Title: Magic
Author: Alyson at alienallison@inorbit.com
Rating: PG
Category: Enterprise
Codes: A/T’P
Warnings: Bodily functions.

Series: The T’Lin/Pixie Series
Archive: I would love it posted all over the internet, just tell me where.

Disclaimer: The T’Lin series does not belong to me. I just thought I could fill in a few gaps in the timeline. Star Trek and Enterprise belongs to Paramount.
Summary: T’Lin asks what magic is in relation to her brother.

Thanks: Kat and Dee who came up with this great series and whom no one can compare. Kisses!
 

T’Lin and Trip sat opposite each other at a table in the mess hall with three upturned coffee cups between them. “Alright, guess which cup the grape is under.”

“That one.” She pointed to the cup in the middle.

Trip lifted the cup with nothing under it. “Nope. Try again.”

“But I watched you put it under that one.”

“Try again.”

“That one then.” She pointed at the left cup. She gave an agitated sigh when nothing was under that one either. “Well, then it’s in that one.”

“Wrong again.” He showed her another empty cup.

“What! You cheated.” She lifted each cup one at a time to check inside the cup incase he had hid the grape up inside one. She found nothing.

“Try again.” Trip could hardly hold back the smile on his face.

“But I’ve already looked under all of them.”

“But you haven’t found the grape yet.”

T’Lin gave another agitated sigh. When she looked under her first choice again, the middle cup, she found that the single grape had turned into three. “Wow! How’d you do that?”

“Magic.” Trip laughed out loud.

“Magic, what’s that? I want magic!” T’Lin exclaimed just as her mother came through the door.

“Commander Tucker, you are needed in engineering.”

“Sorry, Pixie,” he said as he stood up. “A magician never gives up his secrets. See ya later.” He gave her a pat on the head

“Bye Trip!”

“We have to get your brother,” T’Pol said as she helped her daughter out of the chair. “The doctor is waiting.”

***

T’Lin lay next to her baby brother on the bed as T’Pol worked at her desk. “Mommy, what is magic?”

“Magic is simply science one doesn’t understand.”

“Oh. Then how did Uncle Trip make a grape disappear then turn into three grapes?”

T’Pol wanted to smile. “Magic.”

“Mommy! Really, how did he do it?” Her mother usually gave her very detailed answers even if she did not understand them.

“I don’t know. Uncle Trip said a magician never gives away his secrets.”

“You don’t know? But you know everything.” T’Lin could hardly believe it.

“I know a great deal, but I don’t know everything. No one knows everything.”

There was silence for a long while, and T’Lin passed the time by staring at her brother who lay beside her. Just as she gave him a big kiss on the cheek (because he was so cute) he gave a big burp right in her face. “Eeeewwwww!” she exclaimed along with a fit of giggles. He giggled back. She loved it when he giggled. It made him even cuter. “Yuck! That was gross Zack!” He giggled again at her words, though he didn’t understand them.

After the giggling had died down, T’Lin asked, “Mommy, how did Zack get into your tummy?”

T’Pol thought for a long while about how best to respond. She couldn’t tell her young daughter that her father and herself had sex. Telling her how she came to be would be easy. She came from a tube and was created by aliens using pieces of her mommy and daddy. Then her mommy and daddy loved her so much that they brought her back with them to the Enterprise, but how could she explain sex to her six-year-old daughter?

T’Lin sensed the hesitancy. “Mommy?”

Suddenly their previous conversation about magic popped into T’Pol’s head. “Magic.”

“Magic! Mommy, come on, tell me.” Just then, the door to their quarters opened. “Daddy!” T’Lin jumped off the bed and into her father’s arms; her conversation with her mother suddenly forgotten.

“Hey, Pixie,” he said as he held her in his arms. “Boy, you’re getting heavy. You’re growing up too fast.” T’Pol stood, knowing it was her turn to man the bridge, and he gave her a kiss just before she left.

“Bye Mommy. Kiss?”

She gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead and said, “I’ll see you both tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, I love you, Mommy.”

“Hey, Pixie, when was the last time your brother was fed?”

“Just a little while ago. I kissed him and he burped in my face. It was so gross and he wouldn’t stop laughing,” T’Lin said as she laughed.

Jon played along. “Oh, yuck. That’s gross.”

“I told him that and he kept laughing.” T’Lin giggled again.

Boy. Tonight Pixie was being quite the chatter bug. Sometimes her never ending conversations that led no where could be a little trying, especially after getting off a long shift. “Have you had a bath yet?”

“No-- I mean yes.” She hopped out of his arms and back onto the bed. Any thoughts of continuing their conversation ended.

“When?”

“Yesterday,” she whispered.

“What? Did you say yesterday?”

“Daddy, I don’t want to take a bath,” she wined. “I’m clean enough.”

“Come on T’Lin, taking a bath is fun.”

“Yeah, but then my hair gets all tangled and it hurts to brush.”

“How about I brush it? Then will you take a bath?”

“Mmm, only if I can take one with Zack.”

“Fine by me. Just don’t splash him like the last time.”

“Okay, but he splashed me first.”

***

“Eewww! Daddy, Zack is making stinky bubbles in the water!” T’Lin said as she giggled. Zack’s face turned red as he concentrated on pushing. “Eeewwwwww! Daddy, he’s still doing it!” T’Lin plugged her nose. “Yuck, Zack, that’s stinky!”

He giggled between each push.

Jon came over with a towel and pulled his son out of the water. “Let’s get you out of the water before you do something really stinky. Oh, gawd, Zack, what did your mother feed you?” This caused T’Lin to laugh harder.

Zack answered with a burp.

T’Lin had tears in her eyes she was laughing so hard. Jon had to wonder if it was from the smell or if it were really just that funny. He put a diaper on him, but quickly had to change it. “We’re going to have to change your name to gas man,” he said and began laughing along with his children.

***

Jon finally got Zack to sleep and put him down in his crib.

“Daddy?” T’Lin asked from her bed.

“Shh. What is it?” he whispered.

“Where did Zack come from?”

“Remember? He came from your mommy’s tummy.”

“I know that, but how did he get there? Mommy said it was magic.”

This made Jon smile. T’Pol could not have been more right. The odds that T’Pol and he could have children together naturally were almost nil, and everything they went through before his conception didn’t help. “Well, she’s right, it was magic.”

“Daddy!” she whispered back.

“What? It really was magic.” He gave her a kiss and said goodnight.

After he left, T’Lin heard another sound from her sleeping brother. It had stopped being funny a long time ago. Now it just really, really stunk. She sighed because she couldn’t get a straight answer from her father and because her brother wouldn’t stop making the room stink, and there was nothing she could do about it.

***

Jon was straitening out the bathroom when T’Pol came in and asked, “Jonathan, have you been giving Porthos cheese again?”

He laughed. “No, that was Zack. Gees, what have you been feeding him. He had THE worst gas; even worse than me when chef serves chili. He and Pixie would not stop laughing. It was hilarious.”

“I don’t understand. Why were they laughing. Why are You laughing?”

This made Jon think. Why were people so tickled when someone passed gas? “You know, I really have no idea. But I am sure of one thing.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

She pulled back from the kiss and asked, “What?”

He placed his hand over the place on her abdomen where Zack once inhabited and her body nurtured his. “What happened between you and me and how we got Zack. It was magic. They went back to kissing and didn’t stop until they both fell asleep in his bed. (Where Zack had not contaminated the air.)

***

The day T’Lin gave birth to her baby, she understood what her mother said about magic.

FIN?

Notes: COMMENTS!!!!!!!! This is the first fic I have submitted so I need feed back. How did you like the ending? Too much?