Track Seventeen: “Summer Love”

The morning was quieter than any morning had been in a week.

The villa had, at some point in the last three days, gone from a full house of cadets and pop-star bandmates and a rotating cast of tour handlers, back to something closer to the small holiday rental it had been the day everyone had first arrived. Suitcases were lined up in the hall. The pool cushions had been stacked. Beatrice had already tidied the terrace three times, and had been told twice to stop.

Alfie was in the lounge, feet up on the low table, a mug of Colludian tea in one hand, watching the wall display.
Rhoss Danel was on the screen. Standing, in a dark linen jacket, in front of the villa’s own front gate, which the FNN team had apparently decided was the best backdrop for the wrap-up. Behind him, the fandom encampment was already about half its previous size. The rest, presumably, were on their way to Denobula.

“…and so, viewers, it is with a small heavy heart, but only a small one, that I bring you the final FNN wrap-up of the Colludia Two leg of Warp Five Forward’s One Last Encore tour,” Rhoss was saying. “What a run. What a night. Ninety thousand people at the Colludea Grand Stadium, one of the biggest gates the venue has ever seen, and, on any measure you care to name, one of the best-received nights of the tour so far. Let us have a quick look at the highlights.”

The screen cut. A montage began. Lian centre-stage during Kiss, the moment Theo pushed him onto the chair. The stadium’s roar underneath.

Theo at the piano during Need You Now, all five of the band standing around him singing the chorus.

Nael on his electric guitar during the Love Shack opener, ninety thousand people dancing under the disco ball.

Harren and Luris in the amber spot during Hopelessly Devoted to You, doing their comic-longing routine, the crowd absolutely losing themselves.

And, held longest, Theo at the piano during his dedication speech, cameras on his face, the box in the background just visible on the great screens over the stage.

Jordan wandered in, in a soft t-shirt and shorts, hair still damp from a shower, and dropped onto the sofa next to him.

“Is that the final FNN coverage?”

“It is. Rhoss Danel is doing the wrap-up for this whole leg.” Alfie shifted sideways to make room for him. “He has been out there since about six this morning. I saw him setting up when I came down.”

Alfie handed him the tea. Jordan took a sip and handed it back. “The Denobulans are apparently very excited to have the boys next.”

“The Denobulans are always very excited about everything.

They sat with the montage for another minute. On the screen, the boys took their final bow of the concert, arms around each other’s shoulders, Theo in the middle. The stadium was in silhouette behind them, ninety thousand photon candles still gently lit.

Rhoss came back on. “A truly extraordinary night. This is Rhoss Danel, for FNN, signing off from Colludia Two. Onward to Denobula.”

The wall display faded to the FNN ident, and then to the room’s default warm ambient wash.

“Right,” said Jordan, standing. “Come on. Everyone else is at breakfast. We are supposed to be organised.”

“I am organised.”

“Alfie. Your suitcase is on the terrace with the lid open. There is a pair of your dirty underwear on top of it and a sock hanging off the side. I walked past it twice and pretended I had not seen it.”

“That is my organisational system.”

“That is not a system. That is a crime scene.” Jordan folded his arms. “I thought I was supposed to be the messy one. That is the whole basis of my personality according to your brothers, my brother, and every single cadet on the Astra.”

“Yes, well.” Alfie stretched, entirely unbothered. “Some of your bad habits have started rubbing off on me.”

There was a small pause. Jordan dropped on top of Alfie, one knee either side, both hands on Alfie’s shoulders, entirely pinning him.

“Say that again.”

“Get off.”

“Say it again, Alfie. Slowly. About the rubbing off.”

“Jord.”

“Because there is a version of that sentence,” Jordan said, into his ear, “that I am extremely interested in, and we do have twenty minutes before anyone comes looking for us.”

“We probably have four minutes.”

“We have twenty.”

“We have four, and our parents are in the next room.”

Jordan considered this for a moment, then sighed heavily and rolled off him onto the sofa cushions.

“Fine. I will wait until Risa, then.”

“Risa,” Alfie agreed, getting up and straightening his shirt. “Four weeks. No parents. No cadets. No brothers walking in.”

“No brothers walking in,” Jordan repeated, with feeling.

“And,” Alfie added, entirely casually, on his way to the terrace doors, “I booked us the villa with a private beach. Nobody within half a kilometre in any direction.”

