Mint Plants Need Love Too, or, The Things We So for Fresh Tea

Posted on Mon Jun 23rd, 2025 @ 3:13pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Alina Tevaris & Sergeant Jace Morven

3,417 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2388

The arboretum was quieter than he expected. Just the soft hum of systems and the faint rustle of leaves, stirred by the artificial breeze. Sergeant Jace Morven stepped inside like he didn’t entirely trust the place not to bite him. Green wasn’t his usual terrain, not unless fully armed and hopefully with a squad behind him. He paused just past the threshold. No threat assessment here...just a glance across rows of plants and hydroponic beds, methodical, like cataloguing unknown equipment. He didn’t know most of what he was looking at. That didn’t bother him. He wasn’t here for a lesson.

He was here for something specific.

The replicated mint tea tasted wrong. Not bad. Just...off. Synthetic, faintly sterile, didn't dry in a way he liked. The taste lingered in a way real mint didn’t. He hadn’t thought much of it at first, but the difference stuck with him. He wanted the real thing...leaves, sugar, boiled water. Simple. Clean.

Not a gym thing. Not a sickbay thing.

And Cressida Vale, for all her steadiness, her insight, her sharp-eyed way of noticing people, wasn’t the one to ask. She was medicine and movement. Orders and footwork. One to follow. He knew where he placed her.

But her fiancée? Petty Officer Alina Tevaris? The biologist?

This was her terrain.

He spotted her ahead, crouched near one of the planter beds, doing something he couldn’t identify...checking roots maybe, or tying something off. Slim frame, brown hair, boots scuffed from actual use. She looked like someone who understood growth.

He didn’t clear his throat, didn’t make noise just to announce himself. He simply stopped a few paces away and said, in his usual quiet, gravel-edged voice, “Petty Officer Tevaris.”

A beat, then, because Jace wasn’t the sort to dance around a point, he added: “Need something. Mint leaves. Real ones.” Another beat, almost as if to give her time to register him. “If that’s something you grow.”

For her part, Alina had not been so deep in the roots of the plant she was tending, but rather he mind had been all over the place. The arboretum had the air of quiet and stillness, but that illusion was maintained by complex systems of heat, light, water circulation, air ventilation, and half a dozen botany nerds running themselves ragged. Today it was Alina's duty to check on everything and the checklist of things needing adjustments was the length of her arm. Already thinking of the next five items on her to-do list, her brain was not contained solely in her head but was in fact spread out across the room to all the other places that needed attention. It was only natural that she'd notice the big guy in the soldier uniform, standing in the middle of her consciousness as it were.

"One sec, please!" she called back behind her. She had been whispering softly to the delicate mass of roots in her hands, and that conversation continued. "Come on, let's get you separated from mama. You can't grow like this, little one. Time to come out. I've got a special new home for you." Tweezers gently pulled and separated a small clump of rhizomes, each with their own visible growing point, away from the parent plant and put them inside a sample container. "There we go. I've got a special place in mind for you."

She put the lid on her sample container, set her tweezers down, and stood up to face her guest.

"Sorry about that. Hi! You want mint, you said? I can help you with that." She cocked her head sideways and smiled. "Oh I know you. Cressida told me about you. Jace, right? I'm Alina!" She held her very dirty right hand out toward him.

The name had landed first. Jace. No title. No rank. Like she’d known it all along. It wasn’t disrespectful, but it was... unexpected. Hearing it from her, warm and easy, felt strange in a way he couldn’t quite place.

Then came the rest. Cressida told me about you. That caught. Not hard, but deep. He knew the doctor had people, of course, and this was her fiancée. But hearing she spoke of him, enough for this stranger to smile at him... pulled something quiet and tight in his chest.

His gaze flicked to the offered hand. He didn’t move to take it.

She didn’t seem to mind the dirt, and that wasn’t what stopped him anyway. It wasn’t the mess. It was the handshake itself: unfamiliar territory he hadn’t stepped into before. He’d seen it often enough, usually between Earth or human officers, quick and casual. His hand twitched, just slightly. Not a longing to reach out; just a moment his body decided to hold back before his mind had even come to that conclusion.

He gave a small nod instead. A half-step of acknowledgment, not unfriendly, just factual.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “That’s me.”

It sat there for a beat. Then: “Mint leaves, specifically. Non-replicated.”

She lowered her hand, but kept her smile. Not unfriendly. Just does it differently. That tracks. “Of course! No one wants replicated mint. Come along, I have just the thing. Follow me!” She gestured with her arm and set off down the ‘trail’ deeper into the arboretum, where she knew the good stuff grew. “Don’t step on anything, please!”

Jace gave a slight nod at her words. Please. That mattered. Not many people used it with him, not without fear or formality behind it. Hers didn’t have either. Just a request, trusting him to listen.

He followed her.

His steps were measured, weight shifting carefully with each one. Not slow, never slow, but precise. He kept his boots off the creeping vines, the low sprawl of groundcover, the delicate shoots that edged the trail. He didn’t look like someone tiptoeing; he moved like someone navigating a minefield, except the danger wasn’t to him. It was to the green.

