Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Jamie Blackthorne stretches as he looks up from the bed at the large picture window with its expanse of the Montana landscape. A light, fresh snow had fallen during the January night, as they had been celebrating a couple of birthdays and a couple of promotions.

He closes his eyes, feeling the stab of memory from almost two years ago. Of seeing the familiar shape of another love gazing in wonder at the snowfall.

Something rarely seen, if ever, on Vulcan.

Croft doesn’t close his eyes, but concentrates on the warmth lying against his chest, a temperature higher than his and the other two celebrants, but not as warm as that memory’s.

“I can hear you thinking, dah-lah,” comes the voice in the melange of accents, with a London accent prevalent. He lets himself smile at the word from her birthworld. A word meaning ‘beloved.’

Something he hadn’t ever thought to hear from her again towards him, since the death of T’Varilyn.

“I miss her, too,” she finishes. “But we have others that love us and that we love as well. Maybe not in the same way.”

As if to punctuate her words, they hear the laughter from below. At the same instance, the smell of frying meat wafts up to the loft. He feels the smile on Chandra’s lips against his chest as Decker Sinclair’s voice intersperses with Emma Rosewarne’s distinctive Boston accent.

One whose birthday they are celebrating, on this morning, as well as the night before. Along with one of those promoted in rank.

Chandra lifts up as he opens his eyes, her gray eyes on his face. “There really is no getting past it. You need to go see your new boss,” she says.

He looks back towards the window. “I know. But I’m not sure how I feel. I don’t know that I can fill T’Varilyn’s shoes in this job.”

Chandra reaches down and bites the lobe of his ear.

“Ow!” he exclaims. “What the hell?”

“You dumbass,” she replies. “She’d be the last one to say that you won’t be the best at the job that she did. And it wasn’t her job. She wasn’t the only one.”

She reaches down and soothes the bite with a kiss in the same place, then shifts her lips to his. As they breathe for each other, he feels the light of her Threads start to affect other places.

Namely his heart.

Mostly.

“You know you still have to worship me. It’s my birthday.”

“No it’s not. It’s Decker’s. Yours was on the first.”

“Well, it’s our birthday month. You still have to worship us.”

“Well, she’s down there with Emma. She can take care of all the worshiping for her.”

“No she’s not,” comes a voice from the door. Decker and Emma stand in the door. Jamie notices that both of them are only wearing enough clothing for the health department’s rules while cooking.

“Well, she shouldn’t burn down the house while she’s up here getting worshipped,” he replies.

Decker gives that wide smile. He notices that Emma’s eyes once again have that sparkle of life that she was known for. Not that she had ever really lost it.

There just seemed to be more of a sparkle than in awhile.

A lieutenant-commander’s bar’ll do that, he thinks. Along with getting to see her little man. The real love of her life. “I’m just glad that Prickly’s birthday isn’t until July 4th,” he grumbles, using the nickname that only a few could use for Emma.

“I guess we’ll go downstairs and make sure that we’ll have sustenance,” Decker replies. She blows them a kiss as both of them turn away. Emma gives Decker a quick kiss as they leave.

Mostly quick.

As the light builds in his head again from the movement of Chandra’s hips, he hears a familiar voice in his head. The voice of that bond, who had once held the job that he is going into, for the Federation.

You can do this. Get off of your ass, the T’Varilyn voice says.