Lost Property, Part 1 of 3
Posted on Sun Apr 27th, 2025 @ 6:23pm by Crewman Mateo Gardel & Civilian Temas Latham
3,043 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
To Boldly Go
Location: Medical Laboratory 1, Deck 7, USS Fenrir
Timeline: Day 14, 08:00
[ON]
Temas Latham stood in the turbolift, his dark grey trousers and light blue jumper, even with a combadge, marking him as a civilian. No pips. Nothing of the sort. Even his shoes were non-Starfleet, with shoelaces. He smiled as the doors opened, stepping out on deck 7, nodding to the officers that past. Starfleet. A Starfleet vessel was different than his background. This was the first ship he had lived on. He had travelled on ships...that was different. Staying in guest quarters were different than having your own.
Yet he couldn't resist when Starfleet needed civilian teachers for the children of Starfleet personnel. It had been an adventure and he liked new experiences. It was partly why he was a teacher. Because every new person he met was a new experience. Something to absorb and learn from.
Of course, he was on this level for a reason. This was where Sickbay was, a place where he hoped not to spend much time. But he was here because a friendly enlisted with blue eyes and dark hair had told him that his crate of supplies from Earth had ended up in the Medical Laboratory. So he was now heading there.
He wasn't nervous. Being half Betazoid meant he could sense when people were around, even if he didn't get emotions off them unless they were heightened or he focused. Here he hadn't gotten that much from people and he liked it that way. Felt wrong to poke his brain into places that it didn't belong. But as someone who didn't like people sneaking up on him, he was happy to know that he could expect people. And as he approached the doors to the lab, he got the sense there was someone there. The doors opened with a hiss, something that he suspected would change once they got underway. Security and all that. "Hi," he said, the moment the doors opened so that he could warn whoever was there that they'd be interrupted from their work. "Sorry to intrude...I'm Temas Latham. I'm looking for...a crate meant for the school room."
Mateo didn’t look up when the lab doors hissed open. The lights were dimmed slightly from default, softened to a low, cool wash that kept glare off the cryo trays. A slow Argentinian instrumental played quietly from a tucked-away speaker—strings and breathy woodwinds, paced like a lullaby for something that had never learned to sleep. It helped him focus. Usually. But today, focus was like condensation on a console screen—constantly slipping out of reach. Ever since Valhalla, ever since that glance across the bar, something had changed. He hadn’t even meant to look at anyone. He’d been avoiding Aria’s teasing, not scanning for strangers. And yet, when his gaze passed through the crowd, it had found him. A man he’d never seen before and hadn’t stopped thinking about since. He hadn’t even known his name. That somehow made it worse—how much he’d thought about someone he couldn’t even name. The memory hadn’t orbited like a satellite—it had settled, quiet and persistent, like a thread caught on something just beneath the skin.
The voice that followed was gentle. Familiar. Not from memory, exactly, but from a clipped comm exchange about a misplaced crate. Hearing it in person, though—this close—was different. It had weight, softness, and a rhythm that Mateo didn’t try to place. There was the faintest hint of an accent, one he wouldn’t have been able to name, but it was there, shaped around the greeting like something carefully chosen. He turned, slower than usual, and there he was. Him. Dressed differently than at the bar, but the impression was the same—unassuming, self-contained, and quiet in a way that somehow made everything else feel louder. The jumper looked soft. The shoelaces were tied in precise little knots. His posture was relaxed, but not lazy—like someone who knew how to take up space without making it about him. Mateo’s gaze lingered longer than he meant it to, cataloguing small things he knew he’d remember later, even if he didn’t want to.
“You’re not intruding,” he said finally, voice low, almost level. Not cold, just cautious. His thumb pressed along the beveled edge of his data PADD, grounding himself with the sensation. He nodded slightly toward the beige crate near the wall. “That’s probably the one. I didn’t want to move it in case it had… educational life-forms or something.” A faint twitch of amusement pulled at his mouth, but the joke was understated, more habitual than playful. The manifest had his name spelled wrong, so Mateo hadn’t touched it. Just in case Logistics had something personal to work out. He shifted his weight slightly, foot angling toward the console behind him, but didn’t take a step. His body stayed in place, caught between familiarity and unfamiliar tension.
He didn’t mean to speak again, but the words slipped past his restraint before he could think better of it. “I’ve seen you before.” The admission felt heavier than it should’ve, and for a split second, he considered pretending he meant something else entirely. But he didn’t backpedal. He just let it sit there, unnamed and unpolished. Too much, maybe. Or not enough. He wasn’t in the habit of offering anything unprompted—especially not this. He didn’t clarify where, didn’t explain how that single moment had gnawed at him since it happened. What would he even say? I saw you and couldn’t look away? I didn’t want to be seen, but somehow I still wanted you to see me? No. That wasn’t something you told a stranger. Not even a polite one.
