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“Merry Christmas, Daddy!”
“And the same to you, Missa-Liss.” The cufflink he had been fighting off finally dropped with a metallic ting onto coffee table as Admiral Sir Malcolm Reed (retired) swung to beam at the elfin brunet on his oversized screen. With a practised eye he took in the dragged-back hair and the fingers knotting in his daughter’s lap. “Bad day?”
“Hectic.” The piece of classic British understatement won the arch of a platinum brow, but no comment. “There was a bit of a set-to on the outer colony last night. We’ve had casualties coming in all day. You heard from the boys?”
“Briefly. Charles was very hush-hush, so I assume the counter-attack involved the Yorktown in some way.”
“Daddy, if you’re supposed to know…”
“Melissa, I’m retired. I know nothing.”
He could feel the fan of her dark ponytail against his own cheek as she tossed it, fifty light years away. “Of course not. After all, nobody bothers with a couple of old fogies, do they?”
His toothy grin matched hers. “I wish you’d tell other people that. It’s been like Central Communications here.”
“You’ve heard from Tina, Sarah and all the kids then.” His daughter’s amusement trickled over the yawning distance of space, a sound guaranteed to lift Malcolm Reed’s heart. “None of us wanted to think of you being lonely on Christmas Day.”
“How could we be lonely when we have each other? Trip! Your daughter’s on the line, are you coming to say happy Christmas or not?”
“Be right with ya; these dishes don’t put themselves away, you know.”
Two pairs of grey eyes collided, the twinkle in the father’s passing into those of the child. “Poppa, did you hear what you just said?” Melissa shouted.
“Merry Christmas, darlin’; we wondered when you were gonna call, seein’ how everybody else had.” Still wiping his wet hands, Admiral Charles Tucker III hobbled in from the hall, covering the twinge in his bad knee with the brightest of Southern smiles. “Heck, it’s been every half hour since before breakfast!”
“Apparently they were afraid we might get lonely, love.” His cufflinks abandoned Reed shuffled into the crook of his partner’s arm, a soft smile deepening the creases around his eyes. Tucker snorted.
“Like hell! Don’t take this wrong, darlin’, but I’ve kinda liked havin’ your daddy all to myself for a while.”
“It must be the first Christmas we’ve ever had completely on our own,” Malcolm reflected, surprise colouring his still-smooth tones. “Think about it: the first few years we were on Enterprise; then with your family until Charlie was born…”
“Then we had the kids; Johnny; the Nakajimas ‘til they moved offworld; Travis, too, ‘til he met Sophie.” Trip shook his grizzled head. “Melissa Kovalenko, you tell those brothers of yours they’re not to bother Daddy an’ me next Christmas, you got that? It’s not that we don’t love y’all, we just deserve a little time on our own.”
“Don’t be so anti-social.”
“Uh, Malcolm? That’s s’posed to be my line, right?”
Across the comm. the sound of their daughter’s theatrical gag echoed loud and clear. “Do you ever stop flirting?” Melissa demanded. Matched brilliant smiles turned her way.
“Only unintentionally, dear. And yes, we’ve already been told once today we’re sickening.”
“Let me guess: Beth?”
“Got it in one.” Their youngest grandchild had Tucker outspokenness and Reed phraseology down pat, and Trip adored her for it. “Sarah must’ve got them up in the middle of the night to call us so early from England!”
“Or kept them up late,” Malcolm amended. “After all, it’s not as if any of them are babies any more; Beth’s thirteen, Charlotte’s almost sixteen, and young Malcolm enters the Academy next term.”
“Aren’t you giving the welcome lecture to the new cadets this year, Dad?”
Thin lips pursed. “I really don’t know which part of retired admiral they don’t understand,” Malcolm whined, his frown intensified by the matched eye-rolls of his relations. “These youngsters aren’t going to be impressed by a doddery old living history exhibit!”
“Ain’t nothin’ doddery about you, Mal. Anyway, I did it last year.”
“And the year before that, if I remember correctly.”
“I’m sure you do, darlin’.” Trip grinned into the screen at his daughter’s noisy huff. “We’re both signed up to give lectures to the senior engineerin’ and tactical streams again next semester. That why you chose medical school, to get away from the old fogies?”
“As if I’d ever want to get away from you.” Sudden tears filled the woman’s eyes and she dashed them impatiently away. “I miss you guys.”
