rational person who is willing to entertain ideas that do not fit into her existing worldview, but has the sense to reject those which are fundamentally unsound without wasting undue mental energy on them."
Lin did not reply, and T'Lyra took a moment to bring her emotions under control before she said, "It would be unfortunate if the ravings of an angry child had a long-term effect on your concept of self."
Lin stared into the water and remained silent. T'Lyra abandoned the effort. Lin needed time.
"Your headache?"
"It continues to exist." Lin finally stopped staring and drank the water.
"That is a normal aftereffect of the breaking of a bond," T'Lyra said, unnecessarily. The healers had explained all of this earlier. "Do you want an analgesic?"
Lin set the cup down. "No. I am going to meditate." She got up. "I will be in my rooms."
T'Lyra blinked. Lin meditated half-heartedly and infrequently. She rarely did it out of anything other than a sense of obligation. "Very well."
She watched Lin go, her brows drawn together in concern, and her chest aching with the knowledge that she could not fix her daughter's pain.
Xan appeared after Lin had gone and put his hand on T'Lyra's shoulder. "She will be well in time."
That was true, but it still hurt to see her as she was. Lin's former bondmate--his name would never again be acknowledged if T'Lyra could help it--was fortunate indeed that the Cult of Ch'thya that he so disdained had taught her that revenge was illogical because in that moment she wanted nothing more than to skin him alive.
She allowed herself several seconds to dwell on that thought, and then put it aside and went to make dinner for her family.
The 15th day of et'Khior in the year 14,802
"No."
T'Yri raised an eyebrow. "You may wish to reconsider your tone."
T'Lyra dipped her head. "Forgive me," she said, and not changing her actual tone one bit, said, "No, t'sai."
T'Yri's mouth twisted. "It is not your choice."
The water carafe sat between them, and T'Lyra poured herself another glass. She took a long drink and began listing reasons. "She is little more than a year out from the breaking of her first bond. She is still mentally fragile whether she is willing to acknowledge it or not. More than that, she is barely out her adolescence, and much too young to marry."
T'Yri steepled her fingers. "Not too young. She is of an age to be legally considered in this situation."
T'Lyra slammed her hand down on the table, rattling the glasses but not T'Yri, whose eyes merely went hard. "She only turned twenty-two two days ago!"
T'Yri gave her a severe look. "Am I speaking to a Vulcan capable of a rational discourse, or a being too caught up in her emotions to have this conversation? I grant you this forewarning as a courtesy, and I permit your disrespect because I understand that it comes from a place of concern for your daughter but do not forget to whom you are speaking."
For a moment, the only sound in the room was T'Lyra's harsh breathing. T'Yri's stern but not unkind demeanor brought her back to herself. "I ask pardon," she said softly.
"I grant it," T'Yri said. "As to your point, I am well aware of her age. If she had turned twenty two three days ago, she would have turned up on the initial database search of potential mates and things would not now be so critical."
T'Lyra folded her hands on the table in front of her. "Just because she is old enough to legally be considered in this situation does not mean it is morally right."
"These situations are always morally fraught." T'Yri pressed her lips together. "Marrying one as young as her, especially under the circumstances, is less than ideal. But he will die."
"There must be another."
"There is not. He is a hard bond, especially at his age and most especially in the depths of the fever. A healer, an adept of Gol, with exceptional telepathic abilities. He needs a mind that is both receptive enough to accept his without fighting for control and strong enough to not be subsumed by him. Lin is the only person we have found whose psychological and telepathic profiles suggest a high chance of success."
"Suggest," T'Lyra repeated. "A chance."
"A chance, yes," T'Yri acceded. "But without action, his death is a certainty."
T'Lyra closed her eyes. "She is my daughter."
"Veral is someone's son," T'Yri said. T'Lyra opened her eyes, and saw that T'Yri's face had softened, a little. "I care for Lin. She is my first great-grandchild and I wish to protect her also. But I must do my duty by the clan. I must be logical. And she must be given the choice."
A choice, T'Yri said, but T'Lyra knew her daughter. Lin would see her duty and do it whatever it might cost her personally.
And thus it was. After T'Yri had swept out of the room and gone to prepare for the hasty wedding, Lin rubbed her hands together and looked uncertainly at her mother. "I do not know what to do next."
"The first thing you do is this," T'Lyra said, pressing a package into her hands. Lin looked at it, confused, and T'Lyra clarified. "Contraception. It would be inconvenient if a child were to result from this."
