It had been several weeks since Sharah had gotten to spend time in the arboretum just for fun. She was grateful for the down time and her first stop was a 12x12 bed near where her ‘office’ had been, in the bac left quadrant. There was only one other person on board who could read the message written in the flowers here. Well there might be others, the crew was diverse and large, so it was possible. But that one other person was the only one who mattered. As she approached she let her mind settle a little deeper, but carefully, to hear the humming. It was unique and different from what would be found naturally. If she had any talent for music, she’d try to compose it. But today the humming was different, slightly forced and lacking flow. She grabbed an equipment bag from a locker and settled down onto the ground. The Queen Anne’s Lace had gotten tangled with the taller Lavender stalks. They had grown and needed to be moved. Sharah spent half an hour just untangling them from each other, gently, and then began to dig new spots for the Lavender, but the Ivy had gotten out of control. How long had it been since she’d been in here? More than just a few weeks obviously, and the disarray she found made her sad. What these flowers represented was far too important to her. She should have come by sooner. She took a scan with her tricorder, just to make sure the roots were healthy, and found the issue. The special plant food for the roses had been absorbed by the other plants as well. It wouldn’t hurt them, but made them grow faster. She trimmed the ivy back before it began to spread across to other beds. The Sage was doing well and offered a savory aroma to the softer Lavender. She moved around to the back to the rose bushes. She was waiting very patiently for the first buds to appear. There were several pods ready to release the buds but so far…AH there was one. She moved the surrounding branches out of the way. It was perfect. She’d taken the seeds from the yellow and red roses Joseph had given her when she left Challenger for Earth. She’d been working on it in her mini lab. A very basic genetics experiment by crossing the seeds. Now instead of all yellow or all red, the petals were yellow with red tips. Some of them should also be red with yellow tips, but she’d have to wait for the other buds to appear to find out. The original roses were in her quarters still alive and very healthy. She would have to replant them again.

Sharah spent almost an hour working in her flower bed before moving on to the rest of the arboretum. She made her way toward the back and the enclosured habitat for the Frost Beetle Lily. They had been very slowly raising the temperature by half a degree every two days. After much research Sharah had realized that during the warmer, and that was a realative term, months on Andoria the lilies hybernated. And this particular specim hadn’t hibernated, ever. Or at least not for awhile. And there were seedlings that needed to be removed from the area before they started to react in tandum with the larger plant. Sharah had managed to remove some, but it would be much easier and safer to do it when ‘bad boy’ as she had nick named him, was asleep. She checked the schedule and nodded, four more days and they would be at the optimum temperature and ‘bad boy’ would fall asleep. It was already lethargic and though it tracked her it was slow in doing so. “You’ll feel better after a nice long nap.” She didn’t expect it to understand her, but she talked to it anyway. And while it was asleep she could get engineering up there to do a complete diagnositc on the enclosure. Sharah moved on to check the new irrigation system they had put in to make sure it was working like it should. Andrea of course had already done all this, but it was familiar work and Sharah found it calming and allowed her to foucs on something other than the turmoil and fear on the ship.

“Hello Geoff, old girl. Still enjoying your new home?” Sharah stepped lightly into the center flower bed and knelt down to take a good look at the resident Queen. Geoff’s roots looked good and had a solid hold on the soil. And. So. Many. Figs. Sharah was going to have to pick some before they went bad. “What about it, Geoff? Will you let me take some of these figs to take to the kitchen? We can use all the extra help we can get. OH! What about some children? I could plant some of the seeds, and then we can have more figs. Hmmm?” Sharah wasn’t expecting a reply here either, though in some ways Geoff did seem to respond. She still hadn’t quite figured out what had happened to her over the centuries to alter her from a basic fig tree, but she was still working on it, when she had time. The humming here was very harmonious, led by the notes that Geoff sent out. Sharah closed her eyes to just listen for a moment. The plants had no idea the turmoil the ship was in. How far away from home they were, and the people they would probably never see again. This was their home and they were happy to stay where they were. Why weren’t humanoids like that?

She wondered what Oliver would think of the work she was doing here, with the arboretums. Would he approve? Her father would be thrilled, he loved their farm and had always wanted her or Andrew to take over it when they got older, but they had both left for Star Fleet. She wondered what would happen to her mother when she found out that Ark Angel was missing. Her mother always blamed herself for Sharah’s condition. Would she now blame herself for not keeping Sharah out of Star Fleet? She hoped not. She said a silent prayer to the four gods of Betazed to keep her parents and Andrew safe, Joseph’s family too. She missed Melinda especially. What would she and Mark do when they found out Joseph was missing? And his siblings. The craziest loudest three people she’d ever met in her life; so different from Andrew. But she adored them all. Andrew was always so calm. She smiled, Andrew really wasn’t the calmest person in the world. He appeared that way, but Sharah always knew what he was really thinking and feeling. He was deeply passionate about whatever emotion he was feeling, but had a way of channeling it into the appropriate action. Andrew used to tell her they would serve on board together. He’d be in charge of catching all the bad guys and Sharah would have to patch him up while lecturing him to be more careful. That wasn’t going to happen now. She’d never leave Joseph to go serve with her brother, of course, but she still missed Andrew. She wiped at her face, realizing she’d been crying while she worked. She had Joseph, and that was the only thing that really mattered to her. She glanced down at her ring, hearing his words in her mind and feeling his love. That trip seemed so long ago now, when really it was just so far away. Her thoughts wound carefully across the ship only to him, ‘I love you, Imzadi.’ It was going to be okay. Their children may never meet their family but she and Joseph would tell them stories about them, and make sure they knew.

She took a deep breath focused on her thoughts and tossed the negative away. It wouldn’t help. “Alright Geoff. How about I get those figs off of you so you can grow more, hmm?”
Lt. jg Fayth, CSO