Heya everyone! God, I really need to start updating my stories quicker. Here's chapter 5 people!

Just a reminder: I dont own anything to do with Star Trek, I'm just borrowing the characters and everything and throwing a few OCs in there at the same time. ^^

Read on and review for me please, thanks!

Enjoy :D

Star date: 2258

Location: USS Enterprise

"Andromeda, Antilia, Apus, Aquarius, Aquila, Ara, Aries…"

The stars sparkled brightly in the night sky, beautiful burning dots of light against a blanket of pure ebony. T'Amona found herself smiling sadly as she gazed heavenwards, absently naming constellations in alphabetical order from atop the hillside where she lay flat on her back in the lush grass.

"… Capricornus, Carina, Cassiopeia, Centaurus, Cepheus, Cetus…"

The Terran woman had been right; this place was rather peaceful. So quiet and serene, the sounds of the city below completely drowned out by the sheer silence that surrounded her, making her voice sound strangely eerie and echoing to her own ears. That didn't even make sense, but it didn't matter, because the surreally silent atmosphere was just perfect for clearing her head of everything that had happened to her lately: Ambassador Spock going missing, Nero, the destruction of Vulcan…Obviously the thoughts were still swimming around in her mind, determined not to be forgotten, but they weren't as dominant now. T'Amona felt relaxed and at ease for the first time in weeks.

"… Draco, Equuleus, Eridanus, Fornax, Gemini…"

She needed to find Ambassador Spock. She knew he hadn't perished on Vulcan, basing her judgement on a simple feeling deep in her heart that assured her that he was very much alive and out there somewhere. In the morning, she would leave the Terran family and find a way to get off this planet and search the entire galaxy if she had to. The elderly half-Vulcan could be the only thing she had left in this new unfamiliar existence, and she'd sooner die rather than lose him completely.

"… Libra, Lupus, Lynx, Lyra, Mensa…"

T'Amona shifted a little in the grass and winced as sharp bolts of pain ran through her limbs from even the slightest movement. She was injured badly, true, but she was swiftly beginning to realise that maybe she was more wounded than she'd first thought. Her previously dislocated shoulder felt impossibly heavy, like lead, and her whole arm was slightly numb. Whenever she touched the skin of that arm, tiny pinpricks of heat erupted from the contact that she was certain had nothing to do with her Vulcan touch-telepathy. T'Amona had never hurt like this before. Back on Vulcan, she'd prided herself on being as strong as she could possibly be, driven by her determination to gain the respect of her people. She'd always had a desire to prove herself, even from a very young age, when she first realised just how different from other Vulcans she truly was. But she wasn't strong now. She was the exact opposite of the word.

"… Orion, Pavo, Pegasus, Perseus, Phoenix, Pictor, Pisces…"

The departing words of the three elders back on Vulcan still made an intense burning rush of illogical anger and sadness spread through her entire body whenever she remembered their spiteful comments, but she refused to let it consume her. If T'Amona lost herself to her emotions now, she didn't think she'd be able to drag herself back from it all. The diluted blood that ran through her veins was responsible for that. Or, to be more specific, her mother was responsible for that. Even though T'Amona had the outer appearance of a regular Vulcan, which she inherited from her father, she was without a doubt her mother's daughter on the inside. Maybe that's why she was so discriminated against back home. The other Vulcans were so adept at seeing straight through her, looking past the stoic mask to stare into the unnatural depths beneath. And obviously they didn't like what they saw.

"… Sagitta, Sagittarius, Scorpius…"

In their eyes she was unnatural, a trouble-causer disrupting the peace to satisfy her emotional need to rebel, a dark stain on the otherwise stark white Vulcan existence. They didn't say too much to her face, just because of her parents being exactly who they were, but they never attempted to talk discreetly amongst themselves whenever they discussed T'Amona and her… abnormality. It always affected her deeply when she overheard conversations like that, but she forced the emotion as far down inside her as it would go, hiding it beautifully behind her expressionless Vulcan features. In a way, she had more self-control than they could ever imagine, despite her tainted heritage.

"… Vela, Virgo, Volans, Vulpecula." T'Amona finished softly, blinking freely up at the starlit sky as the last echoes of her voice dissipated into the darkness.

Suddenly, a piercing scream split through the air, jerking T'Amona abruptly back from her thoughts with a grimace at the pain the noise caused her sensitive pointed ears. She was on her feet in a heartbeat, her eyes narrowed, scanning her surroundings as thoroughly as she could through the thick gloom. Her gaze was almost instantly drawn to the house that she'd left not too long ago, inhabited by the boy Damien and his parents Kyle and Sophie.

T'Amona shivered, icy claws of fear gripping her spine. That scream had been unmistakably Terran. And female.

Sophie!

Something soft brushed against T'Amona's face and she twitched a little, then swiftly relaxed when cool fingers came to rest in the roughly accurate position against her meld-points. A slow smile spread across her lips, the feeling reminding her of all the melds she'd ever performed and partaken in before with her mother, her father, her grandparents and her intended bondmate.

"My mind to your mind…" She mumbled sleepily to herself. "My thoughts to your thoughts…"

She sprinted as fast as her weak legs would carry her back towards the house, a horrible ache twisting in the pit of her stomach that only increased the closer she got. She had a very bad feeling about this. Every logical thought in her mind was screaming at her to keep her distance, to run in the opposite direction, to ignore the lure of human curiosity and avoid putting herself in possible harm's way. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. T'Amona would never forgive herself if she walked away and left them now, and she knew it'd only haunt her and overwhelm her if she turned a blind eye.