Lin's eyes widened. "Ah. Yes." She disappeared into her room, and when she returned, T'Lyra helped her dress. Lin was larger than her mother, so T'Lyra's marriage robe was not an option, but they found an old one belonging to some ancestor or another in the sub-basement that just about fit and smelled only a little musty.
"No undergarments," T'Lyra instructed. "You do not want anything that might provoke frustration." The only time Xan had come close to hurting her when they were married was when he had become angry that he could not get her naked as quickly as he wanted.
Lin flushed.
"Did you and your former bondmate--"
"No."
T'Lyra's fist clenched. She relaxed it. Emotionality would not help the situation. "That is what I thought. Remember that this is not all of what sexuality is. This will be awkward and probably unpleasant, but when he is rational again, once you know each other better, you will be able to engage with the more enjoyable aspects of physicality."
Lin frowned. "You assume he will want to know me better. He has no choice in this."
Before T'Lyra could respond, T'Yri commed to say that they were ready. They were beamed directly to a seaside house a few hundred kilometers south of Shi'aluk. A site-to-site beam. Expensive. He really was close to death.
A steady wind blew off of the ocean, messing Lin's loose hair up even further. T'Lyra regretted the lack of time to braid her hair--unlike her undergarments, Xan had found her braids enrapturing, and the time he had taken to almost reverently unbind her hair had given her space to recover herself from the stress of the wedding ceremony--but there was nothing to be done now.
They stepped into the public area of the home, and T'Lyra saw her daughter's husband for the first time. Lin drew a sharp breath. T'Lyra looked at T'Yri, who looked back at her unblinking, her expression asking if T'Lyra was so illogical as to judge someone by their appearance.
It was not his appearance as such, it was his size. Head and shoulders taller than the next tallest person in the room, and broad besides. His hands were trembling and his face was flushed and his eyes were glassy and unfocused. He was breathing heavily, and when his lowered his head, he looked like nothing so much as an angry sha'amii.
You want me to leave my daughter alone with that.
T'Lyra pressed her lips together. Perhaps she was guilty of judging him by his appearance.
Another man, smaller than the other, but by no means small, stepped forward. He could not have been more different in appearance than Veral. Where Veral was pale and roughly formed, this man had rich tan skin and the dark, inscrutable eyes so prized by the poets. Where Veral's movements were jerky and anxious, this one was all elegance and grace. "I ask that you not judge my friend by who he is now," he said. He looked at Lin. "He is a good man, and I am more grateful than I can say for your aid."
Neither of them had time to respond before T'Yri called the matter to order.
The ceremony proceeded quickly. Lin did not take her eyes off of Veral the entire time. Veral for his part kept glancing around, confused. T'Lyra pitied him. Xan had burned at their wedding as all men must, but he had not yet descended into plak tow. At least he had known where he was and what was happening. The madness of plak tow had come later, when they were alone. He had not had to bear that indignity in public.
At the end of the ceremony, Veral seemed to understand that Lin was now his wife. He stared at her, unblinking, and took a step toward her. Lin looked up at him.
T'Yri gestured and the wedding party left the two of them alone. T'Lyra glanced one last time over her shoulder as she left.
Please do not kill my child, she thought, as if her thoughts could reach him, as if they could influence the outcome. The risk, she reminded herself, was low. But it did still exist.
She went home, gardened, worked at making preserves, straightened things that did not need straightening, and tried to keep her concerns at bay.
Suvin asked where his sister was and she told him. He was old enough to have some conception of what her marriage meant, but only formed his mouth into a little 'o' and went back to his play.
"What do you think of him?" Xan asked, when they were alone in their rooms.
T'Lyra frowned. "The blood fever had taken him before I ever laid eyes on him. Who can judge someone in that state?"
Xan looked away and she felt his discomfort at the thought of being married in the depths of plak tow. She took his hand. They had burned together four times. It was not easy to watch her husband lose his reason to pon farr, but there was a trust between them that mitigated the worst of it. He trusted that she would serve as his logic when he had none of his own, and she trusted that even in the depths of the fever, he would still be at his core the man that she knew to be good to her.
Lin had no such trust, no such assurances.
Xan squeezed her hand. "The clan would not have given her to him if they thought there was a real possibility he would harm her."
But he too slept restlessly that night and in the morning, Xan decided to stay at home and do research rather than return to his work on the boat.
