When getting into the transport to leave, Blue handed me a letter as he hugged me goodbye. He told me it was something he'd originally written for me all those years ago when we parted ways after Travis' death, and he'd been intending to give it to me sooner, but never got the chance. I tucked it into my bag as I told him I'd read it when I had some privacy again, and he bowed his head in that way of his people to indicate he understood. Another tight hug, and we parted ways again. I watched him through the window on the transport, as long as I could before he became an indistinguishable little speck in the sea of blue people, then had settled in for the trip back to the Shingen.

Horrible and easily distracted that I am, I'd forgotten about the letter until Spiegel told me today that he'd disabled the bugs th'Shan had in my quarters. Spiegel just laughed at me when I expressed surprised, and a little anger, that the bastard would bug my quarters. When he explained that they'd likely been there for years now, and used to spy on any number of occupants who'd had my quarters before me, I calmed down a little. Spiegel also explained that a good ninety-something percent of the ship was bugged this way, and that by using one of the borg bugs he'd picked up when sweeping that room in the restaurant on Andor, he now had control of the bug network. I laughed when he admitted that other than disabling the bugs in his quarters and mine, he left the network otherwise undisturbed so that the bastard wouldn't know the difference, but now he can spy on the bastard as the bastard spies on everyone else. When I commented it was nice to have my privacy again, even though I hadn't realized I was missing it before, I was reminded of my promise to Blue to read the letter.

When I made it back to my quarters later, I dug the letter out of the hidden pocket I'd slipped it into and settled down with Delilah in my lap to read it. It was a short letter, though it said and explained a lot. Andorians have a natural way with words, their language is full of subtleties and grace that a lot of species can't even imagine. Blue, having spent a significant amount of his time cooped up in that little cargo ship with Travis and I, had the advantage of having gained a similar mastery in English that most of his people don't have the patience to learn. Most people, humans especially, seem to assume that Andorians are rough, lacking a sense of humor, but often it's just that it doesn't translate well.

The letter boiled down to this: He felt Travis' lost as deeply and painfully as I had, that he had loved both of us. Knowing this now, some of his actions, some of the things he said, all those years ago, make so much more sense. I had always wondered why he hadn't been there for me during my haze, my initial mourning period. Why I had woken from my deepest depression alone at Starfleet Academy, instead of with my dear friend. I know he'd shunned his people, and a loveless bond, because the idea offended him, that he felt it betrayed the true soul of his people. One could not be whole if one did not love their bond. Finding and losing that bond, being reminded how fleeting life is sometimes, this made him realize he was being selfish, that is what drove him to his homeworld to produce children.

He's certainly coped with the loss of Travis better than I. I assumed it was because the loss wasn't as deep for him, but now I think it's just because he's better adjusted than I, allowed himself to let people inside. His bond may be a loveless one, but there is a love there for the children that resulted, and while his zh'yi may have neglected the bond once the child bearing was done, he at least seems to have a solid and trusting friendship with his other bond mates. Since the loss of Travis, the only person I've let even remotely close is Toby, and even him I keep at arm's length to some degree since he too hurt me by running off on me for those years.

When the monitor left, I was left wondering what I'd do with my time until Thil's bonding. Spiegel was still distracted by Thil or still trying to recover from the wild sex, Noelle doesn't seem to drink much, and I either don't really know or get along with the rest of the team. Pukey was on transport out of town pretty quickly anyways, so was Princess. I'm not sure where Pukey was headed, but I suspect Princess was looking to get some quality time in with her bond and children before the wedding and having to go back to the Shingen. I really can't blame her.

I did wander out into the city in search of some pretty chain mail. I never did get to buy the pretty Spiegel and I had found at the beginning of the mission. I did find a couple other pieces of pretty though. One thing that actually closely resembled the little thing I wore for the festival, that did little more than point out exactly how little I was wearing. The other a good piece to layer over a long flowing dress. Having accomplished this, I wasn't sure what else to do with my time until the bonding. So I called up Blue.

Good friend that he was, he was down from the Shan-Zhess keep in record time. He brought the children with him though, his ch'te works in Laibok and the kids wanted to see their charan. This worked out well enough though, the six of us went to lunch, and Shrelas took control of them after that. Lunch was interesting though, one of the sex positions I'd learned from Toby, and passed along to Blue, turns out to work well for a bond, with some modifications. Shrelas mentioned it casually over lunch, and after he'd described it a little, I knew which one he was talking about. I was surprised when their thei pointed out that his zhavey had especially loved the position, even though she couldn't walk for a week afterwards. I actually spit my drink in response, less at the comment and more at the source of it. The five of them all laughed, and one of their shei made an off handed comment about pinkskins being so silly about sex.