“We miss you too.” It was, Reed realised, the simple truth. However glorious these days being the sole focus of his soulmate’s attention, a piece of his heart belonged to each child; and a fragment of each piece, to his grandchildren. Their absence, any day of the year, was acutely felt. “You’ve managed to stop for dinner?”
“Daddy, I’m a doctor. I know better than to skip meals, even when the chef’s down with Tellerite ‘flu and his deputy can burn water.” Her fathers both laughed obligingly and with a roll of her tight shoulders Melissa tugged the band from her hair, letting it swing across her delicate face. “I’m fine - honestly. It’s been three years; I’m used to being on my own again.”
“We can’t help but worry about you, Miss-Liss,” Malcolm pointed out softly, one hand stretched out as if he could touch his precious child through the screen. Dr Kovalenko nodded.
“We both knew his job was dangerous; all our jobs are,” she said simply. “Grisha wouldn’t want me to hide away lighting candles to his memory: he’d want me to go on, and that’s what I try to do. We had seven fantastic years together and even if you’d told me how they’d end I wouldn’t have changed a thing about them.”
“Amen to that,” Trip breathed, feathering his lips against his own tactical officer spouse’s dark grey hair. Melissa raised a tired smile.
“I knew you’d understand,” she murmured, almost drowned by the shrill peep from her console indicating time was nearly up. “Enjoy the rest of the holiday; I’ll be home at the end of next month.”
“Take care, darling.” Like young parents on the first day of school the two legendary admirals waved until the screen blacked out. “She looks tired,” Reed announced.
“Workin’ too hard,” Tucker diagnosed, glad to take the weight off his knee and collapse backward onto his big reclining chair, not bothering to muffle the groan of relief as the pressure on worn-down joints relaxed. “Like I’ve always said: 98.5 percent Reed.”
“Nonsense.” The word came out brusque to cover the anxious question Malcolm felt rippling the length of his tongue. “She’s much too sociable to be anything less than half Tucker. She’s probably better off being on duty; we’d smother her with concern if she were here.”
“I guess so.” Trip’s mind flew back to the first time he had seen his widowed daughter at Headquarters, so brave and withdrawn as she carried her husband’s few possessions off the damaged Saratoga. For the first time in his life, he hadn’t known what in hell to say.
“And it might be wrong of me, Mal, but it’s felt good, havin’ this Christmas just for us,” he added, catching the younger man’s hand. Facing no resistance, he brought it tenderly to his lips and let his tongue feather between liver-coloured age spots across the knuckles. “You were right, you know? All these years and it’s never been just us, celebratin’ together. Figure it’s about time we put that right.”
“Absolutely. Indubitably. Undoubtedly.” Easing his way into his husband’s lap, Malcolm punctuated each word with a hard kiss, his broad brow rested against the other man’s. From the corner of his eye he caught the glint of polished silver, and a slow, reminiscent smile broke over swollen lips.
It took a stretch, but his arthritic fingers managed to curl around the tiny model and carry it safely across to hold before his partner’s eyes. “Sixty-three years ago,” he marvelled, being careful not to catch a nail in rigging wire that was frail now, as battered and worn as both giver and receiver themselves. Trip sighed, giving the repaired sails a cautious rub.
“Where it all began,” he rumbled, images of that distant night scrolling like sepia-toned movie footage across his mind’s eye. “All those Christmas Eves together started right there in the mess hall.”
“I remember.” And it still made his heart lurch every time. Carefully Malcolm replaced his treasure on the table at their side, its existence forgotten the moment he locked eyes with the love of a thousand lifetimes. “The best Christmas present I ever got.”
“My little Billy Ruff’an?” Trip murmured, emotion making him hoarse.
“The realisation my feelings might actually be returned,” Malcolm corrected, the familiar sensation of drowning in those beloved blue eyes welling through his chest. Not without a wince against his elderly joints’ protest he dragged himself upright with a gnarled hand offered behind. “Come to bed?”
“Oh, baby.” No teenaged swain in the throes of first love could outpace Admiral Charles Tucker III in his ninety-eighth year. “I thought you’d never ask! Happy Christmas, Malcolm.”
Killing the lights with the wave of a hand, Admiral Reed let himself be swept toward the stairs on a giddying rush of joy.
“As long as I’m with you, it is.”