Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont'd)
Natasha downed the drink in one go, feeling the burning sensation of the alcohol as it slid down her throat. It was enough to make her impulsively wince and stifle a cough.
But it felt good.
“I’d say you needed that,” Jirel grinned from the other side of the table, as he leaned over and topped up her glass from the bottle of Antarean brandy he was holding.
Without pausing, she took another generous gulp. Jirel followed suit. They had returned to his cabin for a celebratory drink after the crew had agreed to go in search of the Jewel of Soraxx, on her suggestion. A suggestion that Jirel had been perfectly happy to go along with.
Part of her had wanted to retire to the solitude of her own cabin and try once again to get some sleep. But she knew what was waiting for her if she did that, the unwanted memories that would come racing through her head. Plus, she had spent the last three months in complete solitude, and part of her was craving some sort of company.
In fact, when she thought about her final few months onboard the Navajo, she had to admit that she’d spent a lot more than just her time on Kesmet IV in one form of solitude or another. And she realised that she didn’t much care for the idea of extending that experience. On the contrary, as the warming sensation of the alcohol filled her body and she eyed up the Trill opposite her, she felt like she’d been alone for so long that she needed something a little more than a drinking buddy.
“I definitely needed this,” she smiled back.
It was a slightly apologetic smile, if it was any sort of smile. But on the other side of the table, Jirel was starting to realise that he didn’t care what sort of smile it was. He liked it when she smiled.
“I guess I’m just excited,” she continued, “We might be this close to finding the jewel. I doubt I’d be able to sleep right now even with a big old hypospray of sedatives.”
Jirel picked the bottle back up and wiggled it, before topping both their glasses up. “Well, in my experience, this works better than sedatives anyway.”
They both took another slug.
“This jewel thing really means that much to you, huh?” Jirel mused, genuinely intrigued, “Feel kinda bad that I’m just hoping for a decent payday for once.”
She swirled the dark liquid around in her glass as she considered her answer.
“I guess it’s more like what it represents,” she said eventually, “Like I said, I didn’t like what I was having to do with Starfleet these last few years. Continuing my father’s work on the side always felt like an escape from all that.”
“You’re not worried you’re gonna be out of things to do if we really do find it?”
“Plenty more jewels in the galaxy,” she shrugged. She smiled again. This one was warmer, more playful. Jirel liked that one even more.
“Thank you,” she added suddenly, knocking him off balance for a moment.
“For what?”
She smirked, and considered the itch she was looking to scratch again. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the anticipation of finding the jewel, but she felt reassured that she’d chosen the right cabin.
“Really?” she replied, “For rescuing me? For believing my story about the jewel? For keeping a well-stocked liquor cabinet?”
She drained her glass and gestured for a refill to emphasise her point.
“Oh, right,” he nodded, his bravado levels returning to the fore, “Well, you’re more than welcome. Especially for the liquor.”
He puffed his chest out slightly and topped her glass up.
“It’s just,” she began, “You can’t imagine what it was like, down on that planet for so long.”
“Didn’t seem like the sort of place for a vacation,” he offered, trying to keep some levity in the conversation.
Her gaze drifted off into the middle distance as she reluctantly reminisced. For a moment, she forgot all about her itch. “It was tough. Especially the first couple of weeks. Before I found proper shelter. My only sanctuary was what was left of the escape pod. I was just lucky that there was a break in the storms, and I was able to spy the caves in the distance. I crawled over there with the comms unit strapped to my back and any supplies I could salvage, and…”
She paused, forcing any number of unwelcome memories from her mind.
“Still,” she managed, “That’s all in the past.”
Jirel had listened with rapt attention. As her story tailed off, he felt that he had to offer something. If only to see her smile again.
“Must have been lonely,” he eventually settled on, before immediately cursing himself internally. Nobody’s going to smile at that.
She drained her glass to steady herself. The itch now back at the forefront of her mind.
“It was,” she admitted, “But then, everyone gets lonely in space, right?”
She had no way of realising that those particular words had cut as deeply as they did into Jirel, but he quickly downed his own drink to disguise his reaction.