In less than a minute, T'Amona was already at the bottom of the hill that had taken almost ten minutes to climb, her calves and thighs searing with the intensity of being pushed almost to snapping point as she forced herself onwards through sheer willpower. The house quickly loomed into view, and the back door appeared just as swiftly. Without stopping to think about what possible danger could be lurking inside, T'Amona barrelled through the doorway.

And the scene that greeted her was one she would've never imagined in a million years.

The human named Kyle was dead. He was sprawled over one of the sofas as though he'd been lifted up and thrown carelessly aside, one of his legs bent at an impossible angle and a deep scarlet stain surrounding a blackened hole in the centre of his chest. His previously severe expression was now frozen in a state of complete shock, his hazel eyes wide and glazed and his mouth gaping open in disbelief, like he'd been caught off guard by just how quick and unexpected his death had been. Even his ponytail had come loose and now his grey-flecked hair was tangled all over his face, sticking to the single line of red liquid that oozed steadily from the corner of his mouth.

With great difficulty, T'Amona tore her eyes away from the lifeless body and her gaze darted almost immediately to the fireplace when she caught sight of something in her peripheral vision.

Sophie was dangling helplessly a good few feet from the ground, her legs kicking as she desperately tried to pull away the hands that were gripping onto her throat – hands that belonged to a tall, muscular man who looked fully capable of snapping the Terran woman like a twig if he wanted to. The intruder was dressed all in black and there was a phaser hanging from his belt, the weapon he'd obviously used to murder Kyle. But that wasn't the reason why T'Amona's heart skipped a beat and her entire body jerked to an abrupt halt where she stood in the doorway, her feet refusing to move neither into the house nor away from it.

This stranger had greenish skin, pointed ears and tapered eyebrows, as well as a bald head that was almost completely covered with tattoos. In the flickering orange light of the fire, T'Amona could clearly see the vindictive smirk on his face, and a very recent jagged scar that ran down the centre of his mouth from where his lips had been torn open a couple of weeks ago in a vicious brawl. This man wasn't a man at all. He was a Romulan.

And worst of all, she knew exactly who he was and why he was here.

"I'm going to ask you this one more time, Terran." He growled in a guttural voice to Sophie, sneering at her as she gasped for breath, clawing at the hands around her neck that were slowly but surely clamping her airway shut. "And you're going to tell me exactly what I need to know, unless you want to end up like your husband over there, do you understand? Now… where is the Vulcan?"

The Romulan loosened his grip so Sophie could speak. As soon as the pressure on her oesophagus was eased a little, she coughed harshly and gulped down as much oxygen as her lungs could take before replying.

"I don't… know what you're… talking about… there's no…Vulcan here…" Sophie panted. Why was she lying? Why was she trying to protect T'Amona? Surely the Terran woman should be doing whatever she could to protect her own family rather than a wounded alien stray that had happened to pass out on their doorstep. Yet here she was, being strangled by a Romulan with her dead husband staring at her from where he lay on the couch and her young son nowhere to be seen, and she still insisted on lying through her teeth to keep the Vulcan girl safe from harm. Sophie was, without a doubt, an extremely brave human, even in the face of certain death.

With an angry snarl, the Romulan's hands slammed straight back around her throat even tighter than before. Sophie gagged, her chocolate brown eyes bulging as her lips started to turn blue.

"Don't lie to me, you filthy human! Tell me where that little Vulcan freak is or I'll separate your head from the rest of your body!"

"I'm here." T'Amona spoke, her soft voice carrying easily across the room as she walked out of the shadows, taking the final steps into the house. The Romulan's head instantly snapped up, pinning her directly in his sights with his narrowed eyes that were so dark they were practically black. His scarred lips spread into a wide malicious grin, baring his sharp white teeth at her wolfishly.

"There you are!" He chuckled victoriously. T'Amona eyed him coldly, a powerful anger starting to work its way up her throat like bile, but she refused to let anything show on her face that wasn't typical Vulcan neutrality.

"Let her go, San'nuk." T'Amona demanded, her bandaged hands curling into fists so tight that her knuckles turned pearly white from the lack of circulation. The Romulan, San'nuk, threw his head back and laughed delightedly before he mockingly bowed low to her, sneering at the younger alien from beneath dark upswept eyebrows in a way that almost made her heart jump up to her throat in fear, and she had to furiously fight the illogical emotion back before he could see it with his own eyes.

"As you command, my dear inbred Vulcan." San'nuk jeered. He released his chokehold on Sophie and let her drop gracelessly to the floor, clutching at own throat as she heaved shallow breaths down her damaged windpipe. Her gaze swiftly met T'Amona's and she surged to her feet with a sudden burst of desperate adrenaline.

"Run, T'Amona!" Sophie yelled out in warning as she started sprinting towards her, her blonde curls swinging wildly around her head and shoulders, the expression on her pretty face one of pure panic and fear. T'Amona instinctively stretched out a hand towards the older Terran woman, tensing herself to run with her when she got close enough.

Only she never got close enough.

There was a short burst of light and Sophie's features turned from panic to absolute shock that mirrored the exact same expression that was frozen on her dead husband's face. It felt like time itself had shuddered to a halt as the fair-haired woman took an age to fall, landing facedown with a dull thud onto the carpet. She was completely still now, not even twitching as crimson fluid streamed down from between her shoulder blades, soaking through her pale blouse and staining the ends of her blonde curls red.

T'Amona stared down at the unmoving figure numbly, the woman's fingertips literally five inches from T'Amona's feet. Her brain just outright refused to compute what she'd just seen even as her eyes had clearly witnessed that Sophie had been murdered right in front of her, and had been dead before she'd hit the floor.