Blue showed me around to all the awesome things in Laibok that only an Andorian could find, pointedly ignoring most of the touristy things I would have found had I been on my own. I think the best place we visited was the roof on some random tall building, that gave us a breathtaking view of the city. It was a little awkward to reach, but Blue assured me it was worth it, so we'd made our way up there. Even better than the view was the sex we had. It was also hinted that Shrelas would probably be receptive to experimentations, but the timing and the logistics of where to do it without leaving the children bored and neglected prevented us from doing anything. I believe there's an open invitation for the next time I'm on Andor though, and maybe even their sh'za would join too, if I was interested. I'll have to ponder that one a bit. There was no mention of their zh'yi though, I got the impression that once she spit out three children and passed her fertility window, she kept her distance from the bond.

We did run into Noelle at one point, as she was headed out to find a dress for Thil's bonding. She convinced me to come along when I admitted I didn't have anything with me to wear. She was surprised when Blue was receptive to coming along, but when he made a crack about how we'd need someone to hold all our weaponry outside the dressing rooms, Noelle laughed and welcomed his company. We hit a few different shops, and from the way she blushed with his commentary every time she'd step out of the dressing rooms to show us what she'd found, I'm surprised she was still talking to us by the time we'd both selected dresses. I ended up with a dress that was pretty tame by my standards, even Blue was surprised I was electing to be so well behaved in my choice, but I liked the subtlety of it and the light colors. It also made me think I looked a bit like a goddess when wearing it.

We later caught up with Spiegel, who had finally emerged from sex based stupor and recovery, and had dinner with him. I almost provided an encore of my spit take from the lunch with Blue's bondmate and children, as when Blue asked of how things had gone with Thil, Spiegel was literally bubbling forth with more details than I'd ever heard from him before. Spiegel was surprised at my reaction, but Blue teased me and accused me of getting prudish in my old age. When I punched him in the arm, and promised to kick his ass on a dueling ground later, he kept further such commentary to himself, and probed Spiegel for more information. I wonder if this new found appreciation for an open and casual attitude about sex is going to stick around, or if Spiegel will go back to his normal self after a little time back on the Shingen. Only time will tell, I suppose.

We're going to spend a little more time with Blue's ch'te and children before getting ready for Thil's bonding. The rest of the team is going to meet us at the place it's being held, but Spiegel insisted he wanted a little help getting ready. His new found casualness about sex hasn't kept him from realizing his awkwardness, and being concerned about making a good impression at what's clearly a very important day for Thil. Blue finds it amusing, and slightly charming, that Spiegel's so worried. He and I are going to help the dork out, and hopefully keep him from being nervous enough to do something stupid and ruin this friendship he's built up with Thil. I'm going to try to talk Spiegel into not elmer's gluing his hair into spikes, see if he'll let it be natural and curly.

That wasn't enough to make up for lost time, but it certainly was nice. I got to play with a new toy, one that Blue used to taunt me with, threatening to make me learn how to use. The ushaan-tor is beautiful in its utilitarian ugliness, and it is wicked fun in its sadistic rules. You tether yourself to your opponent by a gauntlet, then have at. Blue and I, even though years had pushed us too far apart, we were still on that same wavelength we used to share. He won our match, but it could have easily gone the other way too. If I'd had my way, Blue and I would have spent another hour or two continuing to spar, but unfortunately we had an audience and had to yield to their needs and wants.

Granted, watching Noelle and Thil square off was almost worth the lost sparing time. It was like when Fire and Water meet, fire only ever wins when it gets close but does not touch the water, it always yields when the two osculate. Thil is so used to winning because Fire is so strong, that she didn't know what to do with herself when she encountered a water force. When she didn't understand, she stormed off, and Spiegel, ever the lost puppy, followed after her. I can only hope she allowed his presence to ground her, and that he didn't regret the choice to follow her.

The kids were taken with Noelle's demonstration, but they soon were jarred away from her by Pukey being stupid, and the bastard being as stupid. With some egging on with the kids, the two faced off. The bastard had the upper hand at first, as while he's very by the book, he at least learned from the book, unlike the Pukey one. What did amuse was that after the bastard chose to turn this into an object lesson, and a threat to Pukey's career, Pukey turned around on him and showed him exactly where the chink in his armor was. The bastard does not think outside of the box, if he thinks the match is over, he's good as dead if that's your goal. I'll have to remember to include details like that when I make the holodeck program.