Despite the circumstances, it was pleasant to have him with her. She tended to be alone during the day. She had grown up in a much larger house, several sprawling generations together. This house, conveniently located and comfortable though it was, was too small to afford them the luxury of housing a branch of their family with them. A single older relative would fit nicely, but older family members were in high demand as companions for younger families, and neither T'Lyra nor Xan had yet been able to lure a foremother or forefather to live with them.
When she was finished with the most pressing of her house management work, she lay next to him him on pillows next to the firepot, her head in his lap. He played with her hair with one hand while he worked on a PADD with the other.
Mid-afternoon, they heard a step in the hall, and Lin appeared a moment later, unharmed and seemingly well, but far too soon for things to have gone entirely right.
Xan and T'Lyra looked at each other, and Xan spoke first, wisely asking a relatively simple question to break the silence. "Whom do we address?"
Lin blinked. "Ah." She had not given it any thought. "T'Lin, I suppose." She paused, thinking. "Yes, T'Lin. That seems right."
"T'Lin," T'Lyra said. "You are home sooner than expected. Is your husband...well?"
"Yes. He left."
Xan touched her arm. Be calm, aduna.
"I see," T'Lyra managed. "What did he say when he left?"
T'Lin made a gesture of unconcern. T'Lyra knew her daughter well enough to know that it was a false one. "Nothing, really. I went for a walk and when I came back he had gone."
"Without a word?"
Xan's grip tightened. Be logical.
T'Lyra looked at him. Even without their bond, she could read his expression easily and it urged her not to speak thoughtlessly.
"We exchanged a few words," T'Lin said. "Not many." She walked to the window and looked out. "It is hardly surprising. He did not even know who I was. Of course he wished to go." She turned back. "I looked him up. He is a doctor, and a son of the house of Xkasha. He has been to Gol, and earned the right to be called a healer-adept. I am not surprised he wants little to do with a woman who is barely old enough to be a wife and has accomplished nothing in her time."
Xan began to speak, but T'Lin held up her hand. "I am very tired. Please excuse me."
"Of course," Xan said.
When she was gone, Xan let go of T'Lyra's arm and turned to face her. "Think before you act."
"He left!"
"Yes," said Xan calmly. He was almost always calm. She had a predisposition to volatility, and her emotional control was far from perfect. The clan had wisely paired her with a man who was naturally steady.
His presence now soothed her and she continued with less agitation. "He left without even meeting us. He left without even telling her he was leaving."
Xan pressed his mouth into a thin line. He was not sanguine about it either. "Yes. But, aduna, I wanted to crawl into a dark hole after our marriage, and I had the benefit of knowing who my wife was."
She frowned. "You excuse this behavior?"
"I do not excuse it, but I do understand it."
She nodded slowly. "I have a call to make."
The call was routed to Shi'Kahr, and a house servant put her on hold, which did not improve T'Lyra's state of mind. Is this the twelfth millennium that we still must subject ourselves to the Houses that hold land in Shi'Kahr?
When the call was answered, T'Lyra saw a broad-faced, pale-skinned woman with strong features and the haircut that everyone in the major cities seemed to have adopted in the last few centuries. It was flattering on some people. She was not one of them.
Before T'Lyra could speak, she said, "I am T'Kara, the mother of Veral. T'sai, I ask your pardon. My son behaved stupidly, but he is not, I do not think, quite the fool that his recent actions make him appear."
T'Lyra's anger began to ebb. Despite a strong desire to hold onto it, she let it go. Bad enough that she had allowed it to flare up at all. Deliberately maintaining it would be the height of illogic.
"Then you know that he left. After T'Lin was willing to take a chance on him, he simply left."
Her eye twitched. "Yes, I know. And I intend to speak to him about it. He was not being intentionally disrespectful." She closed her eyes, briefly. "He panicked," she said, frankly. "It is unfortunate but not, I hope, unforgivable."
"Is he given to panic?"
"Under most circumstances, his is a rational, level-headed man with excellent emotional control."
T'Kara would have the bias of a mother, but T'Lyra decided to believe her.
"Shall I send him back?" T'Kara asked.
"No." T'Lyra paused, wondering how much to say. T'Lin had internalized some of what her former bondmate had said to her, was uncertain of her own worth, and would not trust anything Veral said if he came back at the behest of his mother. If there was any hope of salvaging this marriage, the two of them needed to come together on their own, not because of parental fiat. But T'Lyra was not inclined to share this thought process with T'Kara. That T'Lin had suffered a broken bond would be known to anyone who saw her clan file, but T'Kara did not need to know about her mental state in the aftermath of that. So T'Lyra said only, "Knowing my daughter as I do, I think a heavy-handed approach would be unproductive."