"I warned her not to lie to me." San'nuk smiled sweetly, his dark eyes twinkling sadistically in his skull. Adrenaline was beginning to pulse its way around T'Amona's body with every beat of her heart, her clenched fists trembling by her side as she lifted her head to stare into those evil eyes. San'nuk grinned at her cruelly, the phaser that was now in his hand aimed straight at her forehead.

"Riyeht-stau! Eshu'a!" T'Amona hissed in pure fury, her rage so intense that her ability to speak Standard abandoned her completely and her native tongue took control for a moment as she cursed him in Vulcan. "Why did you have to kill them? Their deaths served no purpose!"

"I've got my orders, yonuk-Vuhlkansu. Captain Nero said to bring you back to the Narada in whatever way necessary, and to remove any objects blocking my path. Those filthy Terrans insisted on protecting you, so naturally I disposed of the obstruction."

T'Amona couldn't repress the flinch that sparked through her entire body at his words, especially the Vulcan insult that had sound so much more vicious and cruel coming from the mouth of a Romulan. During the past seven days she'd unwillingly spent onboard the Narada, San'nuk had called her 'yonuk-Vuhlkansu' almost too many times to count, and even though that's exactly what she was, it didn't stop her from reacting to it just as visibly now as she had back there.

San'nuk cackled nastily at her reaction, but he pretended he hadn't noticed it and continued on as though the foreign dialect had never left his lips. He raised his free hand to scratch absently at the side of his nose, and then trailed over the healing scar that marred his mouth, his expression turning cold and vengeful.

"Besides, I wanted to settle the score. You mutilated my face back on the ship, so in return I've killed your little Terran friends here. That's fair, isn't it? Oh, and speaking of 'little' friends… the woman sent that kid running upstairs before I could grab hold of him. How about I go and get him so you can watch me send him to meet his parents, hm?"

That was the final straw for T'Amona. She would not let this bastard take Damien's life in the same callous way he had murdered the boy's mother and father. A familiar red haze had descended over her vision and her limbs felt white-hot, every logical thought completely purged from her mind to be replaced with irrational uncontrollable rage and an overpowering desire for retribution for what he'd done to the family that had defended her to their final breaths.

Without hesitation, T'Amona rushed towards him, murder in her cobalt eyes.

San'nuk barely had time to swallow his complete disbelief before she was on him with the full force of her entire body, intent on ripping his head from his shoulders with her bare hands. She wasn't Vulcan any more at that moment. Now she was Terran in every single way but appearance, and she'd never felt more alive than she did right then.

Her fist met solidly with his jaw, making him stagger backwards at the unexpected strength of her blow, the satisfying cracking sound of bone breaking echoing around the room. San'nuk swore in guttural Romulan, spitting out teeth and green blood as he tried to shield his face from further damage with one arm and positioned his phaser directly at her stomach with the other, squeezing the trigger once.

It was incredibly lucky that her reflexes were much faster than that of a human or she would've been dragged back to the Narada with a gaping hole through her stomach. T'Amona's bandaged hand whipped out and knocked the phaser out of his grip just as he fired it, shattering several bones in his hand and diverting the laser burst downwards. Perhaps she was also unlucky in that sense too, because if her reflexes had been as superior as a pureblood Vulcan's, she would've reacted quicker and avoided the searing pain that instantly tore across her left thigh.

She cried out in agony and faltered, her left leg buckling beneath her. San'nuk took immediate advantage of her moment of weakness and delivered a powerful crushing blow to the side of her throat that sent her sprawling onto the floor. There was a sharp prick of pain amongst the dull ache from his punch; one of his fingernails must've pierced the skin when his fist made contact with her neck.

With a vicious snarl, San'nuk bent down and seized a handful of her long black hair, pulling her to her knees before him, not realising that he'd just made the most fatal mistake of his life until the moment T'Amona swung her uninjured leg around, colliding with the backs of his knees and sending him crashing down beside her. His arms flailed as he fell, one landing in the fireplace and knocking a burning log off the hearth, sending it rolling across the carpet away from them, setting alight everything it touched on its way, but the two struggling aliens were far too preoccupied to notice.

T'Amona drove her elbow hard into the Romulan's solar plexus and San'nuk dug his fingers deep into the fresh wound on her thigh, both of them growling in pain and thrashing wildly on the carpet, a flurry of limbs and deadly accurate blows. T'Amona was literally fighting tooth and nail, trying to claw his eyes out and biting down hard enough to draw dark green liquid from the arm that had attempted to snake around her neck. San'nuk roared in pain as T'Amona's sharp teeth sank through flesh and into muscle, shaking his arm wildly to dislodge the Vulcan. And that was all the opportunity T'Amona needed.

With swift precision, T'Amona grabbed his arm and twisted it backwards until there was a series of horrific snapping sounds and San'nuk screamed in agony, but the young Vulcan girl showed absolutely no mercy or remorse, her azure eyes like shards of ice as she yanked the Romulan onto his front by his now useless arm and straddled his hips, trapping him between her thighs.

She wrapped both her arms around San'nuk's head, gripping onto her damaged fingers as the Romulan struggled pitifully in her grip.

"Tev-tor, San'nuk…" She whispered in his pointed ear, barely allowing time for the meaning of the word to sink into his brain as she tightened her hold, putting an immense amount of tension on his neck until there was another sharp snap and the Romulan fell completely limp in her grasp, his head dangling unnaturally on his neck. T'Amona had just performed Tal'shaya, an ancient Vulcan execution technique of breaking an enemy's neck as quickly and painlessly as possible. As enraged as she was and how much she'd wanted to make San'nuk suffer for his actions, she wasn't a sadistic monster who took pleasure in other people's agony. At least the Romulan was dead now, and that was all that mattered.