Unfortunately the bastard called for a briefing not long after that. I'll have to corner Blue after the briefing and convince him to head back up the dueling grounds tonight, just the two of us. I'll have to see if Spiegel can spare his mobile emitter, as I do miss music with the sparring matches, it leaves us both less inclined to talk through it and leads to more creative actions as we both have a tendency to fall in time with whatever we're listening to.

On the subject of Blue and the briefing, apparently the bastard trusts Blue enough to let him help a little with the mission. He gets to come with us part of the way, so that might help lighten the mood and improve part of the trip. We'll see.

So, by most peoples definition, I am an open and experimental person when it comes to sex. Those same people would not be surprised that I ended up in a triad in the middle of an Andorian festival, and that that triad was the focal point of much attention. I can honestly say I remember less of it than I'd like. I don't typically try out mind and perception altering substances when involved in sex, it seems to do less to help and more to fog things up. I think my reason to give it a go was three fold. First of all, I knew it would piss off the Blue Bastard, second of all, it was recommended to be by Blue, and third of all, Spiegel couldn't do it so I had to see what he was missing so I could both make him jealous and report back to him about it.

At any rate, the sex was fabulous. At least what I can clearly remember was fabulous, the rest was probably just as much so, I just don't remember more than abstractions of those parts of it. After Blue and I retreated from the festival, I had asked him about Hralek. Turns out, he doesn't really know the dude much, other than a few passing interactions here and there. He's another southerner married into a northern clan though, so he's easily as bored as Blue is normally. Speaking of normally bored, not only is Blue happy to see me because I'm, well, me, but he's happy to see me because I mean something to do that isn't boring and cold.

Apparently, that's part of the reason he learned to do the fancy fire handling, it was something to do that wasn't cold and boring. He's looking forward to when his children are old enough to join their own bonds, so that he can wander off world for extended periods of time again. At least his children sound great, when he starts going on about them, he just will not shut up, but it's the good sort of not shut up. I did tease him a bit considering he used to be so starkly opposed to producing offspring, and didn't used to understand why Travis and I were even interested in doing such ourselves. I get to meet the little ones later today, after they wake up in the morning.

Once he got his proud parent bragging out of the way, we turned to the topic of Travis for a bit. Well, he did, I was mostly quiet at first. I curled up, and laid with my head in his lap while he tried to start conversation. It took a lot of effort on his part, but he finally got me talking when he asked me to show him that scar on my hip. He traced it a bit, and then asked if it was accidental or planned that it scarred like that. I hadn't been aware of it at first, Travis pointed it out one time and admitted that for some reason he just felt the need to bite there every time he saw it was mostly healed up again. Blue laughed, and mentioned that he did remember Travis being a little focused on details.

Blue asked if I still had that corset Travis gave me. I had to think a moment, as I hadn't worn it in a while, and I wasn't sure when the last time I'd worn it was. I finally remembered it was in a box with some of his things I'd decided to keep before turning the rest over to his family when he died. I admitted that I didn't even remember the last time I'd opened the box. Blue asked me what else was in the box. I still had the blood wine and romulan ale bottles from our engagement, that orange work shirt he lived in all the time but I insisted I hated, a copy of the wedding invitations we'd sent out, the ring I'd given him with the holo of the two of us in it, and a random selection of other things I couldn't remember off the top of my head.

The conversation kind of died there, and we curled up together to sleep. I couldn't fall asleep at first, and I actually cried for a bit. I'd been handling the loss of Travis by just trying not to think about it, and between Blue having been around most of the time I was with Travis, and his insistence on talking about him, I was slapped in the face with the fact that this coping method probably wasn't the best. Fifteen years should have been enough time for me to bundle up the pain and handle it, but I just keep running from it. There isn't much else I'll run from, but I have to admit that I am the biggest coward in this. Blue was quiet and comforting. He said small words to try to calm me, softly petted my hair, and otherwise just let me know he was there for me.

I did eventually fall asleep, but my sleep was unsettled because of my dream. It started off I was in the bar it happened in, Travis was right beside me like he'd been that day. We were talking and teasing each other over who was taking the other's name. Suddenly things jumped forward, and then we've skipped past the fight and I'm finding him dead across a table in the back. I found myself back in that moment of despair, feeling like all I wanted to do was curl up and die.

There's a hole in my memory starting from that moment, continuing until about a year and a half into my time at the Acad, but in the dream I've pulled Travis into my arms and I'm sitting in the middle of the floor rocking us back and forth. The bar tender had been headed over, a hard look on his face until he recognizes Travis as the person I'd come in with, then a wave of sympathy washes over his face remembering the conversation we'd had about our upcoming wedding. He squeezes my shoulder, and asks me if there was someone he could call for me. I manage to say Blue's name, his real name, and the name of our ship.

