Lieutenants Khar and Lillian Grant stepped off the civilian transport ship that had taken them from the Vulcan system to Starbase 11 over the last few days. The couple had anticipated the journey taking a lot longer, their original itinerary showing six stops that the vessel didn’t actually make along the way. The transport’s captain had waved it off as a swath of last-minute cancellations, but Khar and Lily knew the truth deep down. The Vaadwaur invasion had impacted far more places than just the Vulcan system. Some systems had escaped without injury, but that was the exception rather than the rule.

The pair had spent their trip mostly idle, neither of them having much desire to do much more than exist in the company of one another. The two were so reclusive that the transport’s crew had almost forgotten they were aboard. With their room being equipped with everything they could have needed already, there’d been no real need to use any of the other facilities aboard the transport, meager as they had been.

Standing on the deck of the Anchorage-class starbase, Lily took in the sights and the sounds of the bustling station that seemed so full of life compared to the Century just a few days ago. The casual way in which the myriad people around her went about their lives only reenforced in her mind that what she and Khar had gone through wasn’t the norm across the Federation, and what they had endured wasn’t an experience that their new comrades would share with them. Her hand instinctively grasped for Khar’s as if to use him as an anchor for the disjointed emotions she was feeling in the moment.

The Klingon didn’t pull away as he might once have, he’d long abandoned any feelings of discomfort at his companion’s sudden need for physical reassurances. Khar even went so far as to give her smaller hand a squeeze as if to say that he would protect her from whatever it was that had spooked her. When he felt Grant was ready, Khar led her toward the immigration station that sat not far from the docking gantry that they’d just crossed, their transfer orders already clutched in the hand Lily hadn’t taken hold of.

“Good morning, folks,” the immigration officer said with a friendly smile as they walked up to her kiosk, “How can I help you?”

Neither of them had donned their uniforms, a consequence of having thought they’d still be days away from arrival. The slightly informal question made Khar’s face twitch just slightly, but he buried his comments as he opted to hold out the PaDD instead, “We’re reporting onto the station. We’ve been transferred here from the USS Century.”

The younger Lieutenant Junior Grade took the offered PaDD and scanned the contents, noting that both individuals standing before her were transfers, not simply one of them with their partner. The woman handed Khar the PaDD back after she’d transferred the orders to her station and began running a verification inquiry in the station’s database.

“Yes, I have you right here. You’re…” the woman paused as she checked over their room assignments, “Oh. It looks like you two are sharing family quarters. I’ve transferred the location to your PaDD with a map for you. Because your assignments state that you’re assuming Senior Staff positions, would you like me to notify the Executive Officer that you have arrived?”

“Please,” Khar responded curtly.

The young woman nodded and tapped another few keys on her console. “I sent a message up to Station Ops letting them know you’ve arrived. Typically, he’s in a morning meeting with the station commander about this time, so he’ll probably reach out to you sometime mid-morning. I noticed you weren’t scheduled to report for another three days, so I’m pretty sure if you wanted to get settled into your quarters, Commander Reid wouldn’t be the least bit upset.”

“I see…” the Klingon said, his weight shifting from one side to the other, “Is it not protocol to report for duty upon arrival?”

“Generally speaking, Starbase 11 has a slightly more relaxed reporting protocol. Usually, it would be up to your division chiefs to decide how much time you’d get to settle in before you report for duty, but with you two being your division’s chiefs… It’s really the XO’s call… or rather it’s Commander Novak’s call but she hasn’t put out a policy about it yet since she only assumed command officially yesterday,” the young Lieutenant Junior Grade explained.

“So then we’re free to unpack our belongings as long as we make sure we’re available for the XO when he wants us to formally report, do I have that right?” Lily cut in before Khar could launch another stoic utterance.

“That’s right, ma’am,” the woman nodded with a practiced smile.

“That we’ll do just that,” Grant said as she tugged at her partner’s hand, “Let’s go find a turbolift.”

“There’s two turbolift clusters just past my station, and if you don’t mind a bit of a walk, there’s a station personnel only lift cluster a bit deeper in if you make a right just past the customs declaration kiosk for the freighter crews,” the Lieutenant said as she pointed toward the areas she was referencing.

“Thank you for your help,” Lily said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Grant gently pushed Khar with her shoulder to indicate that their conversation was over and moved down the passageway, hand still gripping his. They passed the kiosk that the woman had mentioned, making the right turn as instructed to follow the path along a corridor that had been demarcated with floor striping that read ‘authorized personnel only’. After they’d made it roughly half-way to the turbolift cluster, Lillian finally spoke up.

“We’re sharing quarters? Since when?” the woman asked, her blonde ponytail whipping around when she turned to her companion abruptly.

“I made the request just before we departed,” Khar answered vaguely.

Lily let out an exasperated sigh, “No… I wasn’t asking you when you made the request. I’m asking you why you made the request without consulting me first.”

Khar ground his teeth a little as he considered his answer, “I did not want a bulkhead to be in my way if you needed me.”

Lily could feel her chest tighten when she heard those words. They’d been traveling together in relative silence, and she’d been admittedly a bit distant with Khar throughout the trip. She hadn’t truly grasped until that moment just how much their recent ordeal had affected him. It was more than enough of an emotional blow to take any bluster she might have had right out of her.

“That’s…” Lily tried to say before her throat started to tighten, “Yeah… no bulkheads…” She patted the man’s arm a few times while nodding. Khar gave Lily’s hand another squeeze as they followed the corridor silently until they reached the turbolifts. Unlike the clusters that the general population generally used, there was almost no one waiting for a lift car when they walked up. A brief nod to the few that were there was all the exchange that took place before one of the doors parted to admit passengers.

The ride from the docking level to the crew quarters was spent in comfortable silence, the pair standing close to each other while the other passengers kept to themselves a little further toward the front. Even after they were the only occupants, they simply held each other’s hands and felt the other’s warmth. Even the walk to their new, shared home went by without either of them needing words to fill in the space.

When they finally did make it inside their new quarters, Lily was the first to vocalize her shock. She had imagined that they would have been given something much smaller than the room she was now standing in.

“Wow…” she muttered as she looked over the slightly aesthetically older furniture designs and sconce-heavy lighting configuration of the room. The detail that made her the most impressed was the two doors on either side of the quarters.

“We have more than one room?” she asked, walking over to the closest door and peeking into the bedroom.

“It would appear that my request for share quarters was interpreted as a request for family quarters,” Khar remarked, looking at his PaDD to confirm the schematics of their new home.

Lily turned to face Khar, “A family, huh…”

The Klingon shifted a bit, but it didn’t seem to be discomfort that had caused it. He stood his ground for a few moments before crossing the distance that had separated them during her little exploration mission and took both of her hands in his.

“You are…” Khar said, letting out a brief huff. “You are important to me, Lillian. I had not realized just how much your continued presence in my life meant to me until I thought you might be gone. As a warrior… as a man, I am no longer complete without you. Let us become a House together, and face our enemies… our future… together.”

Tears trickled slowly down Lily’s cheeks as she stared into the Klingon’s eyes, “If that was meant to be a proposal…” A smile blossomed beneath the river of tears as she whispered, “Then I accept.”