Jordan stopped dead.

“Really?”

Alfie glanced back over his shoulder with an expression of complete innocence. “I imagine we will barely need to pack anything at all, really.”

Jordan stared at him for a full second. “You have been sitting on that,” he said, “since you booked it.”

“I have been sitting on it for a few days.”

“You absolute—”

“Breakfast, Jord.”

Alfie walked out of the lounge. Jordan followed him about four seconds later, having needed a moment to realise what his fiancé had planned for them on Risa.

---

Breakfast on the terrace was the last full sitting of the whole group.

Athena was already there, packing a small pastry into a napkin for the shuttle. Brook, next to her, was eating a piece of fruit and staring into the middle distance in the specific way people do the morning of a long journey. Jib had arrived in a floral shirt. Jameel and Will were both in walking gear. Lillia had already changed into travelling clothes. Beatrice was in a soft cardigan and a small pair of earrings that Alfie had never seen her wear before, and was, Alfie noticed, quieter than usual. Scott and Parker were at the end of the table with their coffees, talking quietly about something neither of them shared with the rest of the table.

Karyn and James had come up from their hotel and were at the other end of the table with Max and Tobias, who were sitting with them, sharing a plate of something Colludian between the four of them and talking in the low, unhurried way of two couples who had known each other most of their adult lives. Henri and Maya were close by, enjoying their own breakfast.

“Right,” Alfie said, dropping into a chair. “Roll call. Where is everybody going, and when?”

“Brook and I are heading to Khitomer to see our parents at a family reunion on our mum’s side,” said Athena.

“Logan’s just turned seventeen, so we’re expecting him to spend the entire fortnight pressing us for help with his Academy application.”

“He’ll be unbearable,” Brook agreed, without looking up from his fruit. “He’s already sent me a draft personal statement. Twice.”

“Give your parents our regards, Athena,” Karyn said, from the other end of the table.

“I will, ma’am. Thank you.”

“I’m going home to Bolarus,” said Jib. “My folks have got about forty cousins descending on the house, and my mother has already warned me she’s putting on a welcome dinner for eighty.”

“Eighty?” said Jordan.

“That’s small by Bolian standards, Jord. When my sister came home from her first posting, we did a hundred and forty, and my aunt complained it felt intimate.”

“Jameel and I are going to Terra Nova,” said Will, before Jameel could get there first. “Two weeks in the northern ranges. Just the two of us, a couple of packs, and about four hundred kilometres of nothing.”

“It’s a proper lads’ trip,” Jameel confirmed, delighted. “No comms except for emergencies. No schedules. We walk until we’re tired, we camp wherever we stop, we eat whatever we feel like.”

“You have a portable replicator in your pack, Jameel,” Athena pointed out. “I watched you pack it.”

“A small one.”

“It is still a replicator.”

“Athena, we are going into genuine wilderness. There are huge canyons out there. We have a tricorder, a replicator the size of a lunchbox, and our own two feet. That is roughing it.”

“That is glamping.”

“That,” said Jameel, with immense dignity, “is efficient wilderness management.”

Jordan turned to his brother with an expression of pure scepticism. “Will. Since when do you do outdoors?”

“Since always, Jord.”

“Since never. You have never voluntarily gone outdoors in your life.”

“Mellstoxx Four.”

Jordan stopped.

“Three years ago,” Will went on, entirely calm. “Our first proper family vacation. Our dads took us camping, and you spent the entire first night complaining about the ground, and I did not complain once, and on the third morning you told me, out loud, and I quote, that you had never seen me happier.”

“That,” said Jordan, “was one time.”

“It was several days.”

“Fine.”

“I’m going home to Kovar,” said Beatrice, more quietly than the others had been. “My mother’s there. I haven’t seen her in nearly four years. Lillia’s coming with me for the first week.”

“Because her mother will have her cornered within twelve hours and she needs somebody in the room,” said Lillia, warmly.

“Because my mother will have me cornered within twelve hours,” Beatrice agreed, “and Lillia is the only person I know who can talk over her.”

“It’s a gift.”

“It is genuinely a gift.”

“Jord and I are going to Risa,” said Alfie. “Four weeks. Just the two of us and a private beach.”

“Just the two of you?” said Karyn.

“Just us, Mom.”

