Chapter Three – Getting reacquainted

When Tarin awoke she didn't open her eyes. "I must still be asleep," she whispered. "This has to be a dream."

"If it is a dream," Ben fondly replied in an equally hushed tone, "than it's one we are both dreaming." He tightened his embrace and planted a gentle kiss on his fiancée's lips.

When she reluctantly withdrew from Ben, Tarin slowly opened her eyes and ran her tongue around her lips. "Hmmm, you taste good." She wiggled out of Ben's embrace and rested her head on a hand. "What are you doing here Ben? You should be in sickbay, or have I slept through 36 hours?"

"No, you haven't.” Delight over his presence mixed with curiosity in her voice and Ben realized how lucky he was to have gained Tarin’s unwavering trust. “I released myself from sickbay last night, but don't worry. I'll go back there and let Doctor Jascar finish his job."

"Why did you do this? I missed you greatly, but did you really have to risk your health for one night? And why didn't you wake me once you had decided to do such a foolish thing? That was the most stupid part, as far as I am concerned."

Ben rested his face on a hand, mirroring Tarin’s posture, and ran his eyes over her face before he replied. What he saw was some mild disapproval, curiosity and a lot more love than he felt he deserved. "I had a long chat with Catherine yesterday - after the funeral service - and despite her best efforts to convince me otherwise I thought you had been avoiding me the last few days on purpose, that visiting me would make you doubt that it was a good idea to bring me aboard your ship. With me being seriously hurt under your command and the way you lost Carl. . . I was afraid that you might have second thoughts about us, that you were perhaps too fearful to lose me like you lost Carl, to come visit me."

He paused for air and Tarin wanted to reach out to him, to stroke his face, comfort him and banish his fears, but she had a feeling that for once it wasn't easy for Ben to speak his mind. All she could do was give him the time he needed without distracting him.

"When I got to your quarters I had second thoughts about waking you to confront you with my fears and troubled emotions in the middle of the night, so I decided to retire to my own quarters. And then I found you here." A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "When I saw you here, in my bed, you looked so content, so happy even in your sleep that I knew how wrong I had been. Pretty stupid of me, huh?"

Now Tarin reached out and ran her hand through his hair, twirled a strand of it around her fingers. "You have done more stupid things in your life, but it was pretty foolish of you to discharge yourself from sickbay. Not that I am cross with you about it. How could I, after waking up in your arms."

Ben leaned over and passionately kissed her. "I'll never know what I did to deserve you."

"I sometimes wonder about that myself. Now off you go to sickbay, before I decide to keep you to myself for the rest of the day. And we don't want to have Doctor Jascar come up here to drag you back to his loving care, do we?"

"No, we wouldn't want that." Ben got out off the bed and retrieved a fresh uniform from his wardrobe. When he got back from the bathroom after a quick shower and a shave Tarin still lay in his bed and him with a smile. Ben sat down on the edge of the bed and pointed at the blanket and Tarin's body hidden under it. "Say, that nightdress. . ."

"Yes," Tarin slowly replied, an impish glint showing in her eyes, "what about it?" She lifted the covers a little and looked down at the garment that had aroused Ben's curiosity. 'And perhaps a little more,' she thought and, despite her best efforts to stay serious, grinned from ear to ear.

"Well, that's hardly your usual style. I am just curious what else you wear when you don't expect me home for the night."

"Oh, I could tell you, but where's the fun in that," Tarin teased him. "Now you'll never know what you missed by not running away from sickbay sooner." She laughed at Ben's theatrical groan and the way he rolled his eyes, before she got out of the bed and slowly turned around. "Do you like it?"

"Like it? Are you kidding? If I wasn't so much in love with you already I'd fall for you head over heels."

Tarin sat down in his lap and slung her arms around Ben's neck. She wasn't quite done teasing him yet. "And I thought you loved me for my mind. Now it turns out that all you are after is my body. I am deeply disappointed with you Ben Tucker."

Ben bent forward and ran his face through her hair. "I am sorry, ma'am. I'll promise to keep my testosterone in check." He ran his fingertips down the small of her back and Tarin quivered in his arms.

"I think I should get dressed, too," Tarin reluctantly said. "This outfit may get you all turned on, but I feel almost naked." She quickly placed her hand on Ben's lips. "No, don't comment on that. Let's just say that I won't wear something like this every day, regardless of what you may hope. It's just not quite me."

Ben nodded in agreement. "Okay, if that's what you want I won't say a thing. But then why did you put it on in the first place?"