“Mateo,” he added, eyes briefly meeting Temas’s before flicking away again. His voice steadied slightly, but only just. There was no pretense in it, no formality. Just a name. It came with the smallest, almost apologetic smile, the kind that barely curled the corners of his mouth but still made something in his chest feel too exposed. He didn’t offer more. He couldn’t. Not yet. But still, saying his name like that—to someone who didn’t feel like noise—felt strangely like breathing air he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.
"Temas Latham," Temas introduced himself again, more of habit than anything, his head tilting a little to the side as his dark eyes studied him. He was racking his memory before he remember...a petite dark-haired woman with a voice that seemed to carry across the room and him, next to her. "Valhalla, right? You...sit by the bar with this woman..." he gave him a small smile that most would say was a little bit crooked, as if part of his face hadn't quite gotten the memo.
He remembered the dark-haired man well from the bar, having noticed the ink on him, the catch of metal in the lights. He had wondered if it had hurt when he had it done, if it had been healed up at once or if he had let it heal the way their ancestors let piercings heal.
He had wondered if he had more, hidden under the clothes, like pages of stories scattered on the sand.
He looked over at the crate before he shook his head. "Nothing live in those. May I?" he gestured before he walked over, crouching down to put in the codes. The crate opened and revealed books. Old fashioned, some maybe even classified as ancient, books. He ran his finger over the spines before he looked up at Mateo, his head tilting. And when he spoke, it was in Spanish. A little accented, you couldn't really hide where you were from once you spoke a different language, but still...Spanish. "I always loved books. I'm a teacher here and I want my pupils to know the sensation of a book in their hand, the smell of it, the way it feels to run a finger over a page and read in the speed of your eyes, not a scrolling console."
Mateo blinked—slowly, lashes brushing together in a soft flutter before lifting again. A perfectly manicured eyebrow arched upward, not dramatically, but with the quiet precision of someone who noticed everything and revealed almost nothing. Valhalla, right? Temas said it like it was easy. Like remembering Mateo hadn’t cost him anything at all. That—more than the words—was what caught him off guard. Mateo had grown used to being passed over. Not invisible, just... easy to sidestep. People registered him the way they might notice a flickering screen or a loose panel—acknowledged, then avoided. After enough transfers, enough write-ups, enough tight-lipped supervisors escorting him to doors he wasn’t meant to walk through, he learned to hover at the edges. Observing. Unseen, if not unnoticed. So when someone remembered him—not just the shape of him, but him—it pulled something taut in his chest. A warmth he hadn’t expected settled low and quiet in his belly, like the first touch of sunlight through a shaded window. Gentle. Present. Maybe it meant something. Maybe it didn’t. But it stayed. And that unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, his gaze followed Temas, watching the ease with which he crouched beside the crate—fluid, unhurried, like someone fully at home in his own skin. Mateo had never quite known that feeling himself. Not really. He could dress with precision, curate his image like a gallery wall, but comfort—real, quiet comfort in his own body—had always felt just out of reach. Still, watching Temas move with that kind of ease stirred something low and unnameable in him. Not jealousy. Just… a note of difference. A question that hadn’t yet formed into language. The lid released with a soft hydraulic sigh, and from beneath it came a gentle wave of musty warmth—aged paper, old glue, linen threads. The scent was subtle but grounding, the kind that wrapped itself around memory. Mateo’s brow furrowed, not in confusion, but in something quieter. Interest. Recognition. Maybe even awe. He took a step forward, then another, careful not to cross the invisible threshold of proximity that would make this feel like intrusion. Close, but not too close. His shoulders eased just slightly.
Inside the crate, the books were stacked in careful, imperfect rows. Their spines were faded—some cracked with age, some hand-labeled, some gilded in lettering that had long since dulled. They didn’t match. They didn’t need to. They looked like they’d been chosen for meaning, not uniformity. His mouth parted slightly, just for a moment, as the shape of what he was seeing settled in. Books. Actual ones. Not data slates or replicated curiosities. Not artifacts behind display glass. These were meant to be touched. Meant to be held. Something about that felt sacred. Intimate.
And then Temas spoke—Spanish, careful and a little uneven, shaped by an accent Mateo couldn’t place but didn’t need to. It wasn’t fluent, but it was intentional, and that mattered more than any pronunciation. Mateo froze for half a breath, not startled, but momentarily unmoored. Something inside him lifted in response—small, warm, and delicate, like a bird startled into flight somewhere deep in his chest. Without thinking, he pressed the flat of his palm over his belly, fingers splayed as if to still the feeling before it could rise any higher. He didn’t know what it was or what to do with it. He only knew it felt like something that didn’t belong in a room this quiet, this well-lit.