“Risa,” said Max, from the other end of the table, with the specific warmth of a man who had been there very recently. “You will both have a wonderful time. We had a week there before we came out here and I have not slept that well in about four years.”

“It is the air,” Tobias agreed. “Something in the air.”

“You will love it, both of you,” Max added.

“You will,” said Tobias, and then paused, and set down his cup, and looked directly at Jordan with the specific expression of a father about to enjoy himself. “Jordan, a word about Risan custom.”

“Oh no.”

“You will see, in shops and market stalls, a small carved statuette. Roughly this big.” He held up his hands about thirty centimetres apart. “It is called a horga’hn. It is the Risan symbol of sexuality.”

Jordan’s eyebrows went up. Alfie put his face in one hand.

“If you display one in public,” Tobias continued, entirely serene, “you are signalling that you are seeking jamaharon. Which is a Risan tradition I am not going to explain in front of your future in-laws, but which you can work out from context.”

“Dad.”

“So there will be no purchasing of horga’hn, Jordan. None. And absolutely no requesting jamaharon from strangers. I want that stated out loud at this table with witnesses present.”

“I am not going to—”

“Because I have a responsibility here,” Tobias went on, over him, warming to it enormously, “as godfather to Alfie. I have known that boy since the day he was born. He is a delicate flower. And I am not having his innocence ruined on a beach on Risa by my own son.”

Henri, a few seats down, did not look up from his breakfast.

“Alfie has no innocence left to ruin,” he said conversationally. “Theo and I walked in on the pair of them one morning doing things we shouldn’t have seen.”

The entire table stopped. Alfie made a sound like a man being slowly deflated.

Jordan, entirely unbothered, took a sip of his drink. “In fairness, the door was unlocked.”

“The door was unlocked,” Henri agreed.

“And in fairness to me, I handled it with tremendous poise.”

“You did not move, Jord. At all. You just lay there.”

“I was comfortable.”

“You were initially lying horizontal on my brother and entirely uncovered, and when you got off of him, you said, and I remember this word for word, ‘morning, boys.’”

“I did say that.”

“Henri,” said Alfie, from behind his hand, “I beg you to shut up.”

“It was not a good morning for anyone,” Henri went on, buttering something. “Theo has photographs in his head he cannot delete. He has spoken about getting therapy.”

Tobias held up one hand without lifting his eyes from his plate. “I do not,” he said, “want to know what that means.”

“It means, Uncle Tobie—”

“Henri. I have said the sentence. I do not want to know what that means.”

Karyn, at her end of the table, was laughing so hard she had to put her cup down.

It took a while for the table to settle. Henri went back to his breakfast with the specific satisfaction of a man who had landed exactly the blow he intended. Jordan was still grinning into his drink. Tobias had given up entirely and was laughing along with Karyn. Alfie, red to the ears, waited until the noise had come down to something survivable, and then turned pointedly away from his family altogether.

“Scott,” he said. “What about you? What are you up to?”

“I’m staying here for a bit longer,” said Scott, unhurried. “Both of my mums are on Bajor on business until the end of the month, so there’s not much point in me going home to an empty house. I thought I’d see a bit more of the planet instead. I’ve not been up to the north coast yet.”

“Same for me, actually,” said Parker, from beside him, in the specific tone of a young man delivering a piece of information he had rehearsed. “My father’s on assignment, and my mother is too, and they’re on opposite sides of the quadrant. So I’m staying on Colludia as well. With Scott.” He looked at Scott. “Scott’s offered to teach me to hydro-sail and to surf.”

Three separate cadets groaned at once.

“Oh, here we go,” said Jib.

“He’s got another one,” said Lillia.

“Do not let him do it, Parker,” said Athena, with feeling. “He ran holodeck sessions on the Astra. Every Tuesday for a whole year. He called it Water Confidence.”

“It was a good programme,” said Scott.

“It was three hours long, Scott.”

“Because water confidence takes time to build.”

“Brook fell off a board into a simulated reef and had to be beamed to sickbay as the holodeck safeties didn’t kick in on time.”

“Brook overcorrected on a turn. That was not the programme’s fault.”

“It was a bit the programme’s fault,” said Brook, mildly.

Henri, from the other end of the table, put down his cup. “What is wrong with water sports?”

“Nothing is wrong with water sports, Henri.”

“I do not think you understand how much I want to know about this holodeck programme.”

