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The shuttlepod clunked onto the docking bay of the tiny moon station with a decidedly rusty click, and Christine grimaced. She might need to get old Paracelsus out here for a good deoxidization session. But the pressure doors worked fine, and she slung her pack up and strode out into the dimly lit, narrow hallways, all cluttered with a junkyard’s worth of engineering gear mixed in with grasses and fungi and algae, growing in old wheel sockets and holed buckets and starship viewports. The apartment she was headed for—the only one on this whole research station (admittedly, smaller than most university buildings)--was down a few floors, through more corridors with on-the-blink variegated colored lighting, rickety metal spiral staircases (old pieces of starship siding casually blowtorched together) and investigative creepers that were very curious about the visitor.
Finally, she reached the door ( wood !), gave an old fashioned rap, and waited for Dr Paracelsus Kent to clackety clack over with his cane and swing it open and be there, with his ratty white beard swaying in his excitement, reaching out and clasping her hands, and saying “Dr Chapel! A delight!” which indeed happened just like she expected.
She gave Dr Paracelsus a hug, firm in spite of his rickety bones, and they shared wide grins.
“You won’t believe what I’ve been working on--” he started right in, and Christine traded as many new ideas and projects as he had. They entered through the low living room, which was too full of books and boxes and plants and experiments to serve for company, and in through a narrow corridor to the kitchen, where Ariadne, his wife, and a rather renowned philosopher of science, had a guest.
Everything else was totally normal for visiting Orphic Station 1, the odd little research station built on a moon the size of a bouldering rock. But the guest was a surprise.
“Oh, Dr Chapel, yes, this is a very nice young friend of my wife’s,” Paracelsus said. “Have you met before? Dr Chapel, the Vulcan T’Pring, T’Pring, this is Dr Christine Chapel.”
T’Pring’s eyes were as wide as her own, her cup of tea halfway to her mouth, and Christine felt herself, uncomfortably, start to blush. Every fallen archway falls in its own way . She’d said those words, meant them, over vidcomm, and then they’d just . . . missed each other a bunch of times. They’d never met up often , but it was still kind of distressing to have said what Christine was desperately trying to pretend wasn’t just I love you in more fanciful terms, and then nothing , just casual PADD messages, and an argument about an article in an ethics of science journal that . . . Christine now remembered had been written by Ariadne Kent, the very same wife of Dr Paracelsus Kent.
“Thank you, Dr Kent,” T’Pring said, gathering herself more quickly than Christine did. “But we are in fact acquainted.”
“Oh,” Paracelsus looked between them eagerly, as if hoping they’d smile and greet each other with familiarity. Ariadne, always quicker on the uptake regarding social cues, arched a single eyebrow as she watched them. “You’re friends?”
Christine didn’t know what to say, because they hadn’t talked, hadn’t sorted anything out. T’Pring was looking back at her, with that hard cool carapace of Vulcan emotionlessness that felt like a challenge, felt like answer right or I’ll hate you , but what was right ?
The pure panic of not being able to answer that question overwhelmed her and Christine felt her mouth spread into a fixed grin. “Sure,” she squeaked out. “Friends.”
There was just the tiniest flex of T’Pring’s mouth at that that might have been disappointment.
“Lovely!” said Dr Paracelsus, who then acquired a plate of cookies, assigned Christine to collect the tea, and they decamped to his lab to look at all his most recent experiments. In Christine’s view, this was fleeing, but sometimes a retreat was the correct tactical strategy.
In the kitchen, Dr Ariadne Kent took a sip of her tea and contemplated T’Pring. “Friends?”
T’Pring offered a slight, sarcastic smile. “Ten years ago, she absconded with my fiancé. But that actually turned out to have been a favor.”
#
Dr Paracelsus’s experiments always blew Christine’s fucking mind . She could not stop asking how he did things, how he thought of things, whether his algae farms had given up any new secrets to the intergalactic genetic code, and then he had to show her his new exciting algae tank. “It’s so easy to clean too. You just turn this handle, and--” There was a gushing sound that struck them both as bad news. Paracelsus tried to turn the handle back, but it was stuck. “Let me try,” Christine said, and gave it as big a wrench as she could. The handle came off in her hand.
They exchanged a glance. Then mutually decided to pretend nothing had happened.
“If it empties into space, it’s fine,” Paracelsus said.
“Of course,” Christine said.