"It is likewise with Veral. He will go, if I insist, but he will not appreciate the intrusion in his affairs, and it may complicate the development of their relationship."
"So we are agreed. We will give them space. Encouragement, perhaps, but not outright commands."
T'Kara tipped her head in agreement. "We are agreed." She paused for a moment. "And, please allow me to assure you that my family does value your daughter, and welcomes her. Also my son, despite his poor showing, is worthy of her."
That, T'Lyra thought after the comm was closed, remained to be seen.
The 24th day of et'Khior in the year 14,803
It took several seconds for the subspace connection to resolve. The picture was spotty.
"How soon can you come?"
There was a pause, longer even than the 4.3 second time delay could account for. "I am not coming. To do so would be illogical."
T'Lyra's nails dug into her palm. "Explain your logic."
Another pause. The picture cut in and out a few times more and then finally resolved. Veral was sitting in a small room. An ugly painting was visible over his left shoulder. "T'Lin is in a medically induced coma. Her chance of survival is currently estimated at 34 percent. My presence will not improve those odds, nor will it bring her any comfort in her present state. My presence on the Eian will contribute to the saving of lives here." He looked briefly at the ceiling and then back at her. "Also, it is unlikely that I would be allowed to leave even if I asked it. We are overburdened here, and currently--"
The screen went black and a red "CENSORED" image appeared. When it cleared, Veral was frowning and muttered something about the overly sensitive automated censors. "The point is, coming home is not something easily done. I might not be given leave even if I ask."
"But you will not ask," T'Lyra said.
"No. As I said, I do not think it logical. My duty is here."
Your duty is to your wife! she wanted to scream, but she did not.
A small message appeared on the screen, informing them that they had less than one minute left in the call. Subspace comm time was heavily rationed.
"Then there is nothing left to discuss," she said. "I will inform you if anything changes."
He raised his hand in the ta'al. T'Lyra hesitated, and then returned it just before the comm cut out.
She was standing in a private communications booth in the lobby of the Shi'kahr hospital, and she rested her head against the wall breathing slowly. The past fifteen days since the ship carrying T'Lin had arrived and they had learned the full extent of her injuries had been something of a waking nightmare and she kept illogically hoping that something would wake her up, but reality was not so easily thwarted.
She picked her head up and exited the booth, stepping into the large and bright and beautiful lobby of the hospital. T'Lin would have been able to tell her much about the architectural style and design elements, and what they said about the society that had created them. But T'Lin was four floors up, inside of a transparent aluminum containment unit, and could not tell her anything.
Two staircases arranged in a double helix formation dominated the space, and T'Lyra stared at them for a while, incredulous at how many aliens tried to walk up the down side of the helix despite clear signage. She frowned, realized that she was hesitating, and set out for the fourth floor.
The sight of the sign reading "Burn Unit" made her feel slightly nauseated. T'Lin had, fortunately, been in stasis since immediately following her injuries, and had been unconscious ever since her arrival at the hospital. Whatever she may have experienced at the time of her injury, or in the time between being taken out of stasis and put into a coma...T'Lyra found she was too much of a coward to contemplate that.
T'Lin's room was brightly lit and sterile. T'Lin herself was barely visible. She was submerged inside of a thick, yellow-tinged biogenic gel that was supposed to help her regrow large portions of her nervous system because the damage was too extensive to be fixed by more conventional methods. Inside of it, she looked more like the vague shape of a Vulcan than the daughter T'Lyra knew. The mess of tubes and wires in there with her added to the effect. Breathing tubes, feeding tubes, tubes to remove waste, tubes that carried away her blood to do the filtration that her kidneys could not, and tubes that brought it back after. Nearly every system in her body was being supported or outright replaced by a machine.
T'Lyra touched the side of the containment unit. She closed her eyes. My child.
An intentionally heavy step startled her and gave her a moment to collect herself. She looked back and saw a nurse enter. He began taking readings and adjusting settings. When he was done, he looked at her. "Have you left the hospital in the last three days?"
"No."
He did not insult her by softening his voice or mincing his words. "There is nothing for you to do here. If your daughter is going to die, she will do it without or without you."
She stared into the containment unit. "Her husband is not coming. He is away, taking care of other people."
"There is nothing for him to do here either," the nurse said. He seemed to realize that she was not inclined to attend to him, and left.
When he was gone, T'Lyra sat down on the hard stool that was in the corner of the room. This was not a room designed for comfort. There were no windows, no pictures, no comfortable chairs.