“Henri, no,” said Athena.

Henri ignored her. “Scott. Do you still have it?”

Scott, who had been getting steadily more embarrassed, brightened considerably. “I still have it.”

“Send it to me.”

“I will send it to you.”

“Do not send it to him,” said Alfie.

“I am sending it to him,” said Scott.

Beatrice looked from Scott to Parker, back to Scott, back to Parker, and gave them both a small, entirely private wink that no one else caught except Alfie, watching from across the table, absolutely did. “Enjoy yourselves, boys,” she said, entirely blandly.

“Thank you, Bea,” said Scott, in the same tone.

Parker went, quietly, a very specific shade of pink and drank the rest of his coffee.

Which was when Theo came down the villa stairs at speed with a bag over one shoulder.

“Right,” he announced, to the terrace at large. “I have to go. The boys are in the air tram at the bottom of the drive, and Nael has already commed me twice, so if I do not leave in the next four minutes they will genuinely go to Denobula without me.”

The whole table got up.

He went round them properly, and quickly, in the way a person does when they have four minutes and intend to use every one of them.

His mother first. Karyn held him for a long time and said something into his ear that nobody else heard, and Theo nodded into her shoulder without answering. Then his father, who hugged him hard and told him to be careful and eat properly, and Theo said, “Yes, Dad,” in the voice of a man who was not going to eat properly.

Henri next, who got a fierce brotherly hug and a promise to send him the Denobulan tour footage. Then Maya, who got a warm one-armed side-hug and a “look after him for us, he is an idiot,” which made Henri protest and Maya laugh.

Then Jordan, who got a proper hug and an instruction to enjoy Risa. Then Will, who got the same, plus a warning about the northern ranges of Terra Nova and an entirely serious request that he not fall off anything.

Tobias was next, and Tobias did not let go for a good while. Theo, into his shoulder, said, “Thank you for coming, Uncle Tobie. Genuinely.”

Tobias, who was crying again, replied, “Anywhere. Any time. Always.”

Max got a firm handshake that turned into a hug halfway through.

Then Theo turned to the cadets, still gathered along the far end of the table, and raised one hand.

“All of you,” he called. “Thank you for coming and joining us here for the concert. It’s been a blast. Travel safe.”
There was a small chorus of goodbyes back at him.

And then, last of all, he came to Alfie and Jordan, standing together at the edge of the terrace.

“Right,” he said. “You two. I have something for you.” He reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out two neatly folded black vests. “I had them made,” he said, and grinned in the specific way that meant he was extremely pleased with himself. “For the trip to Risa. So the fans, if you meet any at the terminal, know exactly what they are looking at.”

He held one out to each of them. “Put them on.”

“Theo—”

“Now. Both of you. In front of everyone. I have four minutes, and I want to see them on.”

Alfie unfolded his and read it, and his whole face collapsed. “Oh, Theo. Oh, no.”

“Put it on.”

Jordan unfolded his, read it, looked up at Theo with pure delight, and pulled his shirt off over his head without any further discussion whatsoever.

“Jord!”

“Alfie, it is funny.”

“It is not funny.”

“It is extremely funny. Shirt off. Now.”

Alfie, defeated, pulled his own shirt off and dropped it on the chair beside him, and the two of them pulled the vests on in front of the entire terrace. Both of them had, across the chest, a large printed image of Theo’s own face striking his three-quarter tour-poster pose.

“Turn around,” said Theo. “Both of you. Let them see.”

They turned around.

Karyn read Alfie’s first, out loud. “No, I’m not Theo. I’m his brother. The one who can’t sing.”

“That is on the front,” Theo said helpfully.

Alfie turned. On the back, an arrow pointing left, and: BUT I AM MARRYING THIS GUY!

The terrace went up.

“Read Jord’s,” Henri demanded. “Read Jord’s.”

Jordan, entirely without shame, stepped sideways so everyone had a clear view and stood with his hands on his hips, and Karyn, wiping her eye, read his front.

“This is not Theo. This is his brother. The one who can’t sing.” She looked at the small white arrow beside the text, which pointed directly at Alfie. “Oh, that is good. That is very good.”

Jordan turned around.

BUT I WISH I WAS MARRYING THEO!