Ten minutes later, Ariadne came in with T’Pring glancing around curiously as she followed behind her, and said, “Would you like to explain why you’ve emptied your large algae tank into the second best guest room?”
“Oh dear,” said Paracelsus. He glanced awkwardly at Christine. “Perhaps, the shuttle, um-- Or well, I have an empty algae tank now.”
“I can crash anywhere,” Christine said. “Sofa, floor, tank. It’s not a problem.”
Ariadne sighed decisively.
“There’s no need for that,” T’Pring said, still with less inflection than she usually had, which was giving Christine a panic attack. “The first guest room is large enough to share.”
Christine could not move her face. Either that meant the bed was about a mile wide, or T’Pring wasn’t pissed at her, and somehow the first one seemed more likely, in spite of the fact that the whole space station wasn't a mile in diameter. “Um, thank you. If you don’t mind, I, um, yes.”
“Lovely!” Paracelsus clapped his hands.
“Please send in your algae cleaning mites, husband,” Ariadne said flatly.
“Immediately!”
#
They all gathered in the kitchen again for dinner, which was entirely unidentifiable plant matter—and tasted just a little Vulcan, and also very not at the same time. Christine glanced at T’Pring, thinking of asking if it reminded her of that time they ate at the Station Fusion place where none of the food was from anywhere identifiable. But T’Pring was avoiding her eyes.
“How well do you two know each other?” Dr Paracelsus asked, the excitement in his warm blue eyes making them sparkle. “Do you know about Christine’s recent work on the Illyrian genome, Miss T’Pring?”
“Mmm,” T’Pring responded. “I would have thought that one at least had been quite thoroughly mapped already.”
Christine gaped. Going after her research . “I’m doing bigenomic correspondences,” she protested.
T’Pring arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“T’Pring is a philosopher,” Ariadne said.
“And a poet,” Christine said. It was a sally, but she wasn’t going to go down not fighting. T’Pring’s mouth flex was visible, though maybe only to her.
“Oh?” Ariadne inquired. “You’ve heard her poetry?”
“Blew my mind. Took me six months to recover.”
This got her a bit of a glare.
Ariadne looked intrigued. “I’m jealous. I’m no poet, but I appreciate the art.”
“It was an … assignment,” T’Pring said grimly. “I did not invite Dr Chapel to hear it.”
“You haven’t written more?” Christine asked. She felt something about that, even thought she didn’t know why. “You should. You--”
T’Pring glared fully at her now. “It is private . Whether I write more or not has nothing to do with you.”
Is that because more of it's about me ? The thought made her flushed and anxious and happy , though, to be fair, probably a lot of it might have been angry at her stuff.
“You mean that thing you said to me about Professor Kent’s article didn’t end up in your private journal?” Christine grinned at Ariadne. “Did she tell you—I think it was secret knowledge is no knowledge at all, and yet sometimes that is preferable.”
Ariadne’s brows rose. “Interesting. That is one take. And nicely phrased.”
T’Pring scowled. (To be fair, this was her usual expression, but there was a slight shoulder position that Christine had identified as the ‘I’m not happy about this and you’re going to suffer for it’ one). “I was particularly addressing the issue of the genetic modification ban in the Federation. Researchers are allowed to work on the problems now, but the research is under an embargo, and then what use is it? Though some of Dr Chapel’s experiments deserve to be under embargo.”
“ Thanks .”
“You told me about the void gills that nearly killed everything you tried it on.”
Christine glared right back. She hadn’t let any of her test subjects die. “It could work theoretically .”
Paracelsus looked concerned and glanced between them. “Are you certain you’re happy sharing a room?”
“ Yes ,” Christine and T’Pring chorused at once, and then glanced at each other, surprised.
“Dessert,” said Dr Ariadne with finality.
#
Christine came into the guest room, drying her hair, in the pelal that she’d stolen from one of the Vulcan style ryōkan they’d stayed at. She was familiar with this room, actually, and the bed was definitely not that big, which made her a little jumpy. It wasn’t like they hadn’t slept together before, but never intentionally. Just, you know, passing out after exhausting themselves fucking. Or, sometimes, talking. But she was ready for anything. Sex or a guilt trip seemed equally likely.
T’Pring was in there already, seated cross-legged on the bed, meditating, but as Christine came in she opened her eyes and gave Christine what almost seemed like a smile. “It’s nice to see you," she said, "though unexpected.”