T'Amona was panting harshly, perspiration beading her forehead as she released the dead Romulan and slid off his back, groaning in pain and clutching at her left leg that was slippery with her own emerald blood. Her head was buzzing frantically, her hands shaking as she tried to stem the flow of liquid from the phaser wound. She'd never taken a life before, and T'Amona was shocked at just how easy it'd been for her to make the decision to kill… Her eyes had been observing everything, her brain calculating the exact angle she had to pull his arm back to shatter both the radius and the ulna bones in several places, the exact amount of pressure she had to exert to internally break his skull clean off his spine without even puncturing the skin. It'd been simple, efficient and justified… but so unbelievably wrong.

The smell of burning brought her quickly back to her senses.

T'Amona sat bolt upright, her injuries momentarily forgotten as she stared around the room that was almost completely ablaze, thick plumes of bright orange fire surrounding her on all sides, climbing higher and higher towards the ceiling. Heavy black smoke was already filling the air, falling to cover everything beneath it. The flames were already licking at the three corpses, setting the hair and flesh alight from the sheer intense heat.

T'Amona was sweating, the temperature nothing like she'd ever experienced before. How had the flames spread so quickly in such a short space of time? Surely it was only a matter of minutes before the fire reached the wooden beams that supported the ceiling and brought the entire upper floor crashing down on top of her.

And then she suddenly remembered that she wasn't the only person still alive inside this house.

"Kid!!" T'Amona yelled hoarsely, coughing harshly as the black smoke rushed down her throat as she lurched to her feet, running straight for the staircase that led to the upper floor, ignoring the pure agony of her injured leg. Her pain didn't matter the slightest now, not when there were more important things to concentrate on.

She had a young Terran to save.

T'Amona flew bolt upright in bed with a sharp gasp, her chest heaving rapidly and a single droplet of cold sweat trickling its way down her cheek from her right temple. For a few seconds of blind panic, she actually thought that she was back in the burning house, about to be killed either by the flames or the roof caving in on her, but she soon regained her senses and relaxed a little against the headboard, breathing a deep sigh of relief as she focused on returning her thundering heartbeat to its normal speed.

Damien stirred slightly beside her and T'Amona reached down to stroke his soft blond head soothingly so he wouldn't wake up. Her nightmare was far more than just an average bad dream and she knew instinctively that it wouldn't be the last time she'd be plagued in her sleep by her recent memories. T'Amona had always had problems sleeping in the past, back when she was a young girl on Vulcan, misunderstood and shunned, kept wide awake with her head so full of questions. Why did none of the other children like her? Why did everyone treat her like she didn't belong? Why was she so different? Some of her childhood memories back then hadn't really helped her lethargy either. Her classmates insulted her, taunted her, called her names. Freak. Hybrid. Abomination. The worthless unnatural spawn of a crossbreed and a whore, tainting their perfect society with her impure blood. And those weren't the worst she'd been subjected to either, since there were always fresh amounts of verbal abuse every single day, all aimed in her direction and jabbing straight into her heart like a thousand heated blades. She'd pretended it hadn't hurt, but every word cut her straight to the core, haunting her in her bed at night as she cried into her pillow.

Never once had she shouted for her parents though. She never wanted them to see how weak she was, because she didn't want them to be disappointed in her. Maybe that's where her desire to prove herself had manifested from.

Giving Damien's head one last gentle pat, T'Amona threw the covers off herself and swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling nauseous all of a sudden, her stomach clenching and her head pounding. With a small groan, she pulled herself to her feet and padded quietly to the bathroom, careful to make as little noise as possible.

"Lights." She mumbled as her bare feet stepped off soft carpet and found icy cold tiles. She shivered a little at the change in temperature as the door slid shut behind her. "Fifty percent."

The small bathroom was instantly illuminated with artificial light and T'Amona moved closer to the mirror hung above the sink, observing her reflection with an expression of complete indifference. Her green-tinted skin seemed a shade paler than usual and there were the beginnings of dark rings beneath her eyes, but these were practically unnoticeable to the untrained eye, or rather, the human eye, and since the majority of the crew of the Enterprise were human, that was fine by her. Her ebony locks were far from their usual neatness, sticking up in knotted clumps from where she'd obviously been tossing and turning in bed, and her eyebrows furrowed into a frown at the state of it. She always despised how she looked on a morning, so unkempt and drowsy, appearing more like her non-Vulcan mother instead of her Vulcan father. But honestly, she only despised this because every other Vulcan did. It made her even more unnatural to them, if that was even possible.

T'Amona sighed at the image of herself staring tiredly back at her, her gaze drawn away from her face and down her neck, the deep purple bruises clearly visible thanks to the oversized shirt hanging halfway down her shoulders, baring her collarbones and marked throat to the world. Big handprints from big hands… Big hands that had been so strong that they could've easily crushed her throat if their owner had wanted to. T'Amona wondered if the marks would ever actually fade, permanently etched into her skin for the rest of her life. Knowing her luck, it was most likely.

Another bruise that was so painfully noticeable was the large patch of blackened skin on her left shoulder from its previous dislocation. T'Amona pressed two fingers against the joint, gritting her teeth together against the sharp ache from the pressure before removing the digits again, staring as the two stark white marks left behind were quickly submerged again. She hated bruises. They always showed up so vividly on her skin, like blood on snow, the darkness contrasting intensely against the paleness of her flesh. She'd had her fair share of bruises over the years, but admittedly, for every one she'd received, she never failed to deliver a fair few back of her own. A few black marks on her body were a small price to pay for the pure feeling of triumph after besting someone twice her height and weight. She'd always managed to hide the contusions from her parents. For the last eight years of her life, her mother and father had never found out where she disappeared to in her spare time. And with good reason, because they would've both hit the roof if they'd known.

