A Letter Home

A “Clipping Clue-pons” POV Challenge Entry

A Letter Home

By Distracted

Rating: G
Disclaimer: The Enterprise crew belongs to whoever owns it now, but I invented the steward who’s telling this little story.
Genre: Dunno. Implied romance? 3rd POV story?
Summary: I couldn’t resist this challenge. Here’s a teensy snippet of a story from an unexpected POV.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wednesday, March 1st, 2153

Personal Log entry: Crewman Pierre Paul Prudhomme

Hey, Ti’Frere,

It’s gonna be a while before I can send this, us bein’ in the Delphic Expanse an’ all that, but another Mardi Gras just came and went without nobody noticin’, and I’m sure startin’ ta get a little bit homesick. I made a King Cake for the captain yesterday, and he thanked me for the “big donut”! I think maybe somebody swallowed the baby, ‘cause I can’t find it nowhere.

Chef’s been ridin’ my ass, little brother. He’s worse than Daddy ever was at the restaurant. The man’s a slave driver! I showed up just a little late this mornin’ since I had ta go to sickbay for a minute ta get somethin’ for a headache, and he had a hissy fit. (It was Mardi Gras yesterday! What’d he expect… that I’d stay sober? Whatever happened to laisser les bons temps rouler? Doesn’t the man ever have no fun? I mean, I know this mission is real important, and we need to find the Xindi and all that tracas, but, cher, sometimes ya gotta lighten up to keep from goin’ nuts… know what I mean?)

I guess I understand where the captain and the command staff are comin’ from, though. They got a hell of a lot more ta worry about than a shortage of fresh vegetables and whether the soufflés fall or not. This Expanse place is real scary, little brother. We had an anomaly run through the mess hall the other day that nearly took out half the off-duty personnel. (They were all there for my pecan pie! Even Chef admits it’s better than his… thank Mama for me, will ya?)

Oh… and I found out somethin’ a couple days ago that ya won’t believe. I wouldn’t a believed it myself if I hadn’t a seen it with my own eyes, me. I got a special request ta deliver some a my pecan pie to the Vulcan commander’s quarters. (Ain’t that a kick? Commander T’Pol’s hooked on my pecan pie!) Get this… I get there with the pie, and Commander Tucker answers the door without a shirt on! He grabs the pie from me, but before I shut the door, I see Commander T’Pol in the room behind him wearing these skimpy little silk pajamas. Cher, you coulda knocked me over with a feather!

The idea a them two doin’ the wild thing kinda makes me smile, though. They’re bein’ awful canaille about it. I don’t think anybody else knows. It makes me hope that maybe we’re gonna all get outta this all right.

Pierre

Back to Fan Fiction Main Menu

Have a comment to make about this story? Do so in the Trip Fan Fiction forum at the HoTBBS!

A whole mess of folks have made comments

Am I first? Well Distracted, this was great! I loved the letter being about Mardi Gras. Short but fun to read none the less. And I really liked how TnT offered him hope rather than him questioning the nature of it.

Oh this was cute. :) Loved the Mardi Gras placement. This was a well done little snippet. Thank you. :)

So that's how all those rumors started! Very nice as always.

I like that name-Pierre Paul Prudhomme...lots of 'P's! It seems as though Trip and T'Pol never know who may happen upon them. And at last we know exactly where that famous pecan pie comes from! Wonder if Pierre tells more people about Trip and T'Pol than just his little brother? I can just see that look on Trip's face as he grabs that piece of pie. It's always nice to think of Trip's face again. : ) Thanks for the fun little snippet.

Heh. Very nice, Distracted. I can easily imagine the expression on this guy's face when Trip answers the door. And then, to see T'Pol in those silk jammies? Heh.

Guys, Kevin just pm'ed me to tell me that Enterprise wasn't in the Expanse yet in March 2153. The Xindi attack was later than that, apparently. This departure from the series timeline isn't fixable for obvious reasons (Mardi Gras is the Tuesday 40 days before Easter... no exceptions, LOL!). I can have Bucky pull this little story if it offends anybody. I know that stories with obvious timeline errors are some people's pet peeve. Whatcha think, guys? Pull it out or leave it in?

Temporal anomaly. Hell, T'Pol gave the wrong year in Zero Hour (she said 2152 in the "acting captain's log") so...

Of course we don't want to pull it. It's just a minor thing, right? And I'm pretty sure they gave the wrong date on the show more than once or am I remembering wrong?

I don't think it's a big deal. You could always say it's AU or diverges from canon because the dates are off. ;)

Pfft. Distracted, honey, just blame Evil Future Guy and move on. :p

Thanks, guys. If it doesn't bug ya'll, then I'll leave it be. : )

Interesting POV! You picked a minor crewmember but gave him color! Oh la la! Cajun color. Me likey!

Hee hee! Love it! The Cajun touch was nice, although it threw me for a moment (poor deprived Canadian me...)! Great stuff, and thanks for a nice treat on my Sunday afternoon! :)

Windrider, I would have thought being Canadian would be an advantage, since all the real Cajuns of my acquaintance tend to sprinkle French in their English... or are you not from a bilingual area of Canada?

The grapevine on a starship is just as busy as it is anywhere else! It was light and funny and another crew members point of view is very refreshing!

I'd never have noticed the date faux pas - glad you left it.

Just great !

Ya'll do know there is a Chef Prudhomme don't ya? He is Cajun,too. Oh, yeah, who cares about time lines when I laughted so hard my dog jumped.

I was wondering if someone would catch that. Let's just say that the steward is Chef Paul Prudhomme's four times great-grand-nephew, LOL! : )

What a nice surprise. Rasputin awoke this morning, finding himself entangled in purple, green, and gold beads and with dubloons slipping from his pockets, confused and dazed, only to realize that he's been in a hangover sleep since he returned from the New Orleans Mardi Gras. (In the old days, he'd slip away from Moscow and St Petersburg to slum Carnival in Munich.) And then he finds a new story, "A Letter Home," by Distracted. By the saints, this gives me the courage to make my dreary pastoral rounds at the hospitals and nursing homes. Thanks again.

I really enjoy 3rd party POV stories and this one is a gem!

Just discovered this one. Cool! I love it when local culture comes into a story. IDIC is alive and well on the Enterprise...as it should be! And signs of love making as a portent of surviving a rough mission - great ST that I am sure Gene R would love.

LOL That was so cute... and I gotta give ya props for originality!