The gentleness of the statement lowered all of Christine’s hackles. She dropped the towel over a chair and took a step closer to her. She was overwhelmed by the need to kiss her, but also held back by everything that still went unsaid. “It’s nice to see you too.”
“You will sleep over there,” T’Pring said, indicating a side, very firmly, the gentleness gone. “And you have appropriate sleepwear, I hope?”
Christine almost laughed aloud. “Sure,” she said. So they were going for platonic bed sharing—good times. But there was a breathless warmth in her chest just being alone in the room with her. She didn’t always believe it, when they weren’t together. But this was just the way T’Pring made her feel.
She figured a t-shirt and undershorts were good enough. She had long pants, but it would be hot sleeping with someone else. And maybe she wanted to feel T’Pring’s gaze on her legs. This, unfortunately, did not occur, as T’Pring made a point of looking elsewhere as she changed. Christine gave up and just got in to what was apparently her side of the bed.
“Do you wish to read, or . . . some other pre-sleep ritual?” T’Pring asked. Her hand was hovering at the lightpad. She looked gorgeous like this, her hair in a loose low-set braid, the light glowing behind her . . . pajamas that covered every inch from wrists to ankles. Christine shook her head. The light went out. T’Pring scrunched down under the covers as Christine’s eyes adjusted to the dimness. It was only dimness, as a phosphorescent algae was streaked across the walls in a sparkled pattern that looked like distant universes.
T’Pring didn’t seem to notice it. “You’ve been here before,” Christine observed.
“A few times. Dr Kent has been very helpful with my research.”
Christine let out a soft laugh. “I didn’t know you knew them. Crazy.” Then she paused. Her next thought felt risky to say, and she wasn’t sure why. Except, maybe, because it felt important. Not for what it was, but for all of the things they hadn’t talked about, but probably should. The prospect of putting words around all of that made her feel like she was going to choke. “Did you get the vibe that this was a set up?”
The startlement in T’Pring’s response surprised Christine. “What? No.”
“You sure?” The whole inviting them to come at the same time, hoping that they’d get along or take an interest in each other’s work. The thought had made Christine feel good , kind of seen too, but for the best parts of her, not the worst. To be fair, she might have gotten more of a sense of it because Dr Paracelsus was notoriously unsubtle about anything, while Dr Ariadne was laconic and wry, and she’d expect something like this from Paracelsus. She had no idea what vibe T’Pring would pick up from Dr Kent.
“ No ,” T’Pring said, emphatically. She sounded almost upset by the idea. Her distress rattled Christine. Was it such a terrible thought? Was whatever they’d been on the cusp of something that was supposed to be secret? Something embarrassing? “Why would they think—”
“I’m that beneath your league then? You can’t imagine anyone thinking you’d ever slum with someone like me?” She’d planned on it sounding like a joke, but it had come out vicious and bitter.
Regret filled her up immediately. They’d been on the cusp of something good, on shifting into something more , and her panic and terrible self-esteem and inability to organize her life would ruin it, just like they always ruined good things for her. Usually that was fine, she could let bonus good things go, because she stayed focused on the important things, work, research, best friends, but this one-- this one she didn’t want to let go. She’d spent six months in Illyria thinking about it and at the end she’d wanted to let it go even less than she had at the beginning.
T’Pring was silent. When Christine dared to peek over, she was staring up at the universe smears on the ceiling, expressing nothing.
“I know I often like to keep my private business private,” T'Pring said finally, her voice either unreadable or resigned. “But I think, perhaps, you are even more reticent sometimes. I know that when it is hard to say something, it is easy to immediately desire to retract it, to qualify it, to make it less terrifyingly binding.”
Christine’s gut clenched. Was that what she was worrying about? How did they ever get even this far with the pair of them who both stewed so much—T’Pring by ruminating on things over and over again, and Christine by desperately pretending it didn’t happen, she hadn’t said it, she wasn’t understood, and then letting all her stupid feelings burst out at the worst time?
“I think,” Christine said very softly, “that if you’re referencing what I think you’re referencing . . . I can’t tell you what it means, but I can tell you that I meant it.”
The dark shape that was T’Pring in the dimness seemed to soften. And that was good enough. Christine surged over under the covers to tangle herself around the other body in the bed. This close, she could see her face, the lines of her high cheekbones, the delicately sculpted nose, that perfect curve of the outside of her eyelid, and the startled rumple of her forehead as she pulled back from Christine’s sudden arrival. “Hi ,” she said, knowing she sounded like an idiot.