Smiling wryly to herself, T'Amona started unravelling the bandages that encircled her hands, pointedly gazing into the mirror in front of her rather than looking down at the full extent of the damage. When both hands were bare, she draped the bandages over the edge of the sink, then grasped onto the hem of her oversized shirt and proceeded to yank the material up and over her head, ignoring the pain from various parts of her body as she did so.

Once free, she let the item of clothing fall onto the tiles at her feet as she found the knot of the bandages wrapped around her torso and easily unfastened it. In less than a minute, that length of gauze was hanging beside the shorter ones on the sink.

The borrowed grey trousers swiftly joined the shirt on the floor, and the bandage around her thigh joined the others, and T'Amona stepped into the shower, fiddling briefly with the settings until water started spraying down from the showerhead above her, the freezing cold liquid so wonderfully soothing on her aching body.

T'Amona ran her unfeeling hands through her soaked ebony hair that was plastered to her face and shoulders, raking her fingernails against her scalp, sighing blissfully as she tilted her head upwards to let the water splash straight onto her face. There were so many things that she needed to learn before they arrived at New Vulcan. Did everyone who she'd known still exist in this timeline? Her friends? Her parents? Well, obviously her parents existed, but what T'Amona really needed to know was if they were actually together. Were they bonded yet? Yes, granted, everyone was all so young, so maybe they hadn't known each other long enough yet to discover the love they shared that would outshine even the sun itself.

Or maybe… maybe in this alternate reality, everything was different. Vulcan had already been destroyed, what else could've been changed? Surely not her mother and father's relationship with each other. T'Amona had seen how much love they shared, and better yet, she had experienced it during several mind melds she'd participated in with them. It was… indescribable, breathtakingly beautiful and just outright overwhelming that surely not even time could destroy it. But… if it could… then that would mean…

She'd never be born. If her parents didn't become lovers, bondmates, t'hy'la, joined in matrimony for the rest of their lives together, then…

T'Amona wouldn't come to exist in this reality.

And that was a thought that froze the diluted green blood in her veins with fear.

Tears dripped steadily down Damien's cheeks as he buried his face into the pillow, trying to muffle his sobs so T'Amona wouldn't hear him. Even though she was in the shower, and the roar of the water was obviously much louder than a few pathetic whimpers, he thought it better to be safe than sorry. Who knew just how sensitive those pointy alien ears are? Not him, that's for sure, and he wasn't taking any chances. He didn't want her to find him like this.

Contrary to what T'Amona had assumed, Damien hadn't been asleep when she'd woken up. He'd been pretending, after laying wide awake beside her for about twenty minutes, watching worriedly as she tossed and groaned in her sleep, her eyes flickering frantically behind her closed eyelids and her hands twisting the bedsheets so hard that the material had started to tear.

The young boy couldn't deny that he was still in awe at her strength, especially after what happened in the sickbay where she'd practically thrown Captain Kirk through the wall and then actually lifted him off the floor by his throat. Damien hadn't expected that at all from the delicate-looking alien girl. There was definitely more to her than first meets the eye and he'd been determined to find out as much as he could about her. But maybe he'd already found out way too much.

Whenever he had bad dreams, his mom would always sit by his side and stroke his head until he fell back to sleep, and if what he could see was anything to go by, T'Amona's dreams were a whole new level of bad. So naturally, he'd reached over to stroke at her head with the back of his hand, to soothe her in the same way his mom used to soothe him. If he'd known anything about Vulcans, he wouldn't have even considered touching a touch-telepath in their sleep, nor would he have brushed his hand accidentally over the part of her head that he was unaware were her meld-points.

And so, instinctively in her slumber, T'Amona's subconscious had reached out through the skin-to-skin contact and melded with the young Terran.

And Damien saw everything that was going through her head at that moment, staring in on the horrific scene as though he was actually there himself. He watched his father die, then his mother, and then the fight between T'Amona and the strange man, the one who looked very much like a Vulcan but was obviously something different entirely. He saw T'Amona kill the intruder, breaking his neck so easily, like she'd done it a million times before. Seeing the normally calm and collected alien girl lose her cool, both back at the house and in the sickbay earlier… It scared him, it really did. It scared him even more than when he himself had come face-to-face with the man T'Amona had called San'nuk before his mom had sent him running upstairs, out of harm's way. Until the fire had started, of course. And now he knew exactly how it'd started, and exactly how his parents had died.

In the bathroom, the shower spluttered once and then shut off completely. Damien hurriedly wiped his face clean of tears with the corner of the bedsheets, rolling over so his back was facing the door, breathing deeply and slowly, waiting for T'Amona to resurface.

Less than five minutes later, the door slid mechanically sideways and the Vulcan girl walked back into the bedroom wearing only her oversized borrowed t-shirt, the hem of which ended just a few inches above mid-thigh. She was clutching her grey sweats in one hand and several lengths of bandages in the other, her long hair plastered to her head and back, curling damply against the greenish skin of her elfin face. With an almost imperceptible sigh, she sat herself down in the armchair she'd originally intended to sleep in and muttered something to herself in a language Damien didn't understand. He recognised it though, from T'Amona's memory she'd unknowingly shared with him. Vulcan, he guessed.

Damien purposely twitched a little, groaned and stretched out widely in bed, then let his eyes gradually flicker open as he yawned loudly, catching T'Amona's attention. As the young Terran boy pulled himself upright against the headboard, she was immediately by his side, her eyes tender and warm.

