Chapter Text
Amanda leaned in close to the bathroom mirror and inspected the ever darkening circles under her eyes. Would concealer hide them? Or make them more noticeable? Screw it, she thought, throwing the little tube back into the drawer. She was catering this event, not attending it. No one would notice a slightly gaunt server.
She checked the time on her PADD and sighed. 16:36. Time to hustle up if she didn’t want to miss the bus for the marina. She was tempted to miss it. Her nerves had been on edge the whole week leading up to tonight. To be honest, her nerves had been on edge ever since the bombing of the Vulcan embassy six weeks ago, but tonight was the rescheduled date for the swanky dinner cruise gala thing that she had been getting ready for when the bombing happened.
Amanda wasn’t especially superstitious, but she couldn’t help feeling a little spooked.
Shaking off the nerves, she splashed some water on her face, threw her hair up in a ponytail, and hurried out of her apartment. Realistically, she couldn’t afford to miss this gig, anyway. The credits that she had slightly scammed from the Vulcan guy at the embassy had covered all her bills for the month, but new bills were always on the horizon.
As she walked to the bus stop, Amanda idly wondered, as she had many times since their meeting, how the poor pointy-eared chump was doing. She figured that he could not have lived on Terra long if he actually believed that her water bill was six hundred credits. Poor guy comes planetside and immediately gets bombed. And subsequently swindled, her guilty conscience reminded her. She winced. Not exactly a glowing welcome to Terra.
Amanda had toyed with the idea of tracking him down. She couldn’t pay him back yet, but she could at least check on him and make sure he was okay. Maybe it would give him some kind of closure about things. She knew that she herself could use some closure.
The whole experience was just so weird. One morning, she’s sneaking into a gym, then suddenly she’s tying her shirt around this alien guy’s head wound, and then by the afternoon she’s just … living her life again. Everything just felt so unresolved. And it did not help that most nights she woke up from dreams involving copious amounts of green blood.
Yes, closure would be nice. Then, she could get back to her normal, boring, underpaid life.
XXXXX
“Would Sevin not be a more logical choice to bring to this event?”
Sarek repressed a sigh and continued to fasten his thick coat. “You are coming, Torval. Put on your coat.”
His young assistant shuffled his feet but made no move toward the coatrack. “A security officer seems to me a more logical choice for such a dangerous—“
“It is a fundraiser on a large watercraft, not a dangerous mission.” Sarek took Torval’s coat from the hook and tossed it to him with perhaps more force than necessary. He turned and walked toward the parking structure. “Do not make us late.”
Within a few minutes, the embassy vehicle was carrying them through light traffic toward the San Francisco Marina. “I do not understand why a museum should have a fundraiser on a watercraft,” Torval muttered sullenly.
Sarek chose not to reply. He admittedly shared many of Torval’s misgivings, despite thoroughly researching this vessel. She (Terrans historically designated their ships female) was 30 meters from bow to stern with one climate-controlled dining deck below and one open-air observation deck above. Her safety features included four inflatable lifeboats and enough personal flotation devices for each passenger and crew member. She was safer in every respect than a spacefaring vessel, and yet, Sarek found himself illogically wishing he was about to board an interplanetary transport instead. Vulcan did not have boats.
But, as the new cultural attaché of the Vulcan diplomatic corps on Terra, this was his duty. On the day before he died, his predecessor had explained that the invitation to the fundraiser was a great honor, and the humans would be insulted if no Vulcan representatives were present, because the museum was currently featuring a large exhibit of Vulcan pottery. Several politicians would also be attending, which was evidently important for unexplained reasons, as well. Sarek found this give and take of honors and insults to be frustratingly nebulous. He longed for the clarity of hard data and equations…
He gazed out of the car window. It was illogical to dwell on lost opportunities. The facts were that he was no longer an astrophysicist, and thanks to the bombing of the Vulcan embassy six weeks ago, he was no longer just playing the part of a diplomat’s assistant until the drama of his personal life had faded from the public eye of the Vulcan homeworld. He was now an actual diplomat and would be for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, he was going to suppress the frustration with these circumstances, the distaste for politics and the fear of boats, and he was going to do his duty.
Before long, the gleaming blue of San Francisco Bay appeared ahead of them. They were almost to the marina. Sarek turned to his assistant and fixed him with a stern look. “Our opinions of this event are irrelevant. We will behave courteously to our human hosts and represent our planet well. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
XXXXX
“I don’t care what your opinions on aliens are. You’re not getting paid to have opinions. You’re getting paid to serve food. If anyone has any problems with that then you had better get off this fucking boat right now. Do you people hear me?”
Amanda glanced around and caught the eye of her favorite co-worker, Sarah, who shrugged back at her. Their boss always liked to gather the servers before an event to preemptively yell at them, but this was new subject matter. Usually it was stuff like, “If I catch you drinking the fucking champagne, you’re fired,” or, “You better act fucking happy to be here or I’ll give you something to be sad about.” This alien stuff was new.