“What are you doing ?”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
“We are at someone else’s house.”
“Isn’t it sexy?” Christine narrowed her eyes and dropped her tone from goofy and thrilled to as lascivious as she could get, which was . . . not the most lascivious, but she did her best. “I can try to stay silent while you make me make some noise. Also, their bedroom is like half the station away from here.”
There was a long pause as T’Pring nearly made an expression considering this. Then some of the withdrawn tension slipped from her shoulders. She stretched out like a lazy lioness. “Well, if you stay very quiet.”
For an extended moment, Christine watched T’Pring watching her too. It was different now, and that scared her. But it was also just, kind of like it should be. She liked the way T’Pring contemplated her, as if she was important , and she thought that maybe she was looking back in the same way. Then, smooth and intent, T’Pring slid her dense, narrow body over to lie half on top of hers. Pinning her with a hand on a wrist on either side of her head, she leaned in and pressed a half-smiling kiss to Christine’s lips.
“I don’t want to not see you for months again,” Christine gasped into her mouth when the kiss briefly broke.
“Good,” said T’Pring, and then kissed her again warm and wet and with insistent, exacting tongue. “I would rather avoid that also.”
“You’re just—” but before Christine could figure out how to get words around what she wanted to say, which was something like, you're the best (and most consistently amazing) lay I've ever had, and that is like 2% of all the things I feel around you, and it's so terrifying, cuz I just like you, and feel kind of obsessed with you, and feel amazing when you're around, and I know I'm not romantic at all, but I, just, you —, T’Pring’s mouth was on the sensitive part of her neck and she had forgotten all about silly things like words.
#
Somehow, in the morning, they’d made it down to the kitchen first. Christine had pulled on her pajama pants, giving her underwear up for a lost cause, the pelal loose around her shoulders, while T’Pring managed to look nearly dressed for the day, except for being barefoot, and in only an undershirt, her hair still in its loose braid. They were making tea when Christine caught sight of herself in the mirrored canister and swore.
“Seriously? Seriously? These are the worst hickies I’ve ever had in my life!”
T’Pring calmly stirred faila leaf into the teapot and looked incredibly smug. “It is not my fault that your skin is so easy to mark.”
“It is your fault that you decided to suck marks into my neck!”
“You enjoy that.”
Christine flapped her hands uselessly, because fine , yes. That was indeed true. Also teeth. And still, “ We’re at someone else’s house, Christine , you have to be quiet, Christine . You are shameless. ”
T’Pring gave the most casual of shrugs, and Christine leaned against the counter, unable to keep herself from laughing. Because, of course, T’Pring was shameless. This was the Vulcan who’d said to a stranger that Christine had invited her over for sex. Rude to wake people up with a thumping headboard, but glowing red evidence of having hooked up in their guest bedroom, no problem.
“I need to go get my dermal regen—” Christine turned and then froze. Ariadne and Paracelsus were in the doorway, showing clear signs of not having just arrived.
T’Pring had also gone stiff. But there was a flexion to it, a focus, and after last night, Christine knew exactly what it meant. She wasn’t worried about them . She needed to know how Christine would act.
“Well,” said Ariadne, before sweeping in to refill the kettle. “Glad to see you didn’t have any trouble sharing the guest bedroom.”
Christine took a breath, everything in her panicking, because they’d been playing this low-key for so long, because she’d been doing everything she could to not make this into a big thing in her mind so she wouldn’t scare herself away from it. But this didn’t have to be a big thing, it just had to be a thing. She moved to stand next to T’Pring, close enough to bump her shoulder fondly, and then, as T’Pring glanced up at her surprised, her fingers unwinding from the mug that rested on the counter, she caught T’Pring’s index finger with hers.
T’Pring’s eyes widened, and through the touch Christine felt the surprise and something that felt a little like … hope .
“None at all,” Christine said. “We’ve actually been seeing each other for a while.” She grinned up at Dr Paracelsus and Dr Ariadne, letting her full joy at just saying that, at the astonishment she could feel through the touch of T’Pring’s mind at exactly how not difficult it was for her to admit, spread out inside her. Because, yes, Christine had a hard time saying things, a hard time coming to terms with her own feelings. But once she had, once she’d said something, she didn’t take it back . “We really didn’t expect to run into each other here. And we hadn’t told anyone yet. Sorry if we were weird yesterday.”