“Right,” he replied simply. But he remained sitting where he was.
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, and wondering how thick she was going to need to lay it on, if her itch was ever going to get scratched, she stood up and walked over to him.
“Still,” she continued, “Neither of us are alone right now…”
Jirel nodded. But either because of his lack of sleep, his own brandy consumption, or the fact that sometimes he could be as slow as a Nausicaan doorman, he still failed to pick up on what she really meant.
He couldn’t be entirely sure what finally did it. It may have been him seeing the lustful twinkle in her eyes as she reached him. It might have been the new smile that was added to the collection, a wide and lascivious one that caused his stomach to do a backflip. But in all truth, it was probably the way she ran her hand down his chest, towards the belt of his trousers.
Even Jirel, brandy and all, couldn’t fail to pick up on that sign.
* * * * *
Klath considered himself a seasoned warrior. An unflappably stoic man who had once served in the ranks of the Klingon Defence Force itself. But the sound was enough to test even a man of Klath’s resolve. With an annoyed growl, he looked up from his tactical console to see Sunek lazily leaning back in his pilot’s chair, putting the finishing touches to the loudest, longest yawn the Klingon had ever heard.
“Sleep well?” Denella grinned as she strode into the cockpit, clutching a replicated cup of tea.
Sunek ran a hand through his scraggly shock of hair and stretched, appearing to exaggerate even this process for effect. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” he said eventually.
“Do you have any idea how irritating you are?” Klath growled back.
Sunek looked innocently confused by this comment, before breaking into another record-breaking yawn.
“Go easy on him Klath,” Denella winked, “You know how much he needs his beauty sleep.”
“Hey!” the Vulcan shot back, “I’m gorgeous.”
“Anyway, we were always scheduled to get here this early.”
“Didn’t realise it’d be this early.”
“All that Vulcan intelligence he keeps going on about,” she mused as she slid into the seat behind her engineering console, “And he can’t even manage a simple course calculation.”
Sunek shook his head and stretched again, this one even more elaborate and pronounced than the first one. “See? This is how tired I am. That’s two free shots you’ve got in now, and I can’t even bring myself to formulate a comeback.”
Denella sipped her tea and looked out of the cockpit window at the planet they were slowly but surely approaching at impulse speeds. The planet that their passenger’s mysterious coordinates had led them to. On the face of it, there didn’t look to be much to write home about. A standard Class-M planet with a vast blue-tinged ocean in the southern hemisphere and green land masses to the north. The sort of ten-a-penny planet they’d usually fly past without a second thought.
“Anything going on down there?” she asked offhandedly.
“No intelligent lifeforms,” Klath reported as he studied his console, “The coordinates we were provided with suggest a location approximately 100 kilometres from the equator on the main northern continent.”
He paused, noting something else registering on his scans. Intrigued, Denella stood and idled over.
“Anything important?”
“It is something I noticed when I first got here,” he reported, “A Rigellian freighter on the edge of our sensor range.”
“That might be the least interesting thing I’ve ever heard,” Sunek quipped from the front of the cockpit, as he stifled another yawn.
His comment served merely to darken Klath’s mood. Denella offered him an understanding shrug. “Ok, I’ll bite. What’s so strange about this freighter?”
“We are nowhere near any of the standard shipping lanes or freighter paths in this sector,” Klath persisted with a note of caution.
“So? They’re probably just lost,” Sunek persisted, refusing to be ignored, “You know how stupid Rigellians can be.”
“I mean, I suppose it’s a bit strange,” Denella conceded, “But are you really worried about some random freighter?”
“Klingons do not get worried,” he replied, with a hint of irritation, “But given the current battle readiness of our vessel, I do not wish to be caught by surprise.”
“Think it might be Grenk?”
“If we managed to damage his shuttle severely, I would not put it past that Ferengi to have already secured alternative means of transportation.”
“Still, it’s a freighter,” Sunek sighed, “What’s he gonna do? Deliver us to death?”
Denella looked at the still-scowling Klingon and shrugged. He had a point.
“Anyway,” the Vulcan continued, “More importantly, how come we all had to get up this early and Jirel gets a lie in?”