"Did you sleep well, Damien?" She asked. Damien rubbed his eyes for effect, blinking tiredly a few times, keeping up the pretence.

"Yeah, not bad. You?" He replied, throwing in another yawn for good measure. T'Amona's brow creased the tiniest amount, so subtly that Damien wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been so close to him. Obviously she was remembering her dream and considering whether or not to tell him the truth. He didn't expect her to. Just like he wasn't going to tell her that he knew precisely how she'd slept, and it'd been anything but 'well'.

"It was adequate. Vulcans don't need as much sleep as Terrans do." She told him, her lips quirking into that familiar little smile that was probably the Vulcan equivalent of a full-out human grin. Damien smiled back in response, brushing his hands vigorously through his mop of blond hair as T'Amona straightened up and made her way back over to the armchair. Before he could get a proper look at the wound he knew would be on her left thigh, she took up the bandages and proceeded to rewrap the injury, hiding it once more beneath the white gauze. She was working quickly, methodically, trying to prevent Damien from seeing it, even though she wasn't aware that he was deliberately attempting to catch a glimpse.

"T'Amona," He called, throwing caution to the wind after she'd finished with the dressing around her thigh and pulled her grey sweats back on. "What's a yonuk-Vuhlkansu?"

T'Amona stiffened abruptly, her head snapping upwards so fast that her neck cracked in protest. Her dark cobalt eyes were wide and almost fearful as she stared in disbelief at the Terran boy. Damien didn't even know if he'd pronounced it right, or even if it was a good idea to ask her, since he had literally no clue as to what the words meant, only that San'nuk had called her it and had made her flinch when he did so.

"Where did you hear that?" T'Amona inquired sharply, her voice trembling ever so slightly as she spoke. Damien forced himself to shrug nonchalantly, throwing the covers back so he could get out of bed.

"When I woke up in the night, I heard you talking in your sleep. What does it mean? Yonuk-Vuhlkansu. Is it Vulcan or something?"

T'Amona's throat worked as she swallowed thickly, so obviously uncomfortable that she couldn't hide it behind her typical emotionless mask. Damien was starting to feel a bit guilty for bringing this up, but it was too late to take it back now.

"Yes. It's Vulcan." She murmured, but she didn't elaborate as she averted her gaze from his, now severely pissed off at herself, if the growl in her tone was anything to go by. Damien skirted around the bed, tugging his own borrowed shirt straight and chewing on his bottom lip anxiously as he approached the annoyed alien girl.

"Did I… say anything else?" T'Amona spoke after a few seconds of brooding silence, glancing back up at him. Her ebony hair hadn't dried yet, and her fringe was slicked back from her forehead so Damien could see her entire face, including her upswept eyebrows and pointed ears that were usually half-hidden beneath her black locks. She looked tired, he noticed. Really tired, actually, considering the whole "Vulcans don't need as much sleep" stuff she mentioned not long ago.

"Not really." Damien shrugged again. "It was all in Vulcan and that's the only one I remember hearing. You might've said something else, but I dunno, I wasn't awake long."

T'Amona relaxed slightly, her shoulders lowering a fraction from their previous tenseness, but Damien could tell she was still on edge.

"So what does it mean then?" He prompted, smiling at her reassuringly. He desperately wanted to know now. He wanted to know why it affected her so much. Was it an insult? It couldn't be anything good, that's for sure. Even for an eleven-year-old Terran boy, that much was pretty damn obvious.

T'Amona surveyed him blankly, her cerulean eyes fixed straight on his chocolate brown ones as though she could see straight into his very soul. It was a little unnerving, to be honest, like she was trying to solve a complicated puzzle just by looking at him.

Then she sighed, heavily this time, and turned her head away from him.

"It's just a term for what I am." She reluctantly confessed. "Yonuk-Vuhlkansu means quarter-Vulcan."

Damien blinked, confused.

"Quarter-Vulcan? But I don't…"

"My father's a half-breed and my mother's a human. You do the maths." T'Amona spat, angry now, and no doubt ashamed at admitting her impure heritage to him. Damien had fully intended to apologise had he not dropped his eyes guiltily and caught sight of something that shocked him to the core, his heart clenching in his chest as it skipped a beat.

At the sound of his sharp intake of breath, T'Amona whipped her head back around to face him and immediately saw what he was staring in horror at.

Gritting her teeth tightly, T'Amona clenched her fists, hiding the fresh scars she'd forgotten to bandage. But it was too late now. Damien had already seen them.

"Oh God," He gasped, all the blood draining from his face, making his freckles stand out starkly against the paleness of his skin. "What the hell happened to you?!"

"That's none of your concern, Terran." T'Amona replied coldly, that damned infuriating impassive expression back on her pretty face. Hot boiling anger swirled in Damien's stomach and surged up his throat like bile. T'Amona was trying to withdraw, leaning back the tiniest amount away from him, waiting for an opportunity to dodge around him and escape, but Damien wasn't about to let her get away that easily.

"Don't you 'Terran' me, T'Amona! Look at your hands! Look at them! Don't you dare try and pretend that…"

"Stop it, Damien! Just drop it and leave it alone!" T'Amona hissed furiously, her sapphire eyes blazing like blue flames. Anyone else would've took a hasty step backwards to put a safe distance between them and the wrath of the Vulcan girl in front of them, but Damien refused to be intimidated. There are some times in life where you just can't sit back and shut up, no matter how suicidal speaking out might seem. Her hands… the state of them… that's just something he couldn't ignore, not even if he tried.

Without hesitation, Damien closed the gap between them and reached out, his eyes fixed almost unblinkingly on T'Amona's, warning her not to move. She glared straight back at him, her fingers twitching in her lap, but she forced herself not to pull away as he gently took her damaged hands in his, cradling them as though they were made of the most delicate glass that could shatter at any moment.