Time skips forward again, and I'm still sitting in the same spot, clutching Travis as if he was my last thread of life, and Blue arrives. There's a med team of some sort hovering in the background, but they looked as if they were afraid of me and wouldn't approach until Blue had first come and coaxed me into laying Travis' cold body on the floor. As he'd pulled me back, and held me tightly, the med team swarmed in and did whatever it was they had to do to legally certify he was dead. I hadn't cried up until that point, but when I did, I buried my face in Blue's shoulder, and he held me as tightly as he could.

This is where I woke up with a start, tears streaming down my face. I woke Blue with my sudden movement, and seeing the tears in my eyes, he quickly took me in his arms and asked me what was wrong. I told him about the dream, and he told me that it sounded pretty accurate from what he witnessed and what he could piece together from what I'd told him and what the bar tender had said when he'd called him. Once I'd calmed down again, we tried to go back to sleep, but I just couldn't. I eventually excused myself, and told him I'd see him in the dining hall in the morning.

I retreated to the sleeping area that'd been set aside for the away team, but was still so unsettled by the dream that I just couldn't fall asleep again. So I pulled out my journal, hoping that writing it all down would help me work past it. However, it's almost time for me to head down to the dining hall to see Blue again and meet his children. Sleep is for the dead, I suppose.

Once we're off this bullet train, we have to fly into Shan-Zhess keep from the trading post that's at the end of the line. The Blue Bastard really really amazes me sometimes. Here I am on the mission, with all my natural flight skill and experience, and he thought we were going to be hiring someone else to do the flying. I'm not some petaQ who can only fly Starfleet designed craft, my service record states that I've got experience with any number of craft, everything from antique internal combustion earth craft all the way through large fleet battle ships. I'm not sure if he's just being dense, hasn't read my service record (even though he is ranking officer on this away mission, undercover or not), or if he was intentionally being a jackass.

At any rate, flying through snow is a fun challenge. The last time I did it was the one time Blue brought Travis and I to visit his family on Andor. Outside of the flying, it was kind of a shitty trip, every other sentence out of family and anyone else he interacted with was something along the lines of "when are you going to join a bond and produce children?" Speaking of Blue, I'm probably not going to get the chance to catch up with him while I'm here, if we're going to a remote keep up in the middle of snow covered nowhere.

The name of the keep has been nagging at me since Thil said it back in harbortown. It's probably just that the Blue Bastard mentioned it during some point leading up for the mission, as I know he and the Princess both offered to host us at their family's keep, and probably even mentioned them by name when discussing the topic. I still can't help but think I've heard the name before. Oh well, it'll eventually come to me.

We're currently on a train to the next stop in our mission. We're headed to meet some contact who is an under cover agent for a political group that supports succession from the Federation. Spiegel, having sampled near everything on the alcohol menu he'd never had chance to try before, is out like a light. If he didn't have me to watch his back, I don't know how he'd survive in a place like this.

When Thil arranged our transportation, she only arranged for four bunks in the compartment we're sharing for this leg of the trip. I remember from when I worked with Blue that Andorians keep a different schedule. They only need to sleep four hours in every twenty-eight, so she probably figured that she, Princess and the Blue Bastard wouldn't need to sleep. I'm not tired myself, so I'm keeping watch over Spiegel while I'm writing here.

Pukey crashed in the other top bunk, and while he looked tired, he didn't seem comfortable falling asleep while I had my d'k tahg out. He only settled in and fell asleep once I put it away and pulled out the journal instead. Noelle selected the bunk under Spiegel and I, so I feel comfortable letting my leg hang down as I doubt she'll take offense to the presence of my leg. For whatever reason, the Blue Bastard settled down on the floor, but once Thil saw that I was keeping watch over Spiegel, she sat down on the empty bunk.

Princess wandered off elsewhere on the train. It's clear to see that every moment she has to spend with us pains her, so it's probably for the better she wandered off. She doesn't seem to get along with her people either, so it's not going to be relaxing for her to be elsewhere, but at least I don't have to put up with her for a little bit.

Once I have a better idea of where we'll be, what we'll be doing, and how much down time we might have between objectives, I really do need to look up Blue and see how he's doing. Being forced to spend the time around the Blue Bastard and the Princess has reminded me how much I miss him being around. The two of them may be insufferable to deal with, but Andorians are relatively rare these days due to the population crisis, so all it takes is to see one and Blue is one of the first things I think of.

There's little better to make someone lose contact with friends than being in the fleet. Being transferred here, assigned there, and suddenly a couple weeks becomes a couple years and you wonder where the time has gone. Last time I had the chance to talk to him, his children were the focus of his life, and so he probably hasn't noticed the time pass much either.