Xan had once been hospitalized overnight because of a bad infection. That room had been airy and warm and had a large window through which a lush courtyard was visible. There had been a chair by the bed for her to sit with him for as long as they liked. Logically, that had made sense because Xan had been conscious, and in no small amount of discomfort, and psychologically he had benefited from all of those things.
T'Lin was not conscious to psychologically benefit from anything, and T'Lyra was doing neither her daughter nor herself any good by refusing to leave her. The nurse was right. Veral was right. There was no logic in him coming home when he could do nothing for T'Lin. It did not matter if she died with someone by her side or not. T'Lin would not know the difference, and did T'Lyra really need to witness her death?
She rubbed at her forehead, exhausted, and left the room. In the hall, she saw an unfamiliar man speaking to one of the nurses. The nurse gestured to T'Lyra, and he approached her.
"T'sai, I am Skan, the father of Veral." He was tall, though not nearly as large as his son, and had an appearance that she could only describe as soft. Fatter than the average Vulcan, with a rounded face, large hooded eyes, bushy eyebrows, and thick lips. "My son contacted me to tell me what has happened. I wish to tell you that my family is at your service. Anything that is in our power to grant is yours."
She sagged, buried her face in her hands and squeezed her eyes tight. When she picked her head up, she noted that Skan had shifted his body to shield her from any prying eyes, and was examining the palms of his hands as if they were the most interesting thing in the world, giving her what privacy he could.
"I ask pardon," T'Lyra said.
"The cause is sufficient." He looked her over. "When did you last sleep?"
She frowned. "Six days ago, before Xan left. Xan, my husband, he was here but he had to leave." Words began tumbling out faster and faster. "The clan took him from the work he has done for decades and relegated him to an antimatter processing plant orbiting Arish. His work was deemed non-essential and he knows how to work those machines, so the clan moved him, but he is psychologically unsuited to the work and it wears on him. But it's necessary work, and he is very good at it, so he could only get nine days despite what has happened. And my son Suvin is with T'Reya. She is old enough to be exempted from the service requirements, but she left her art and came to help me. I have two children. I have been acting as though I only have one, but I have two and it is not right to leave Suvin with someone he has only met a few times before. I need to go home."
She stopped and caught her breath. What this man must think of her.
But Skan only nodded slowly and said, "Perhaps, before you go, you will do me the honor of allowing me to open my home to you. It is not far from here, and most of the people who share it with me are away. I have many empty beds where you may rest. Some sleep, I think, and a meal, and some time in meditation, will do you a great deal of good."
"Yes." She squared her shoulders. "I thank you, yes."
They began to walk out of the hospital. Skan, she noted, stayed about a half-step behind her, and had his hands in a position as if to catch her if necessary. Did she really look as if she was about to fall over?
"Veral is not coming," she said as they got on the lift. Skan looked at her, his expression unreadable, and she added, "It is the logical choice. I realize that."
"It is," he said carefully. "But it was not a decision he made easily. He does care for your daughter."
Does he? she wondered, but she kept silent. Time would tell, assuming T'Lin had any left.
The 5th day of Z'at in the year 14,804
"How is she?"
The bed dipped as Xan got into it. Suvin was asleep between them. He had stopped sleeping with them after his khas'wan, declaring himself too old for childish things, but since T'Lin's injury, he had spent most nights in bed with her. Usually Xan was gone and the bed was more than large enough, but the three of them just fit.
"She seemed well, relatively, today," Xan said. "The physical therapist came. She can lift her left leg four centimeters off the bed. Right leg five centimeters. Grip strength has improved two percent over her last session."
"Delvok or T'Gai?"
"I did not get the name, but the therapist was female, so statistically I would assume T'Gai."
T'Lyra pulled the blankets up over her shoulder. "They are both female," she said. Delvok was a unisex name that tended male, but this Delvok was indeed female.
"Ah," said Xan. "Well, does it matter?"
"I suppose not right at this moment." For some reason, T'Lin got better results with Delvok, so she was curious about the improvement in grip strength and who had attended the two sessions, but she could look it up later. "But not asking the name of the therapist does betray a certain lack of--of attention." She did not say a lack of concern. Xan would not appreciate that, and it was not true.
Xan lay down and stared up at the ceiling. "The therapist came. She took T'Lin through a short series of exercises. You will forgive me if I attended more to the fact that my twenty-three year old daughter can barely lift her own head than the name of the physical therapist trying to re-teach her how to make a fist."