Denella glanced around the cockpit, absently noticing that two people were still missing.
“Huh,” she replied, “Guess his alarm’s on the fritz again. I’ll go get him.”
She drained the last of her tea, then turned and paced down the steps of the cockpit, leaving Klath to return his full attention to the mystery of the Rigellian freighter.
Moments later, his attention was ruined by Sunek’s latest record-setting yawn.
* * * * *
The door to the cabin opened and Jirel carefully carried the two steaming plates of freshly-replicated eggs over to the table.
One of the things he had learned from his time growing up on Earth was how to make breakfast fit for any human. He’d even developed a serious taste for himself. Meanwhile, one of the things he had learned from living on a small ship with three crewmates was how to sneak said breakfast from the ship’s main replicator to his cabin without attracting attention. He was combining both skills right now to devastating effect, even if he did say so himself.
The scrambled eggs represented the final part of the morning repast for two he’d prepared, backed up by communal plates of lightly grilled toast and crispy bacon, fluffy hash browns and two enormous glasses of orange juice. As he set the eggs down, he stepped back and surveyed the feast with satisfaction.
He was in a good mood.
“What the hell’s all that?”
He whirled around to see Natasha, now awake and sitting up in bed. Unlike he had been hoping, there was no appreciation in her face as she surveyed the groaning table of food. Instead, her face was a mixture of shock and amusement.
“Oh, um, you’re awake! This is—”
He started to gesture to the elaborate meal, but Natasha cut him off as she swung her legs out of his bed and quickly started to dress in a flurry of excited anticipation.
“Have we arrived?” she asked as she zipped up her borrowed overalls.
“Um, where?”
“At the coordinates?” she said, more urgently, “We should be in orbit of the planet by now.”
“Oh, right,” Jirel floundered, still processing her dismissive reaction to his feast, “Um, yeah. Yep. I think so.”
She pulled on her boots and stood up, giving the Trill an amused grin. “Is that your full report, captain?”
“I mean, yes. Definitely. We are there. Here. Probably.”
“Perfect,” she nodded, walking towards the door of the cabin, “I’m gonna freshen up, then we need to get moving. Right?”
“Um…”
She paused and turned back, noting the slightly lost look on Jirel’s face. Maybe this hadn’t been the best way to scratch that particular itch after all, she thought to herself. Even if she had finally been able to get some sleep.
“Listen,” she said eventually, “Last night was a one-off thing. Yeah? Like I said, I’d been alone for a long time. That’s all. So…thanks?”
Jirel suddenly found himself wishing that he’d gone with a couple of bowls of oatmeal, flushing deeply as he pictured the extent of the morning after breakfast sitting over his shoulder. He racked his brain for the best way to at least save some face.
“Oh, yeah,” he managed to blurt out, swimming against a tidal wave of humiliation to try and reach the shores of his misplaced dignity, “Of course it was a one-off thing!”
She couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she gestured to the table. “Really? You put this much effort into all your one night stands?”
“Psh, that? That’s just some breakfast—My breakfast! A totally, completely normal amount of breakfast for one person.”
Probably not saving as much face as I’d like here, he admitted to himself, as she surveyed the mountain of food.
“Right…”
Just as Jirel switched all of his mental capacity into willing the ground to swallow him up, she turned and exited, leaving him mercifully alone. Still embarrassed, but relieved that things couldn’t get any more awkward. Seconds later, the door to his cabin opened again and Denella strode in, stopping when she saw the table of food, the messy bed and the sheepish Jirel.
“Oh,” she said simply, “Well, I guess that’s one mystery solved.”
“What?”
“I just bumped into our guest in the corridor and thought it was kinda weird that she wasn’t wearing a bra.”
She gestured down to where the item of clothing in question lay discarded next to his bed, and her face creased into an amused grin. Jirel looked down to where she was pointing, then over to the table, and eventually back to his engineer. All the while the ground refused to follow his pleas and swallow him.
Eventually, he simply sighed and shrugged in defeated acceptance, gesturing over to where the plates of eggs were getting cold.
“Breakfast?”