The noise the terrace made at that point brought Beatrice out of her chair. Athena had to put her cup down. Tobias laughed so hard he had to hold on to the back of a chair. James, who had been trying to maintain some dignity as a Rear Admiral of Starfleet, gave up entirely.

“You,” Jordan said, over the noise, “are an absolute menace.”

“I am an absolute menace,” Theo agreed happily.

“I am wearing this the entire way to Risa.”

“You are one of the best brother-in-law-to-be in the Federation.”

“I am the best brother-in-law-to-be in the Federation, Jord, and both of you know it. Don’t think Henri is any competition!”

Theo pulled them both into a proper three-way hug. “Denobula for two weeks,” he said, into the middle of it, “then Andoria, then finally Earth before heading home to Cestus for a bit. And then I am yours for the whole of next summer, so start thinking about what you want me to sing.”

He let go of both of them and stepped back, and for a second he was not a pop star at all, just a brother on a terrace. “Send me a message me from Risa. Or do not. Whichever. But be happy, both of you. That is all I want.”

“We will be,” Jordan said.

“Good.” Theo grinned. “Love you both.”

“Love you too,” said Alfie.

Then he was gone. Down the drive, into the air tram at the bottom, off to the shuttle terminal and to Denobula.

After that, the villa began to empty itself.

Karyn went round the table hugging each cadet individually, in the specific way she had done backstage after the concert, and gave every one of them a small warm sentence.

James was at the pool. He had taken Scott aside without being asked.

“Ensign.”

“Sir.”

“You will be reporting to me on the Odyssey once she is out of the yards. I am told that will be a few more weeks yet. In the meantime, I will send your paperwork through in the next few days. There is a matter of your uniform we should discuss.”

“Sir?”

“You are operations gold, currently.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will be command red once you are my aide. Welcome to command.”

Scott smiled as James shook his hand. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“I will look forward to seeing you in red, Ensign Florrick.”

“Me too, sir.”

James clapped him on the shoulder once and walked back to Karyn.

Max and Tobias were the first to leave.

Max gave Alfie a warm, small nod. “Look after each other. That is all.”

“We will,” Alfie said.

“Good lad.”

As Tobias hugged them both, he reminded them. “No horgh’ans.”

Alfie and Jordan both chuckled this time.

Then they were gone. Two small figures with two small bags, walking down the villa drive together toward the air tram stop at the bottom, arm in arm, on their way to Earth and to see Tobias’s parents.

The cadets went next, in twos and threes, over the following hour, with their bags, their hugs, and their promises to comm. Scott and Parker walked down the drive together, heading north up the coast. Will and Jameel left, getting excited for their hiking on Terra Nova, and Jib was preparing his stomach for the amount of food he would consume when he got home.

James, Karyn, Henri and Maya were next. James and Karyn wanted to spend a bit more time on the planet too, and it was a good excuse to get to know Maya a bit more before she and Henri headed back to Cestus Three.

Beatrice and Athena soon followed, and both of them hugged Alfie and Jordan on their way out.

Alfie and Jordan were the last to leave.

They stood on the terrace for a moment after the last of them had gone, taking in the villa one more time. The pool, empty and still. The palms moving slightly in the mid-morning breeze.

“That is it, then,” Jordan said quietly.

Alfie looked at the pool for a moment longer. “It went fast.”

“It went very fast.”

“I am not ready to leave it.”

“You will be, once we are on Risa and there is nobody around but us.” Jordan bumped his shoulder against Alfie’s.

“Come on.”

They picked up their bags, and they walked down the drive together, hand in hand.

At the transport terminal, three teenage Warp Five Forward fans in tour hoodies who had not yet left for Denobula spotted them and shrieked.

“OH MY STARS. OH MY STARS. IS THAT—”

Alfie, in his sunglasses, calmly turned around so they could read the back of his vest.

There was a pause.

Then all three of them, in unison, burst into laughter.

“Oh,” said one of them, weakly. “Oh, that is amazing.”

“So sorry for getting you mixed up with your brother!” called another.

Alfie waved without looking round. Jordan tipped his sunglasses down at them in salute. They then boarded their transport, sat down side by side in the two-person window seat, and, as the doors slid closed and the transport lifted off, kissed properly, one hand each in the other’s hair, the sun on Colludia Two beginning to sit low over the harbour behind them.

The transport turned toward Risa, and the last of Halcyon Bay fell away behind them.

A perfect ending to a perfect holiday.