T'Lyra rubbed at her eyes. "Yes. I forget that you are not accustomed to it."
Xan would leave her again the day after tomorrow, for another two week shift on the antimatter processing planet. He worked sixteen days at a stretch, and was given four off to see his family before going back. They were running lean, forcing their workers to work shifts that would have been wildly illegal under normal circumstances, because most of the people who knew how to work those machines had been given to Starfleet to support their operations.
She recalled when he had been training to be an antimatter technician, before they were ever married, when they had been little more than betrothed children. He liked Vulcan pre-warp starships. He thought he wanted to work on one of the cargo ships similar to the ones he had studied. Three years into his training, he had admitted to himself that an intellectual interest did not translate into a desire to adopt the vocation and abruptly began training for oceanic agriculture instead.
Being a seaweed farmer suited him far better, but after finding the work he liked best and working at it for decades, now he had been forced back into the work he intensely disliked. He was mentally drained. T'Lyra reached across Suvin and touched his shoulder. He brushed his fingers against her hand and rolled onto his side, away from her.
Suvin shifted closer to her and pressed himself against her side. She absently wrapped her arm around him and began trying to figure out the best use of her time the following day. T'Lin said she did not need someone at the hospital with her every day, but her psychologist said there was a marked difference in her mental state on days when a parent was present and when one was not. It was possible the effect might be replicated by someone other than a parent, but T'Lin still would not let anyone other than Xan and T'Lyra see her.
Still, it was only the one day...except T'Lin had an unpleasant procedure scheduled, and really should not be alone for it.
Yet, Xan deserved one day to himself, to do something he actually enjoyed, and it would be better if she did it with him. Or, if she went to the hospital, perhaps Xan and Suvin could do something together. She frowned as the thought that she was neglecting her son, ever-present in her mind, intruded and pointed out that Suvin had not gotten the attention of both of his parents in far too long.
She laid awake long into the night with the competing needs of all of them battling in her mind, and woke up exhausted and still unsure.
The 2nd day of T'lakht in the year 14,804
"Stop taking your eyes out."
"They itch," T'Lin said, but she dutifully put her eyes back in and let her hands rest in her lap. Her sightless prosthetic eyes were there only to keep her eye sockets in the correct condition to allow for a transplant of new biological eyes once they became available. Because they were functional and temporary, no care had been given to their appearance. They were gold in color, and stood out oddly against the green flush of her still-new skin.
T'Lin was sitting up cross-legged in her hospital bed. Her hair had begun to regrow, and downy dark-brown hair formed a fuzzy haze around her head. A tactile edition of some book or another was open on the bed in front of her, currently unattended. The occupational therapist had been surprised that T'Lin had insisted on learning the tactile alphabet when her blindness was almost certainly temporary and there were other ways for her to access information. T'Lyra was not in the least surprised. T'Lin liked books, paper books, and being without them until her new eyes were ready would have seemed to her more unbearable than many of the other agonies she had endured.
T'Lyra quickly turned her mind from those. T'Lin was doing well. Better than they had had reason to hope all those many months ago when she had arrived on Vulcan so badly burned as to be unrecognizable.
T'Lin tapped her fingers against the bed. She was bored, T'Lyra realized with a flood of relief that was so strong she sat down on the edge of the bed. She was well enough to be bored. Already her doctors had begun talking about sending her home. Another month, maybe less, and they might have her back at home.
T'Lin must have sensed something, because she reached and found T'Lyra's hand, squeezed it gently. T'Lyra did not squeeze back, although she wanted too. T'Lin's pain threshold was very low thanks to her regrown nerves, and they had to be gentle with her.
T'Lin pulled her hand back and reached for a sheaf of papers on the table by her bed. She flicked through them quickly, and pulled one out. She began running her fingers along the raised edges of the tactile script. Her eyebrows, still barely shadows on her face, drew together.
"He is struggling."
There was no question of who the 'he' in question was. Veral still had not come home, despite the fact that his presence now would have been very useful, but he was writing to T'Lin regularly. What was enclosed in those letters was not for T'Lyra to know, but she did find it reassuring that he had asked his parents to replicate his letters in tactile script so that T'Lin could read them in her preferred format. It showed a thoughtfulness and attention to detail that was promising.
"Does he say that?" T'Lyra asked.
"Not precisely." She put the letter away. "The war is hurting everyone," she said, clipped and closing the topic in a way that suggested she regretted opening it at all.
