Title: Precious Things: Points of Intersection
Setting: Star Trek 2009
Note: Many thanks to rexlapinii & elanya for beta-ing!
Summary: You can never really be lost once you've been found.
A.N.: Wow. Thank you to everyone who commented on the first installment of this series, both on Dreamwidth and on Livejournal. I just couldn't catch up! I never expected Precious Things to reach so many people the way it did. Thank you. :)

"What is she doing?"

The child waits for an answer, solemn and unsmiling. They are all solemn and unsmiling and Harry has no idea how to separate any of the children from the other, save that – he presumes – the boys all have that hair cut that resembles a bowl casually dropped on their heads while the girls tend to have longer hair. It is only luck that he guesses their names right each time, of course.

"Um. She's fussing?" His voice squeaks a touch on the last syllable and from the look he's given (it hasn't changed any, yet he's definitely feeling like he just failed some test), his answer has been deemed irrevocably lacking. "Well... C'mere, kid." Harry sighs and plops himself down on the steps, patting the stone next to him until the boy gives in and sits down next to him. They watch Harry's partner scuttle from one building to another in a manner Harry knows to be ferociously single-minded. She spends a moment inside each one, nearly the exact same amount of time (unless it takes her a bit longer to find her target) then moves on, purposeful and intent. Harry isn't worried and figures she'll settle down once she's done. He does know that if he tries to interrupt her, she'll bite him, which is really the reason why he's not interfering. He remembers exactly how sharp those teeth of hers are and has no desire to relive the experience if he can help it.

"She's making sure you're all okay. She's a very tactile thing, y'know. I think it might also be part of how she sees, if that makes any sense at all," he laughs at the last bit, the sound breaking through the quiet harmony of the street and he doesn't feel at all out of place or awkward about it while surrounded by so many quiet, dignified figures going on about their business.

"Why?"

Short and to the point. That's something every child is good at, Harry's come to realize over the years, regardless of their species. Harry himself is barely in his thirties and most of the Vulcans in the settlement would likely consider him a youngster, but that has no bearing on the issue at all in his opinion.

"Because, well," and now Harry is a touch embarrassed. This isn't the sort of thing he's used to explaining. His partner had previously kept her antics confined to Harry himself until recently and as such Harry had been hoping he'd get away with not explaining. A slight lifting of an eyebrow tells him explanations are going to occur, one way or another.

"I searched for information on her species on the datanet." The child gives Harry a piercing look. "I found nothing."

Harry's bright smile fades to something smaller and dimmer and he turns to watch his partner pause in her search to settle in a particularly bright patch of sunlight on a low, nearly completed stone roof. He can hear her chirring to herself contentedly, and the tips of her limbs flutter slightly with each breath she takes. It is cold in space she's given him to understand, and she always ends up sunning herself like this whenever they make planetfall. Harry makes a mental note to stop by more often – this planet is warm. She likes it here. Those are all very good reasons to drop by, he decides.

"Well, that's because there isn't any other like her around. I found her, you see. Just a little wee thing," Harry looks down at his hands, an incredulous gleam in his eyes. "She fit in my hands back then, both of them – look at her now, eating me out of ship and home every day!"

"You found her?" The boy's question cuts through Harry's bemused yet fond laughter and he finds himself nodding. Carefully and slowly. Suddenly aware of all the implications of what he is saying and to whom he is saying it.

"Yes. Some destroyed outpost on the far reaches of the Neutral Zone." Harry waves his hand as though the matter were inconsequential; as though the smell of death and despair were not something that haunted him to this very day. "She grew up fast, she did. Took to me on the spot, has a fit if I'm out of her sight for too long."

Harry watches her sun herself, unaware his smile has faded entirely.

"We haven't found another outpost like that one, since. But we'll find one, someday. We'll find her people." His words are a promise and though he is whispering to himself, he looks up from the boy beside him to see his partner peering down at him intently from her perch high above. He's learned not to worry over time, figured out that climbing is to her what breathing is to him. She squeaks loudly at him once, the sound bright and cheerful and then skitters off again in search of the children she still hasn't inspected, a trail of incomprehensible and happy chatter the only sign of her passage as she disappears from his sight. Eventually Harry looks down once more and the boy is still staring at him, waiting patiently. This one has figured out that if you stare and wait long enough, there'll be answers from this particular smuggler, Harry realizes.

"She thinks of you as family," he finally says, whispering the words to the boy as though sharing a secret.

"You found her. On that outpost." The boy pauses and tilts his head to the side, slowly. "She found us. When Vulcan was destroyed."

The words are a statement, not a question. Harry would say yes anyway, only suddenly his throat is too tight so instead he settles for a nod and a tight smile.

"That is logical." The boy nods once then stands up, dusting off his clothing with attentive, meticulous care.

There is far too much dust on this planet, Harry decides.

Vulcan was like that, too.

~*~

It has been three months since Harry last visited the settlement. He's found a remarkable archive of Vulcan music since, and liberated a nearly complete collection of musical instruments which he can make neither heads nor tail of, but all bear the stamp of a crafter he was most fond of and will never see again. It seems only normal to drop by and see if it might be something Solak might wish to keep and add to his settlement's steadily growing collection of artifacts and treasures.

He is busy laughing and swatting away at his partner as they exit the ship, the alien feverishly trying to scuttle around his bulky frame to do her usual round of 'check on the babies' right now on the spot. Though he'd normally be annoyed at her, the delighted gleam in her many eyes is such that instead he hurries up a bit more instead, finally flattening his rotund self to one side to let her squirm through.

When he finally clears the doorway himself the first thing Harry notices is the heat. It is reminiscent of that of Vulcan in winter, though milder perhaps. The same yet not. The second things he notices is that his partner has come to a stop merely a few feet away and is staring ahead, unmoving and silent.

The only time he's ever seen her attention so caught is a memory still fresh and sharp. Harry prefers not to think of the school they landed next to on Vulcan, or all the people they didn't have the time to find and save.

"What is it, luv?" His eyes are only for her, so it isn't until she raises one primary limb (along with three secondaries and five tertiaries, something Harry is certain she does because she is firm in her belief that her human partner is a touch dim as creatures go) that Harry realizes there are others on the dock and as he looks in the direction she is pointing at, Harry finds himself staring in surprise.

He grins crookedly after a moment and gently nudges her forward, insisting until she is moving under her own power. She looks back at him once, then twice, as though unsure.

"Go on then, old girl. Enough lollygagging about. They're waiting for you." Harry watches and wipes the dust out of his eyes repeatedly and maybe mutters something about Vulcan being far too fond of dust and other such damnable discomforts.

The first child in line is the one to whom he spoke the last time he stopped by. The boy bows gravely to the alien bearing down on him, her hesitation entirely gone now that she has reached him. He stretches both arms forward with a patient expression, watching in bright interest as the alien carefully pats him down with her many limbs and runs light, cautious tendrils over his hair and cheeks. With a satisfied chitter she sits back on her haunches, ready to inspect the next child in line. They each file by her, and it is only once she is done and ready to turn towards Harry that she finds herself suddenly stopping, the small hand resting lightly on her primary right limb locking her in place more securely than any chain might have ever managed.

Gravely, without a word, the children gather around her and run their hands over her limbs, then pat her cheeks gently. The alien doesn't move, as though afraid the moment might be a figment of her imagination. It is only when one of the girls slowly and meticulously mimics the light, careful chitters she always directs at the children that she finally settles down once more. With a low, warm purr she stretches out her arms, limbs splaying out in every direction to wrap loosely about those she claimed as family when their world died.

Current Mood: calm