Tarin stood and turned around once more. "I was saving this for our wedding night, but I wanted to imagine how that night will be. That's why I put it on and why I decided to sleep here, in your room, in your bed. Now I will have to find something else for that special evening, so you better hope we stop on Trill again before our big day arrives."

*****

„Lieutenant. Lieutenant Danaka!“ Kurob slowed his pace and gave her time to catch up with him. “Lieutenant Veal,” he greeted her with a nod.

“Do you know where Ben is?” she asked as she walked at Kurob’s side towards the exit. “He took the last shuttle,” Carlos de Sousa answered her, as he joined both officers. “Ben waited for you quite a while, but I think he was afraid you wouldn’t come at all, so he decided to leave instead of standing around any longer like a lovesick fool.”

Tarin ignored his reproachful tone – if it registered on her mind at all. “I wish I could have said goodbye to him, but I was tied up in my duties.” She stopped and drew a deep breath. Looking back and forth between the two men she added: “Could you please tell Ben how sorry I am that I couldn’t see him again before he left? I am going to write to him as soon as I can.”

“Don’t hope too much for a reply,” de Sousa offered. “No offense Lieutenant, but knowing Ben I bet he’ll be head over heels in another affair pretty soon.” He raised his hands defensively and hastily added: “Don’t take it personal, but that’s just how it’s always been. Ben is just. . . Ben.”

“No, you are wrong.” She held Carlos’ gaze and her voice solidified. “It’s not really your business, but perhaps you should know how different Ben is from the man you describe. He asked me to marry him, did you know that?”

De Sousa starred at her slack-jawed for several seconds before he turned to his friend, but Kurob Danaka was as speechless as Carlos was. Could they both have been that mistaken about their friend; had this really meant so much more to him than any of his previous affairs? Before they had a chance to say anything Lieutenant Veal took the word again.

“Before I could think about it, we started to talk about our future and how it would be if we got married. It didn’t take long to discover we wanted to keep our independent careers as much as we wanted to be together.” 

She hesitated as she recalled her conversation with Ben and when she continued she spoke more to herself than the two officers. “Before we knew what happened we had a major argument on our hands. I bet we would have made up soon, but now he has to leave and I have to stay here.”

Tarin Veal turned around and headed back to the academy facilities without looking at the two officers or the exit again.

*****

“And since Deneva you have kept a long-distance relationship?“ Catherine asked.

“Oh no,” Tarin said. She used a napkin on her lips and shoved her empty plate away so she could rest her elbows on the table. “We exchanged quite a few letters, but it was hardly a romantic affair.”

Ben nodded. “I still have some of those letters on file and whenever I read them again I am amazed by how little I told you about my true feelings. Makes me wonder what would have become of us if only I had been more honest about my true feelings then.”

“We both failed to say what we really felt,” Tarin replied. She had none of those letters on file, but she could clearly remember them - not the words, but the substance. “I guess we were both more afraid to get back into any arguments about our future than we realized, so we did our best to avoid really talking about us at all.” After a small pause she went on. “But perhaps it was for the best. We still needed to mature and we needed to do it on our own terms.”

Ben considered her point carefully, comparing who he was to who he had been. “In hindsight I’d say you are right, but it sure didn’t feel like that; not then, not to me.”

Tarin reached out and cradled his cheek in her hand. Ben turned his head in her direction and planted a kiss in her palm.

When Tarin turned her attention to her host again she noticed Catherine’s quizzical expression. As Ben and Tarin had freely talked about their history and their feelings for each other, Catherine likely expected some more about her guest’s past. And why not? So far chatting with Catherine about it had done just what Ben had suggested it for to Tarin: put some things into perspective and reminded them both of little details they had half forgotten.

*****

"For a while we wrote regularly, telling each other how we were doing, how our work went and so on, but after a few months we wrote less often. What we needed to say we didn't want to tell each other, so there was less and less to write about. I think we stopped writing altogether around the time I left Deneva and was posted to the Galahad, that is about a year later."

"On the Galahad I was swamped with work and our exploration missions turned every day into an adventure. I still missed Ben, but I was too distracted to miss him as much as I had while still on Deneva. That is until one day when we returned to Starbase 87 from one of our exploration missions near the Gorn border. . ."

Lieutenant Veal made her way through the large observation deck, exchanging pleasantries with the officers and civilians she knew. It took her a while to make it to the buffet, where she had to wait in line - the reception was quite a crowded affair.

"It was the Starbase's thirtieth anniversary and Admiral Khorolev had invited the senior officers and department heads from the ships docked at the base to a reception. Apart from that we had another task waiting for us, some experimental engine modifications Vice-Admiral Hanson had briefed us on right before the reception, but I had paid little attention to the details."