T'Lyra did not press the issue. Xan was struggling also. T'Lyra did everything she could to ease his burden. Care for Xan, care for Suvin, care for T'Lin. T'Reya was a help in her way, and T'Lyra was grateful for her presence, but she was too old for hard physical work, and child care and household management did not come naturally to her, and she was a bad cook besides. Had they not lived in an age of household replicators and easy delivery of prepared food, T'Lyra doubted any of them would have eaten a proper meal in the last year.
She had begun having dreams in which the members of her family bit chunks out of her until there was nothing left, which was really her subconscious being too blunt for comfort.
"Is there any news about the war?" T'Lin asked.
"There is news," T'Lyra said. "None of it is good." She considered, then, deciding that being gently with T'Lin could not mean hiding things from her, added, "Aloran is dead."
T'Lin closed her sightless, unreal eyes.
"I grieve with thee," T'Lyra said, and T'Lin nodded. Aloran had been T'Lin's schoolmate and close associate.
T'Lin did not speak for some time. T'Lyra gave her the respect of silence. When she seemed ready again to interact, she said, "We have begun making preparation for your homecoming so that you will be comfortable when you arrive."
"I will not be comfortable again until this war is over," T'Lin said.
T'Lyra could not disagree.
The 27th day of T'khKhuti in the year 14,805
By tacit agreement, no one was commenting on T'Lin's frequent glances toward the staircase that led down to the entranceway, not even Suvin. Xan was amused, although his expression was placid as always, and T'Lyra was the only one who could know what he was thinking.
T'Lyra's own thoughts were more serious. Veral had left right after the wedding. He had not come home, had not even asked to come home, when T'Lin had been injured. And now that he was back on Vulcan, he had waited fifty nine days to come see T'Lin. T'Lin excused him again and again, and T'Lyra was prepared to admit that she knew her husband best. But T'Lin had also refused to see that her first bondmate did not care for her as he should until the very end, and so T'Lyra remained...cautious.
When the chime finally sounded, Xan gestured for Suvin to get the door. T'Lin got to her feet faster than was dignified.
T'Lyra had seen Veral in person only twice before. First at the wedding, and then later very briefly when she had accompanied T'Lin to Shi'kahr shortly after the start of the war. He had grown thinner, and there was a tiredness that seemed to pervade his entire being.
Greetings were carried out, and then she and Xan sat down with T'Lin and Veral over tea. No one spoke. A few times Veral looked as if he might, but he changed his mind each time. Surak himself had said that a person's silence could be more telling than their speech. He was wounded, T'Lyra realized. It was evident in the worn look in his eyes, the way he shifted his body, as if he had lost the knack for sitting still, even the way he drank his tea. He would start to guzzle it, and then stop and set it down, as if remembering each time that he did not have to consume it as quickly as possible.
If he was this twitchy now, how bad had he been when he went to Gol?
Xan and T'Lyra withdrew, and T'Lyra went to sit by the computer in the corner of the room, although her mind was not on the screen in front of her, but on the conversation happening across the room, too quietly for her to hear. She watched it in the reflection of the polished bronze artwork on the wall. T'Lin was being obvious, angling her body toward Veral, extending her hand in the ozh'esta. Veral had his back to T'Lyra, and she could not get a sense of his response.
T'Lin and Veral went upstairs together, and T'Lin got up to finish preparing their meal. Xan followed her up to the roof, to the outdoor kitchen where she had the cold food sitting in the 'fresher and the hot food cooking.
He stood, hands behind his back, watching her work for a time before saying, "She cares for him."
"That is all too obvious." She stirred the salad and began garnishing the pok tar with edible flowers. "But I cannot figure him out."
"It is not for you to figure him out. You already have a relationship to work at." He gestured to himself.
T'Lyra handed him the finished salad and pointed to the table. "We no longer need work."
"Yes, we do," he said, before setting it down. He straighted. "We have since I got back, but you refuse to acknowledge it." He crossed to her. "You have become so invested in your role as caretaker that you have let it take over everything else."
T'Lyra realized she still had a spoon in her hand and set it down. "T'Lin needs me."
"T'Lin needed you. Now she is better. Now she needs little assistance, and what she does need certainly does not necessitate you minding her marriage for her. Yes, she cares for him. Yes, if he treats her badly, it will hurt her. I too am tired of seeing her hurt. But their relationship must remain their own. If you want a marriage to spend your mental energy on, perhaps you could turn your attention to ours."
She raised an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
"I would like to once again be your husband, and not simply an item on your list to be crossed off."