His lips parted, and before he could stop it, a smile tugged faintly at one corner of his mouth. He fought it, out of habit, but it lingered anyway—in the softness of his gaze, in the slight tilt of his head.
“No esperaba eso.” (I didn’t expect that.)
When he spoke in Spanish, something shifted in him. His voice slowed, lowered. His edges blurred. The clipped, defensive cadence of his usual speech gave way to something fluid, warm, and low—like he was speaking from the center of himself rather than through a filter.
“Pero me gusta cómo suena cuando tú lo hablas.” (But I like how it sounds when you say it.)
Mateo moved slowly, crouching a short distance from the crate, careful to mirror Temas’s posture without drawing too close. His movements were precise, deliberate—the kind of grace that came from restraint, not ease. He didn’t reach for the books. Not yet. Instead, he let his gaze drift across the spines, eyes tracing cracked leather, faded ink, worn cloth. Some had titles; others bore only the memory of one. The scent was stronger up close—dry paper, sun-warmed glue, a whisper of dust that had traveled light-years in silence. He tilted his head slightly, the motion thoughtful, almost deferential.
“¿Son todos originales?” (Are they all originals?)
His voice was quieter now, shaped by something gentler. The Spanish flowed with instinctive ease, softening the spaces between the words.
“Es raro ver libros así. Libros de verdad.” (It’s rare to see books like these. Real books.)
He didn’t reach for anything, but his fingers brushed lightly along the edge of the crate—close enough to feel the texture of the woodgrain beneath the lacquered sealant, far enough not to risk disturbing the contents. It was a silent gesture, almost unconscious, like he needed to anchor himself to the moment without pressing too hard on it. His gaze flicked back to the books, then to Temas, then down again. He wasn’t sure what he was allowed to ask. Or what he wanted to. Something about the crate, the care with which it had been packed and transported, reminded him of museums back on Earth—rooms filled with delicate, irreplaceable things. This didn’t feel like cargo. It felt like memory. Like meaning.
Temas smiled at the words, now able to place the accent. He had spent time in South America, temping at various schools. Just hearing Mateo's voice, the easy way the language flowed without translation, it...it made him think of a lazy afternoon sitting down and watching people cook, the scent of asado thick in the air. Or receiving a gift of alfajores, cookies, from a pupil whose grandmother had made them. Or sitting with others with Yerba mate passed between them, talking about all the things in the world.
Another thing was what he felt. His empathic abilities were sketchy, untrained and part of his heritage, but he had never invested in honing them. What he felt from Mateo was hesitance. Wonder. He assumed it was about the books. He looked at him, feeling him close, not really needing to look to know his exact position. It was like a gush of wind or the glow of a light...you just knew.
"They're reprints, but some are hitting a hundred years. These aren't my private collection," he said, keeping the Spanish going even if his own efforts now felt stilted in comparison to a native speaker. He reached for one and pulled it out. There were books for different ages in there, from children's books for those just learning to read in Federation Standard, to books written for teenagers, or ancient classics.
The book he had pulled out was Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf. A classic as far as he was concerned, a hardback volume with a faded red cover with the title, no pictures on it. He offered it to Mateo, giving him a friendly smile. "I want my pupils to understand there is more to life than the technology before them."
Mateo’s gaze settled on the book Temas held out to him. The cover was worn—a muted, dusty red softened at the edges, the fabric stretched thin where time had rubbed against it. There was no image, no summary—just a name, Orlando, pressed faintly into the cloth in dulled gold leaf. He didn’t recognize it. Not the title, not the author. But something in the way Temas presented it—gentle, unhurried—made it feel important.
He didn’t take the book. Not yet. Instead, he reached out and let his fingers graze the spine, then trace along the top edge where the threads of the binding peeked through. The fabric had a texture like old linen—coarse, almost brittle in places—and smelled faintly of paper and dust and something else, something older. His touch was featherlight, reverent, as if he could read something of its history through his fingertips.
“No lo conozco.” (I don’t know it.)
The words were soft, but not uncertain. He glanced up, the quiet weight of his curiosity settling in his eyes.
“¿De qué se trata?” (What’s it about?)
His tone remained gentle, and there was the faintest trace of a smile—not at the book, but at the effort Temas had made to share it in Mateo’s language. “A veces, las cosas reales son las que más se nos escapan.” (Sometimes, the real things are the ones that slip past us most.)
Temas looked at him at the words, at the way he said it. Lightly. And there was a smile too. He could feel...something...he wasn't sure what. An emotion he couldn't place that radiated from the other man. "Identity," he said and moved the book a little, not enough to push it into his hands, but a gentle offering to take it. "It's about identity."
[OFF - To be continued in Part 2]
Temas Latham
Civilian Teacher
USS Fenrir
[PNPC - Hanlon]
&
Crewman Mateo Gardel
Medical Science Specialist
USS Fenrir
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