I

When there were nearly two dozen goblets, bottles, flutes, and tumblers assembled on the table like a glass Star Fleet standing at attention, and Jaylah had grown bored of contemplating the way the controlled dimming of the lights made her transparent little crew sparkle and glow, she heaved herself out of her seat and strode over to where Scotty was laughing loudly with Sulu. Scotty's face was flushed and his eyes shone when he flicked them from Sulu to Jaylah on her approach. Jaylah didn't see a crystalline assemblage like her own anywhere near where Scotty was standing, but when his fingertips skittered across her collarbone, though his body language suggested he had meant to grasp her convivially by the shoulder, and he appeared to be as surprised as she was, she knew that he had also taken his edge off.

"Monngomry Scotty," she slurred and made a face at the way her lazy, edgeless voice was dropping his syllables.

"Ay?" Scotty smiled at her, puzzled, and his eyes darted from her eyes to her mouth, her mouth to her eyes, not sharply like Krall's bees, but like real bees she had seen in old videos of Earth in her house's log. His rough hand was still resting, warm and heavy, between her neck and her shoulder.

"I need you…" she pressed her eyes tightly shut for a moment as Sulu began to swim in the corner of her vision.

The colour in Scotty's face deepened and when Sulu gave him a look with his eyebrow up, Scotty frowned at his friend.

"I need you to fix something," Jaylah said slowly as he looked at her, trying not to let either her words or her gaze waver.

"Wha', now?" Scotty turned his face from Jaylah to Sulu, his chin on a wobbling flightpath, as if Sulu could provide an explanation for Jaylah's request. Bones shouldered by behind them, supporting a James T. whose edge Jaylah would guess had been left far behind. Scotty grabbed Bones's arm. "Wha' time is it?"

Bones shook his head, pulling out of Scotty's reach and nodding towards James T. slumping on his shoulder, indicating he was set on a mission not to be interrupted. Bones was almost past them, then stopped abruptly, nearly causing James T. to slide off his shoulder, and stared intently into Scotty's smiling face. "Time for you to slow down unless you want to spend a night in one of the hospitals on this floating space bubble getting your stomach pumped." Scotty jerked his head back, his smile fading, but Jaylah had been taught that Bones was one for exaggerations, so when the doctor started walking away again, she let him pass without threatening him for his hard words to Montgomery Scotty. It was only Bones's way.

"It can' be tha' late," Scotty confidently reported to Jaylah, scrunching his face up in distrust of the doctor's prognosis, but when he turned to get Sulu's confirmation and saw the man's hand stroking across the back pocket of his husband's jeans as Sulu leaned in to speak quietly near his ear, Scotty corrected himself. "Er perhaps it's a wee bit later than A thought. Best, ah, leave them to it, lassie." He frowned in embarrassment and dropped his eyes, running his palm around to Jaylah's back and letting it rest between her shoulder blades like some small animals she had observed nesting at the joining branches of trees before she knocked them down and cooked them. Jaylah tensed and it took a moment for her swirling brain to recall that neither did she currently have a weapon strapped there nor was Scotty an enemy trying to grab it from her to gain the combative advantage. She leaned back into his hand, comforted by the way Montgomery Scotty maintained the pressure. "Shall we then?"

Jaylah nodded, letting her chin tip forward for what felt like forever, like the freefall of her house from its perch on the cliff when Sulu made it fly. Sulu was a risk taker with good strong nerves and Jaylah told him so, though he may not have heard since his husband's hand was over the ear nearest her, pressed to his jaw as he mashed their faces together with much smacking and panting.

Scotty's hand gave Jaylah a gentle push forward and she nearly jumped out of his grip. "I know how to walk, Monngomry Scotty." She flashed her eyes at him and he chuckled in a nervous, surprised way and held up his palms for her to see. Jaylah stared at the hands that had done hard work on the ship that brought him there, just like hers had done on her house when she repaired the inertial dampener, the pieces of hull that had been knocked out like teeth from a hard punch, and the connections on her music to make the shouting violently blast out. Scotty was showing her that she and he were the same.

Seeing her relax, Scotty lowered his hands and they started walking side by side when Jaylah pressed her palm to his, holding his hand securely. Scotty shivered though the room crowded with Enterprise crewmen and –women was warm rising towards hot, and stood up taller as they wound through the people towards the door. Jaylah hoped he was not trying to signal that his stature put him in charge, but she could not be sure, so she sped up her tripping feet, forcing Montgomery Scotty to let her pull him through the crowd.

"Eager to leave?" Chekov shouted, stepping back from a group of fluttering female ensigns.

Jaylah touched her fingertips to the tip of her thumb and twisted her wrist a few times, showing Chekov that they were on their way to fix something.

Chekov's eyebrows sprung up as if trying to grab hold of the curl of hair hanging down from his head and his mouth dropped open, spitting out a gruff laugh of amazement.

"No, no, no, laddie." Scotty was waving his arms back and forth. "Tha's not wha' she means." Scotty tried to pause, very pink in the face, but Jaylah angled her weight forward and pulled him away.

Chekov shrugged submissively, but raised a hand to cup his mouth. "I may haf misinterpreted her intentions, but it is wery unlikely." His laughter seemed to ricochet off every table, person, and glass they maneuvered past, then straight off the door in front of them as Jaylah pushed it open.

"Ye know wha', laddie?" Scotty shouted angrily back over his shoulder. "Why don' ye just go f—" The door hissed shut.