"I do not do that."
"Everything about us is perfunctory. Even when we have sex, you are thinking about Suvin's school assignments and T'Lin's medication regimen and what you are going to prepare for breakfast. And it is astonishing I know even that much about your thoughts given how remote you hold them now." He stepped closer and touched her temple. "Meld with me tonight."
The thought frightened her, she realized. She shoved the fear away. "I do not think that is a good idea."
"Why?"
"Because I do not want to."
He shook his head. "You are afraid to. That is different."
She put her palms on the workstation and let her weight shift forward onto her arms. Her head dropped until her chin almost touched her chest. Xan stepped closer, put his hand on her back. She sucked in a sharp breath. "I have not attended to the mental disciplines as I ought. My mind is untidy. You may not like what you find in it."
"I do not need to like it. I do need to know it." He pressed his lips to her temple and murmured, "Do you think after everything that has occurred I am a shining beacon of Vulcan logic? Perhaps we can tidy each other."
She heard Suvin and Pel coming up the stairs and said quickly, before fear overcame her, "I will meld with you."
Dinner passed convivially. During the time for conversation, Pel and Suvin asked intrusive questions, and Veral answered them calmly. Mindful of the logic of what Xan had said, every time she caught herself analyzing every look that passed between T'Lin and Veral, she forced her attention to something else.
Then T'Lin's pain struck. Suvin ran for T'Lin's medication and handed it to Veral. T'Lyra ignored the small part of her that wanted to object that she was the one for the task. If nothing else, Veral was a doctor, and would be far better suited to the job than she.
It hurt, as it always did, and hurt more because she knew that what she was experiencing was a pale shadow of what T'Lin was enduring. But the medication worked once again, and the pain began to ease. T'Lyra rose to help her daughter, but T'Lin reached for Veral instead.
Veral glanced at her, and she met his eyes for a moment, and thought she saw understanding in them.
When T'Lin was situated, T'Lyra went to her rooms. Xan was there, arranging his collection of model pre-warp spaceships. T'Lyra sat on the pillows arranged on the floor.
"I missed you," she said.
Xan did not turn back from his task. "I missed you as well."
"At the time in my life when I had never needed you more, you weren't here in any meaningful way." He did turn then, and crossed the room, and sat down across from her. She continued, "Even when you were at home, you were too tired and mentally drained to be anything other than one more burden. However logical it may have been for you to work, whatever greater good outweighed the needs of our family, I resented it. I resented you. I still do. It is illogical and unreasonable and I know that, but I cannot deny it."
Xan tucked his legs under himself, neatly arranging his skirt. He was dressed as he usually was around the house, in a long, ankle-length skirt, an i'kae-zhel that covered his abdomen and left his chest bare, and a loose-fitting robe. His shoulder-length hair was loose around his face.
"I resented Veral as well, because he was not here when T'Lin needed him. The two of you meshed in my mind, and however much I logically know that you had no choice, I am struggling to conquer the emotions left in the wake of what happened."
Xan steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips in thought. When he was done thinking, he reached for her hand and she gave it to him. It was the heavily calloused hand of someone who did physical labor, but warm and gentle and comforting all the same.
"I will not apologize because I have nothing to apologize for. But I will say that I am grateful that I have you as a wife, because when I was away working for the greater good, knowing that my home and my children were in the most capable hands I could imagine was a comfort I cannot express."
She met his eyes, dark and intelligent and calm. "There is much that cannot be expressed in words."
She reached for his meld points, found them, and let herself be lost in him.
The 5th day of T'lakht in the year 14,805
T'Lyra looked up at the soft huff of pain. T'Lin yanked her hand back from the cooking surface and examined it.
"Let me see," Veral said, crossing the kitchen. He took her hand and held it in the bright natural light coming through the window.
"I am uninjured," T'Lin said. "I merely brushed my hand against the hot pan." But she consented to allow him to examine her nevertheless.
Apparently satisfied that she was indeed unharmed, he released her hand and moved to the stove. "I will finish this," he said. "You should rest."
T'Lin had had a flare of pain the previous night, a bad one. T'Lyra had felt it, lying in her bed, but she had not left her room. She had trusted her daughter to Veral's care.
T'Lin looked like she wanted to object, but did not, and left the kitchen. Veral started adding the chopped vegetables to the pan, and then paused. As if sensing her scrutiny, he looked at T'Lyra. "Is there a problem?"
"No," T'Lyra assured him. "You will do fine."
end