"Oh, T'Amona…" He sighed remorsefully, his eyes starting to brim with tears of sympathy. "Who did this to you?"

T'Amona stared up at him sadly and didn't answer, instead bowing her head in that unnaturally submissive way that Damien couldn't stand, simply because it just wasn't the real T'Amona. His heart wrenched and he dropped her hands to instead cup her face, lifting her head tenderly back up to his level. Those twin orbs of shimmering azure blue were full of pain and humiliation, pleading with him to let her go and leave her be. But he couldn't. He just… couldn't.

"Please… please don't shut me out, T'Amona." Damien begged. "You're all I've got left now, and I hate seeing you hurt like this. You don't have to suffer this alone. You've got me. And I want to help you, please, I'm begging you, let me help."

He was crying openly now, droplets of warm wetness sliding steadily down his cheeks. There was a bad feeling in his gut that told him he probably already knew who'd mutilated her hands, and the dream Damien and T'Amona had shared had given him one hell of a clue.

Damien felt warm arms circle around his back and embrace him, pulling him into a tight fierce hug against the bruised slim body of the quarter-Vulcan. He flung his arms around her neck and held on for dear life, sobbing into her collarbone as she rocked back and forth gently, hushing him soothingly with as much comfort as she could possibly convey without words. Everything had just caught up with Damien now: The death of his parents, the house fire, T'Amona's injuries… He was only a kid, for God's sake! Just a kid! How was he supposed to deal with things like this?!

"Shh, everything's going to be alright, Damien. Trust me, I know it will." T'Amona murmured softly in his ear, allowing him to snuggle as close to her as he wanted despite the overwhelming tidal wave of emotional transference from the skin-to-skin contact. "You've got to understand that this is so hard for me. I hate this… I hate being so weak… I know you want to help me, but right now, the best way for you to help me would be if you just gave me some time. That's all I really need. I've never been so… unbalanced, Damien, and I don't know how long it'll take for me get my head straight, but I promise you that I will tell you everything you want to know. Just… wait a little while, ok?"

T'Amona pulled back slightly so she could look Damien full on in the face. He sniffled and lifted his head from her collarbone, regarding her steadily through watery chestnut brown eyes. After a few seconds of silence, he inhaled jerkily and nodded once in acceptance. He believed her, he really did. He couldn't explain why, but he just knew that she wouldn't lie to him. It was instinctive. Even if he didn't know anything about "Vulcans never lie" and all that, he bet he'd still feel the same. Damien trusted her absolutely, even though they'd only known each other for what? A day or two now? It might seem strange how much blind faith he had in this alien girl, but he didn't care. Like he'd already said, T'Amona was all he had left.

"Ok." He agreed, leaning in and surprising T'Amona by placing a wet kiss against the soft greenish skin of her cheek. Her eyes widened in shock for a second before they returned to their normal size, warm once more. Her full lips curved into a genuine smile as she rested her head against his and they just sat like that for a few minutes, listening to each other's breathing and feeling two heartbeats pulse together almost in perfect sync.

Much too soon, T'Amona pulled away and helped Damien climb down from her lap, setting him back on his feet. He missed the comfortable alien heat of her body instantly and shivered a little, wiping his tearstained cheeks roughly with the backs of his hands. T'Amona smoothed one scarred hand through his unruly mop of blond hair.

"I have to meditate now." She told him, still smiling fondly. Damien frowned in uncertainty, blinking up at her owlishly.

"What, again? Why?" He asked. T'Amona removed her fingers from his gravity-defying tresses and started rewrapping her hands back in their bandages. Damien tried hard not to stare as she did so, but he couldn't help himself.

"You're a very emotional being, Damien, just like the rest of your race. For me to be in such close contact with you isn't really good for my mentality." T'Amona laughed softly, efficiently fastening the knot on her left hand and moving on to fasten the right. Damien was suddenly struck with the unpleasant thought that maybe when he accidentally intruded on her thoughts when she was asleep earlier, he'd only made things worse for her. She'd been through so much and was so obviously affected deeply by it, so deeply that she revisited it in her nightmares… Damien still had absolutely no idea how he'd seen what he had in her mind, but what if he'd unintentionally messed up the state of her head even more? Oh God, what if he'd hurt her more? His guilt swiftly increased ten-fold, spreading through his limbs like a disease.

"That doesn't explain anything." He forced himself to say.

"Vulcans don't like emotion. And they don't like touching or being touched. It's a cultural thing, as well as a biological one. Don't worry if you don't understand, I'll explain it all to you in good time. I promised you I would."

"Well, you better tell me all this Vulcan stuff as soon as possible, alien girl, because you have no idea how confused I am right now." Damien grumbled, folding his arms in irritation as he reluctantly let the matter drop. He could wait until T'Amona was ready. And besides, considering just how 'unbalanced' she was, he didn't want to keep prodding and pestering her in case she went psycho again like she did in the medbay. Damien had no desire to end up like Captain Kirk had.

T'Amona chuckled quietly to herself, so quietly that Damien wouldn't have heard it had he not been stood directly in front of her.

"What's so funny?" He demanded, his brow furrowing as he frowned up at her. T'Amona smiled, standing up from her seat and brushing gracefully past him.

"That annoyed look on your face, it's just so adorable."

"Hey!" Damien growled indignantly, trying his hardest not to pout. T'Amona looked back at him over her shoulder, her cerulean eyes sparkling with mirth, flashing him a glimpse of white teeth. He could tell she was just teasing him in an attempt to lighten the mood, and it did actually work pretty well, because he found himself grinning straight back at the mysterious quarter-Vulcan alien girl who was rapidly becoming something like an older sister to him.