Lieutenant Veal found a small empty table near the windows. Most of the guests congregated at the larger tables to the side of the room and while she had a passing acquaintance with many of them, many were commanders or captains or diplomats who stayed among themselves, bothering little about a young Lieutenant. But that suited Tarin just fine.

She had half-finished her meal when Rear-Admiral Hanson came by her table and looked out the window at the planet below. Tarin followed the Admiral's gaze, but there was little to see. The darkness of night had enveloped most of Polaris and what little the sun still lit was blanketed by clouds. "Once you are finished with your dinner, why don't you join us over there," the Admiral addressed Lieutenant Veal, only briefly looking over his shoulder to point his chin at a small group in the far corner. "I would like to introduce you to some of the station's science staff. They are quite interested in the latest discoveries the Galahad made out on the frontier." Without waiting for her reply Admiral Hanson turned on his heel and strolled back through the crowd.

In the company of the scientists Admiral Hanson introduced her to Tarin felt quite at home. Here she was no longer a mere Lieutenant in a room full of captains and ambassadors, but among like-minded individuals who couldn’t care less about rank, chatting about things she knew well and enjoyed discussing. Apparently Hanson had nothing better to do than keep them company and while he contributed little to the discussion, he listened attentively, asking a question now and then. He was not above admitting that he didn't know or understand something and that Tarin liked.

"Excuse me ladies and gentlemen," the Admiral interrupted suddenly. "Lieutenant Veal, you remember the briefing about the engine tests we want to run on the Galahad?" He waved at someone behind Tarin’s back. "Here is someone from Professor T'pala's team. Lieutenant Veal, let me introduce you to Lieutenant Commander Tucker."

*****

‘Why did I agree to do this?’ Tarin wondered as she made her way to the Starbase’s main transporter rooms. ‘Playing tourist guide for Ben. I must have been out of my mind.’ He hadn’t said it in so many words, but Tarin was positive that Ben was quite interested in renewing their affair. But in two weeks they would go their separate ways again and with everything that was going through her mind, Tarin could well do without the added emotional turmoil that would create. She paused at a corridor corner and took a deep breath. ‘I bet he’s already waiting for me.’

She rounded the corner and Ben rose from his seat in the small waiting area. “Good morning,” he greeted Tarin and showed her a big smile.

“Good morning, Ben.” She looked around and pointed at one of the doors. For the benefit of the civilians coming and going through this part of the station the transporter rooms were arrayed around this waiting area in a layout reminiscent of civilian transporter hubs. “Shall we go?”

“After you.” Ben bowed and motioned with both arms for Tarin to lead the way. “So, what places are we going to visit today?”

“Oh there are some really spectacular places on Polaris, like the Hotas waterfalls and the city of Maitrala and of course the Caverns of Light. The latter are something of a tourist-trap, but definitely a must-see. It’s more than enough to keep us busy for most of the day.” ‘And perhaps keep you too busy to start something I would regret.’

*****

“You were right, those waterfalls were really amazing. But this city. . .” Ben Tucker looked over the balcony to the other side of the canyon, speechless for the moment. Houses of all sizes clung to the chasm’s walls like swallow nests and from the few larger ledges pagoda-like towers rose. Gently arching bridges crisscrossed the gorge, linking individual houses or leading into the canyon walls to streets cut through the rock behind the buildings.

No single surface had escaped the attention of Polarian stonemasons, who had turned every nook and cranny, every pillar and doorway into a delicate work of art. Geometric designs, mythological creatures, whatever it was, wherever he looked, there was always something new, something more breathtaking.

Polarians moved across the bridges on foot; tall humanoids covered by short yellow and orange fur from head to toe, dressed in short garments that reminded Ben of pictures of ancient Roman togas he had once seen. Compared to the craftsmanship that had carved this city from the sandstone walls of a mile-deep chasm the indigenous people of Polaris appeared much less exotic than they had seemed at first.

“Yes,” Tarin agreed with Ben’s unspoken admiration, “it’s a real marvel, especially when you consider that the earliest buildings and bridges are over nine hundred years old.” She noticed how Ben eyed the Polarian guests of the restaurant from the corner of his eyes. “You haven’t seen many Polarians before, have you?”

“None before yesterday. I guess they don’t travel much.”

Tarin shook her head. “No, most of them don’t, and those who do usually travel to the two colonies they have in this sector, but not farther.”

Ben shrugged. If the Polarians wanted to miss all the excitement and adventure to be found among the stars that was their business. “I wonder if they have been introduced to basketball. There are a few  teams on Earth who would love to have some of those guys playing for them.” The smallest adult Polarian he had encountered was about seven feet tall, but eight feet seemed to be the average and their spindly arms reached almost to their knees. By comparison the Polarians’ small round heads looked out of place, like nature had suddenly run out off lanky parts when it designed them.

