Eriecho - Star Trek Kelvin Timeline fanfiction

Across the Universe - 6 - Two of Us

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone's
Hard earned pay
You and me Sunday driving
Not arriving

"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Sybok asked. It was a few days later, and he and Eriecho were in a military shuttle with a pilot. Theo was escorting them for their own protection. The colonel had insisted. The pilot was still going through the last of her checks. There was still time to back out.

"Yes, I am certain."

"Sollastek will be upset, you know."

"He will suppress it. But me, I am weary of suppressions."

"I'm ready to take off," reported the pilot. "Is everybody coming?"

"Yes," Eriecho replied.

As they took off, Sybok told her, "I know what you mean by the suppressions. They're a lie."

"I suppose they had a use, before the destruction of Vulcan," Eriecho surmised, "but right now they seem absurd."

"Like projectile weapons," Theo murmured as he looked back out the shuttle's window at the rapidly shrinking Martian landscape.

"Yes, it's a manner of behaving that's very outdated," Sybok agreed.

They did not speak for the remainder of the trip. When they touched down, Eriecho could scarcely contain her excitement. "Look how green everything is! Oh." She suddenly looked down.

"You okay?" asked Theo.

"I was just thinking of how H'Shema had loved the color green," she explained, voice breaking just a tad. When Sybok looked puzzled, she added, "She was my adoptive mother, a Suliban. We were in Canamar Prison together."

"I saw a very brief glimpse," Sybok admitted, "when you passed me the salt."

"I saw you astride a horse, in a desert."

"This should be the house," Theo said. It was a white Victorian with blue trim and plain white columns in front. He rang the bell and then stepped back to rejoin the pilot, who was looking over the shuttle.

After a few minutes, an elderly Vulcan man answered the door. "So you live, Sybok. I am Selek."

"I do. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance. But tell me, how is it that your voice sounds like a lower version of my brother, Spock's. And your face is like an older version of his. How is this so?"

"Come in," encouraged Spock Prime, "and I will tell you." Theo and the pilot sat down on a glider bench on the front porch. "Are you certain you do not wish to enter?"

"We'll give you your privacy," Theo said, "but we'll be right here. Call us if you need us."

Inside the house, Spock Prime looked at Eriecho. "And you are, Miss?"

"My name is Eriecho. Sybok and I are acquaintances from the Mars sanctuary. How is it that you do not live in one? And how is it that you came to live in this place, instead of any other on Earth?"

"I received a special written dispensation from Sarek himself. I settled here, though, in this particular area, because of an old friendship."

"Friendship?" asked Sybok.

"Yes. I had a friend, Doctor Leonard McCoy. This is his hometown."

"Is this his house, or near it?" she asked.

"No; this is just the same town. He is lost to me now. He is not what he was."

"I'm sorry," Sybok said sincerely, "you seem bereft." He quickly changed the subject. "How are we related?"