When enough murmurs of assent trickled from the group to satisfy him, he dismissed them to continue prepping. Sarah sidled over to her. “You think he’s scared someone will cause a scene?”
“Might be.” Amanda looked around at the other servers and wondered if a few looked more pissed off than usual. “A lot of people who used to keep their xenophobic thoughts to themselves aren’t afraid to speak openly now.”
Xenophobia toward aliens had existed on Terra ever since Zephram Cochrane made first contact, but most people generally agreed that participating in the interplanetary community was a net positive. If nothing else, having so many trade partners was good for business. Not to mention the huge advancements in tech. But there had always been a vocal minority who screamed that dealing so closely with aliens posed a grave risk to humanity. They insisted that Terra was becoming dangerously dependent on off-world trade and eclipsed by the more established species like Vulcans and Tellarites.
Amanda had always thought these views were just for fringe groups and radicals, but after the attack on the Vulcan embassy, all kinds of people were expressing anti-alien views. Politicians were saying things like, “I do not condone violence, but can you blame humanity for lashing out against its oppressors?” and, “We need to show these aliens that we’re putting Earth first again.” Random acts of violence against aliens had spiked. Protests and rallies were happening regularly. The vocal minority was evidently not so minor after all.
Sarah touched her arm. “Speaking of that, have you even slept since the bombing? You’ve got kind of a heroin-chic thing going on, and I’m not loving it.”
Amanda would have been mildly insulted if it weren’t true. “I know, I look awful. It’s getting better, though,” she lied, not really wanting to talk about the nightmares. She liked Sarah, but they weren’t close like that. She changed the subject. “Come on, let’s get back to work.”
XXXXX
Sarek’s first real challenge of the evening was presented to him on a silver platter.
The evening had been passing surprisingly well. He had thanked the hosts, complimented the museum curators, and greeted the appropriate guests as indicated on the former cultural attache’s list. His duties discharged, he now stood alone at the starboard railing. Torval was somewhere belowdecks experiencing an unfortunate disturbance of his vestibular system, but Sarek was gratified to find the brisk breeze and sway of the watercraft quite invigorating.
A server had approached with a tray of Terran delicacies, smooth white hemispheres with an ornately shaped dollop of yellow paste in the center of each orb. The server had assured him that it was, in fact, food, and it was even vegetarian-friendly. Sarek obediently picked one up. It felt cool and springy, and he was reminded uncomfortably of an eyeball.
Now he had a dilemma. He glanced surreptitiously around the small groups nearby, hoping for some clue on how to eat the alien food. Should he break it in two or swallow it whole? Perhaps only the paste was edible. Sarek believed he had comported himself honorably so far tonight, and he was loath make a social faux pas now.
As he scanned the clusters of laughing and chatting humans, he found what he was looking for. A woman in a short black dress was holding a white food item identical to his. She bit directly into it, chewed, and swallowed.
Simple enough, if not messy. It was not the Vulcan way, but he considered himself adaptable.
Tentatively, he bit into the alien food and began to chew. The texture was a combination of slimy soft rubber and mealy paste. The taste was tangy and sulfurous. He choked. It was the single worst thing he had ever put in his mouth. Drawing on every last fiber of his Vulcan strength, he mostly repressed his gag reflex and forced it down his throat.
There was no way he could eat the rest of whatever this thing was.
“Would you care for some water, sir?”
Sarek flinched. Another server had appeared at his elbow. Although he was not skilled at interpreting human facial expressions, he could easily see that her eyes were shining with barely suppressed laughter. He felt his ears get hot as he took the glass she offered. “Thank you,” he nodded stiffly.
Leaning toward him, she whispered, “Don’t worry. No one else saw.” When she closed one of her blue eyes in an apparent non-verbal communication, Sarek suddenly realized this woman seemed familiar. Before he could follow this thought, she reached for the offensive food item in his hand and discreetly flicked it overboard.
He blinked.
“Deviled eggs are an acquired taste.” She smiled brilliantly, and recognition clicked into place. Her hair was much darker now that it was not coated in dust, and her face looked a bit more angular, but her smile was the same.
“You are Amanda.”
It was her turn to blink up at him. Confusion briefly clouded her expression, then her smile shone bright again. “Holy shit. Head wound guy?” Sarek tilted his head slightly. “I didn’t even recognize you. You clean up very well.”
Sarek quirked an eyebrow. “Your personal hygiene is also satisfactory,” he replied, surprised that this was a customary conversation topic among humans.
She laughed and patted his arm a few times. “Bless you. I wish I could stay and chat, but my boss will chew me out if I don’t get back to work. Maybe we can get coffee some time.” She winced. “Sorry, I can’t remember your name. Sar… Sar…?”
“Sarek,” he supplied distantly, wondering if she was exaggerating or if her boss might actually bite her.
“Sarek,” she repeated with a smile. “Coffee. I’ll look you up.” And with that, she was gone.
As the chilly, salty wind ruffled his hair, he pondered the odds of meeting this unusual human again today. He was interested in speaking with her again, but he hoped that coffee was not an acquired taste like deviled eggs.