Tarin chuckled. “It wouldn’t work. Polarians believe that if something is worth doing it should best be done slowly and carefully, so you get it right the first time. They may have the build for perfect basketball players, but not the temperament. That’s why they take so much care to maintain this city as it was hundreds of years ago - because their ancestors thought it was worth the effort. Well,” she added, “once you are done admiring the view, how about getting something to eat?”

“Good idea,” Ben agreed. “I am starving.”

*****

“Tell me, what have you been up to the last few years, Ben?” During lunch they had spoken little, but now that they just sat on the balcony and admired the view Tarin was determined to drive the conversation.

“What I always wanted to do. I have designed warp engines and built starships. The last eighteen months I have worked on the warp engines for the Norway, the first ship of the new fast cruiser classification and god is she fast.”

And off he went on a tale about the last three years of his life, painting in broad strokes the image of a man who deeply enjoyed his work and the life he had led. He mentioned how glad he had been to be stationed on Earth as it allowed him to frequently visit his folks in Chicago, then went on to talk at great length about his work. He emphasized how lucky he had been to get an assignment to the Warp Technologies Group as a mere Lieutenant and downplayed his own achievements.

Once in a while he made Tarin laugh, either with some anecdote about one of his colleagues or with a tale of some blunder he had committed, but all the time it was good natured fun. Witty, even hilarious at times, but only really serious when he talked about the more technical aspects of his work. He glossed over many of the details, but to Tarin it sounded like life had treated Ben Tucker well.

After thirty minutes he closed with, “All in all the best and most interesting assignment I ever had.” Ben smiled and winked at Tarin. “With one exception of course.”

She ignored his last remark and asked: “Do you have any idea what your next assignment will be, after the engine experiments on the Galahad?”

“I’ll go back to Earth, but about the rest I am not sure. Depends on the shakedown cruise of the Norway. If there are any problems I expect to be re-assigned to the project, but if everything goes well. . .” He shrugged. “There is talk about a new class of auxiliary craft, called a Runabout. It sounds like an interesting project, with the first horizontal warp-core arrangement in over a century. I could try to persuade my superiors to assign me to this project. Than again Professor T’pala seems to like my work, at least as much as a Vulcan likes anyone, so I may go wherever she goes.” He looked Tarin straight in the eyes. “Of course there is always the chance that something totally unexpected will happen that changes everything.”

“Yes, that’s always a possibility when you are in Starfleet.” Tarin hesitantly replied. She was unsure what to make of Ben’s last statement. Perhaps he was referring to them, but so far there was no them. “I hope you get whatever assignment you want. I bet working on this Runabout project would be an interesting change to your work on the Norway. I imagine there is a big difference between designing a cruiser and a small auxiliary craft?”

Ben Tucker leaned back in his chair and looked up at the sky. “Yes, there certainly is.” He exhaled loudly and looked across the table at Tarin again. “But what about you? How has life treated you since you left Deneva? I looked over your public files and it seems you have done quite well for yourself.”

*****

Tarin lay on her bed and starred at the ceiling. 'How has life treated me since I left Deneva?' What she had told Ben had been the gospel truth. Her life was better than ever before; she was out on the frontier, making new discoveries every day, seeing the wonders of the universe before anyone else in Starfleet did. It was what she had always wanted, why she had joined Starfleet instead of following in her parents footsteps as a civilian researcher. 'And I have made a lot of good friends on this ship.' Dar Enikal, Catherine Sinclair, Joaquin Amaya, Commander Blake. She did what she had always wanted to do, surrounded by people she liked and who liked her, so nothing should be wrong, but something still was off.

For weeks she had felt that something was missing from her life, but so far she had not been able to figure out what it was. And now Ben would add to her emotional turmoil. Perhaps she should just tell him that she wasn't interested in renewing their affair, but even of that Tarin was not certain. At another time, in another place, perhaps, but in a week or two Ben would be gone again. It could only end the way it had ended on Deneva three years ago.

'That's not the issue, is it?' Tarin asked herself. 'No. I had other short-lived affairs in the past and it didn't hurt me, but I can't do that with Ben. He meant so much to me.' Tarin wondered if she shouldn’t use the present tense. How much did Ben still mean to her after all those years? Could it be that she just thought so much about him to distract herself from the problems in her life she couldn't quite fathom? 'Could be,' Tarin concluded, but as much as she racked her brain the uncertainty remained.

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