With those words, the world shifted, and Christine could feel it shift. They weren’t the doctors’ young friends who’d done something inappropriate in their guest bedroom. They were together . They didn’t have to be loud about it, or have it fuck up their lives in all sorts of ways. But it was real, and having someone else know made it realer, it made it much more difficult to take back.
T’Pring was looking at her with an expression that could have been unreadable, except it wasn’t anymore. Even without the touch of her hand, Christine had learned this one, that bemused fondness that made her feel a little like a superhero, to be able to win that look from this girl. She drew T’Pring’s hand up, and planted a light kiss on her knuckles—somewhat more sexy than romantic for Vulcans, but sexy and romantic enough that she saw T’Pring’s cheeks darken in a green flush.
“Wonderful news!” Paracelsus exclaimed. “And I have exciting news as well! The algae from the big tank has crossbred with the scrubbing mites and mutated!”
That was very exciting news, though . . . not for the state of the second guest bedroom. Still, it wasn’t like they needed it.
“Can I see?”
“Of course!”
Christine turned, pressed a blustery and enthusiastic kiss on T’Pring’s surprised mouth, and then headed off after Paracelsus. There was science to do.
In the kitchen, Ariadne leaned back against the counter with her mug of tea and eyed T’Pring contemplatively. “I didn’t think she was your type.”
T’Pring sighed. “I didn’t either. I suppose I should have worried more when I started writing poetry about her.”
Ariadne laughed. “So you have been writing poetry.”
T’Pring eyed her suspiciously. Had this been an intended set-up? She knew Dr Kent and her advisor were friends, but there should be some kind of advisor/student confidentiality agreement, especially for that last terrible qualifying paper she'd submitted—the essay in the fragmented lyric style of Maggie Nelson that had too much to do with Christine showing up for the poetry reading and then disappearing for six months than necessary. “To be fair, when I met your husband, I was reasonably sure he wasn’t your type either.”
“So was I,” Ariadne said wryly. “But he was sure. Or, at least, he was open to the experiment. Philosophers sometimes reason to confirm their preconceptions. Scientists experiment to disprove them, and thus work many more miracles than we do.”
T’Pring pulled her mug of tea up to cover her mouth which may have been plagued by an inappropriately un-vulcan smile. “I like that way of putting it,” she said. “I am . . . open to the experiment.”
#
They ended up leaving together on the shuttle, Christine with an exciting tank of new specimens, and T’Pring with a list of books the length of her arm. Strangely, stepping into the shuttle alone together felt like stepping off stage, leaving the unaccustomed performance of being seen as a couple by other people, and returning to just being themselves.
But it was also themselves alone together, which, for Christine at least, had never been anything but thrilling. They relaxed in the seats near the controls, and Christine glanced over. “I liked that. When do I get to see you again?”
T’Pring’s brow furrowed. “I need to focus on my thesis for the next few months . . .”
Christine hesitated. But she didn’t think it was actually a no . “I wouldn’t want to interrupt—”
“ No ,” T’Pring said, abruptly and surprisingly. “I’ll just be writing. I can do that anywhere, and Stanford has some collections unavailable elsewhere. When would be convenient for you?”
Forever , Christine managed to not say, not yet. “I’ll check,” she said. “But soon .”
T'Pring glanced over at her, an almost proprietorial expression on her face, with just a perfect hint of a smile, and Christine didn't care that it was silly and she probably looked like a lovesick goat, she just propped her chin on her fist and contemplated her, because she couldn't think of anything else she'd rather look at, even as stars and galaxies and neutron clouds streamed by outside.
Back on the research station, waving goodbye Paracelsus turned to his wife. “Did you guess that they liked each other? I had no idea!"
Ariadne gave a slight shrug. "A friend at the U of B mentioned that they'd been seen together on occasion. But not recently. It could have equally likely led to explosions."
"You wouldn't have minded that either, I know." Paracelsus tucked his hands in one set of his fifty pockets and eyed the docking mechanism, noting that the new rust-eating algae had all died. He'd need to breed some more resistant to vacuum. "I have high hopes for them," he said, and gave his wife a suggestive grin. "After all, we know that scientists and philosophers are a good pair.”
“The evidence at least,” Ariadne said, without the dryness usually in her tone, “is suggestive.”
###