Together {Star Trek Enterprise Fan Fiction}

Milk?

"Lili-Flower?" he kissed her ear.

"Hmm?" she chuckled a little.

"Scratch what I was going to say. I'll ask this instead: do you, do you mind very much my calling you that?"

"Of course I don't. I kinda like it, Malcolm."

"Oh, good, I'm glad. I, uh, I'm just sort of a pet names person. Called every, everyone, every woman by one or another, but it was always something more generic, like Sweetheart or Darling. I wanted this one to be more unique and personal."

She smiled, "That's sweet. No one's ever called me by any sort of a pet name."

"He, uh, doesn't?"

"No. Totally practical. Just Lili or Mrs. Beckett when introducing me - which confuses the Calafans. They don't have last names, so half the time they think his full name is Beckett, or mine is."

"Huh. You know, I wonder if I'll simply forget your real name one day, and just call you Lili-Flower."

"Well, it's okay. Lili isn't my first name, anyway."

"What?" Malcolm was a little incredulous, "You don't have to sit by and accept people mispronouncing it, if it's something else. Please, do tell me the right one. I want very much to get it right."

"Oh, you get it right," she said, snuggling a little against his chest, "It's - you recall I told you that all names are meaningful?"

"Of course."

"My real name - the one I was given when I was born - is Charlotte Lilienne O'Day."

"Charlotte? You're a Charlotte? Why don't you use it?"

"I am named after both of my grandmothers. And Charlotte O'Day was kind of a severe woman. I also think my mother wasn't too fond of her mother-in-law. So she called me by my middle name. Her mother was Lilienne Ducasse and Lilienne maybe was too long for a little girl, so I was called Lili."

"The dreaded mother-in-law," Malcolm said, "Does, uh, does he get on with your parents?"

"My parents have been dead for over forty years."

Kick Kick.

"Oh. You, you must have been very young," he put his hand back on her belly and the kicking calmed down again.

"Yes. Our house burned down when I was nine. My parents were trapped inside. My father died when a beam fell on him. He was found on top of my mother. I guess he was protecting her somehow."

Kick Kick Kick.

"I shouldn't have asked you about that. It's rather intimate. Too intimate."

"No, it's all right," Lili said, "And it's not too intimate. Look at us. We are already intimate."

He paused for a while, then turned and put his hand on her face and turned her face so that he could look her in the eye, "There are things I want to tell you. Three words. You know which ones they are. But I cannot. I, it's a pity. I cannot, because I know that you don't -"

She clapped her hand on his mouth, a little harder than she'd intended, "Oops, did I just smack you? I didn't mean to do that with quite so much vigor."

"That's all right. I'm made of sterner stuff."

"I, uh, I did that because, Malcolm, because I want to ask you to be patient with me. After all, it took me about two years to know the score. Let me, let me come to it in my own way, at my own pace."