With a half amused, half annoyed sigh, Damien plonked himself down on the edge of the bed, absently tracing over creases in the bedsheets as he watched T'Amona open a couple of drawers, obviously searching for something. The third drawer she came to was the one she'd found the magnolia candles in yesterday, and now she pulled those candles back out triumphantly, removing the elastic band wrapped around them to keep them all together before she carefully put them back, pushing the drawer shut again with the slightest touch of her fingertips.

Damien was tempted to ask what she was doing, but he didn't need to. T'Amona swung her damp ebony locks over one shoulder and proceeded to plait her hair into one long braid, securing the end with the elastic band she'd just found. He smiled at her even though she was facing away from him, and then he leant over the side of the bed, searching for the pile of burnt and soot-blackened clothes he knew he'd left on the floor.

"Uh… T'Amona?" He called, still leaning as he chewed his bottom lip, his eyes scoping every inch of the carpet below him. T'Amona turned back to him, her plait flicking out behind her as she moved.

"Yes?"

"Our clothes have kinda… gone missing."

After his little chat with T'Amona, the rest of Jim's day had passed relatively quickly. The second half of Beta shift came and went almost impossibly fast, then he'd finished up a couple more of those goddamn reports crowding his desk before hitting the sack. And then he'd woken up this morning to find that he had literally ten minutes to get a shower, a shave, get dressed and get his ass on the bridge for Alpha shift. How the Hell he managed that was beyond him, but by some miracle he stepped out of the turbolift with just about a minute to spare. He wasn't used to getting up at the crack of dawn (even though they didn't technically have dawns in space, but Alpha shift started at bloody six am! What the hell's up with that?!), and since he was Captain now, he knew he'd have to make sure he always woke up early enough to get to his shift on time.

"Good morning, everyone!" Jim grinned as he strode from the turbolift, making for his Captain's chair in the middle of the bridge. When he walked past Uhura and caught her eye, he paused to throw a wink in her direction, which she pointedly ignored. Out of all the women he'd ever met, Uhura had got to be one of the most attractive and the least interested in him. Jim hadn't understood why at first, but when he'd happened to witness the liplock between her and Spock on the transporter pad before they beamed onboard the Narada, it was obvious that Jim Kirk wasn't her type of guy.

Nah, she preferred the uptight, emotionless, pointy-eared Vulcan First Officer over the cocky, flirtatious, sleep-with-anything-that-walks Captain. Go figure.

Jim sat down in his chair, giving himself a moment to get comfortable before he leaned forwards slightly with a smile to address the helmsman.

"Mr Sulu, how we doing for time?"

"On our current course, we should arrive at New Vulcan in approximately six and a half days, Captain." Sulu answered promptly, glancing back at him. Jim nodded and settled back into his chair, his fingers tapping gently against the armrests.

"Excellent." He smiled, then turned his attention back towards the gorgeous Uhura, his eyes raking appreciatively up the length of her shapely dark legs. God, she didn't half have a nice pair of legs.

"Lieutenant Uhura," Jim said, resisting the urge to add a "Looking good" after it. "Anything to report?"

Uhura spun around slightly in her seat, tossing her ponytail back over one shoulder as she replied to her Captain's inquiry with an air of annoyance that he knew she used to cover up her grudging respect for him. Yes, granted, she still thought he was an arrogant asshole with an ego the size of a fucking planet, but at least she knew now that he wasn't the good-for-nothing hick from Iowa she'd thought he was back in that bar.

Of course, that didn't mean that she considered him as a friend or anything, but hey, there's time for that. After all, after this trip to New Vulcan, the next thing on the agenda was a five year mission of exploration to wherever Starfleet decided in the next couple of weeks. Who knows, maybe him and Uhura will become friends or something during that.

… But then again, he highly doubted it.

"Everything is as it should be, Captain." God, no one could make his title sound like such an insult like Uhura can.

"Have we heard anything from Starfleet?"

"No, we haven't received any transmissions yet, but it is still early, Captain."

Jim opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he'd been about to say never had chance to leave his lips as the turbolift doors slid open and out stepped one of the two Vulcans onboard the USS Enterprise, and since Commander Spock was sat at his station behind him, it couldn't have really been anyone else but her.

T'Amona stood there looking as stoically Vulcan as possible, but she kinda didn't pull it off as well as she usually did, due to the fact that she was still wearing Jim's oversized clothes that showed a fair amount of greenish skin that had previously been covered, and her hair was wet and dragged back from her beautiful elfin features into a long plait that lay over one exposed shoulder. If it wasn't for the tapered eyebrows and the pointed ears, at that moment she could've easily passed for a normal human girl.

"Captain Kirk." She demanded, her voice carrying easily across the bridge, which had fallen almost deadly silent as everyone gaped at the not-so-Vulcanlike Vulcan glaring daggers down at Jim with narrowed eyes of sapphire blue.

"Where are my clothes?"

Which, of course, was the worst possible thing she could've said.

Ok, I found this awesome website for english to Vulcan translation, but if any of it's wrong, thats not my fault. ^^;

"Riyeht-stau! Eshu'a!" - "Murderer! Demon!"

"Tev-tor, San'nuk." - "Die, San'nuk."

I'm liking the Vulcan language so don't be surprised if there's loads more of it in the next chapters :D

I'm thinking maybe the next chapter will be mostly either in Jim or Spock's voice, but who knows XD

At least in this chapter I revealed a couple of things about T'Amona and everything, but then I've just gone and thrown a few more mysteries in there hehe, ah well.

Review for me please! See ya next time! ^^