His gaze swept the path ahead, cataloguing potential hazards...not to himself, but to the plants. Every root and branch was taken into account. The same way he moved through hostile terrain. Except now, the threat was his own footprint, his size.

He didn’t speak. There was no need. But he watched her as she walked, not out of suspicion, but quiet curiosity. She was... light. In steps, in manner. His hands stayed by his sides, relaxed but aware. She’d said she could help. He’d come because of that. But he’d stay careful, because of how she said it. But as his eyes scanned the greenery, he asked, “You grow food here?” his voice low but not unfriendly. “Or just… the other kind?”

“There’s a hydroponic farm three compartments toward the stern,” Alina told him as they walked. “That’s where the actual fresh food grows. Here we grow plants for oxygen and because they’re pretty. But we do grow herbs here, including mint. Ah, here we are!”

On the ground, in one of the gardens, was a thick patch of mint. She inhaled deeply and sighed. “Smell that? That’s what we’re after.”

Jace crouched near the patch, careful not to brush the stems. The scent reached him before he even leaned in...clean, sharp, real. He took it in with a slow breath, eyes narrowing slightly. That was it. The difference. Not just flavour. Weight. Presence.

He didn’t reach to touch the leaves. Just looked. “Smells like quiet,” he breathed, not to her, almost to himself.

“You talk to them,” he said after a beat. Not accusatory. Just stating what he'd seen. The way someone might note the weight of a weapon, or the sound a boot made on gravel. “Like they’re listening.”

He glanced up at her, not quite meeting her eyes. “They listen?” A pause. Not sarcasm. A real question...flat-voiced but sincere.

“I like to think so,” Alina replied. “If they don’t, no harm done, and if they do, I hope I’m making their days a little brighter.”

She got onto her knees and took out of her pocket a small trowel. “There should be some small pots over there,” she said, gesturing vaguely to her left. “A pile that Crewman Durand promised to put away but hasn’t yet.” She lowered her voice as she started digging around a few stems coming out of the ground. “He said he’d clean up, didn’t he? That silly Durand, leaving little messes. But we’ll forgive him, won’t we?” She called back toward Jace again. “Get two please!”

Jace stood for a beat longer, then moved toward the pile Alina had gestured to. The pots were stacked carelessly, a few chipped at the rims. He sifted through them in silence, selecting two that were intact, sturdy. Functional. Felt...solid in his hands.

As he walked back, the soft sound of her voice carried; talking to the stems, to nature, to herself. Not a performance. Not for his benefit. Just how she was. The sound of her voice put him in the moment, even as his eyes took in everything around him, and he still took care about where he put his feet.

He crouched beside her again and set the pots down gently, lining them up with the same kind of precision he gave to setting down equipment. His gaze flicked to the small hole she was digging. Not asking, just...waiting.

“Thank you!” she said cheerily. She scooped some soil into both of them. “Have you been to the arboretum before?” she asked as she worked, gently taking one, two, three stems, complete with a few leaves and clump of roots, and transplanted them into the first pot. “Do you know how to care for these? And how often you can harvest?” She also got a small baggy and clippers out of her toolkit and started removing some mint leaves from the larger plants, so he could enjoy tea right away.

Jace glanced at the small pot, then back to Alina. A pause. “No.” Not defensive. Just honest. “Never had reason to.”

He watched her hands move...clipping, placing, pressing soil with care that wasn’t soft, but deliberate. “Didn’t think plants needed looking after. Not like that.” Another beat. “But if it’s like gear,” he added, quiet, “I can learn.”

His eyes dropped to the leaves she clipped into the small bag. “How long do they live?” he asked, voice level but something behind it, curiosity, maybe. Or cautious. “The ones you take care of.”

As always, the warmth of her smile filled her eyes. “As long as you keep it watered and change the pot and soil every year, it might live forever!” She lifted the pot up and presented it to him; 25cm in diameter and now full of soil and three mint stems, each roughly equidistant from the pot lip and from each other, it was now making her arms strain visibly under the pressure. “I can walk you through it, or make a little note for you, if you can take this from me please?”

Jace took the pot from her hands, careful not to jostle the stems. The weight was more than he expected, dense with soil, roots, life. He adjusted his grip automatically, one hand bracing the bottom, the other steadying the rim. The scent rose again: sharp and green. Real.

Alina’s smile hadn’t faltered once. Friendly, unforced. Not because he outranked her, or because she wanted something, but because... she just was like that.

The kind of kindness that didn’t demand anything back.

She had offered to write instructions. He hesitated, only for a second, then shook his head.

“Walk me through it,” he said quietly. “I’ll remember.”

He didn’t explain. Didn’t say that written words slowed him down, twisted on the PADD or page. That they always had. He didn’t need to. This wasn’t a test.

And somehow, he didn’t think she’d press him for why.

“Alright!” Alina said cheerily. “You’ll want to water it every two to three days, or whenever the top of the soil feels dry to the touch. Pour in enough water so that a bit comes out of these vents in the bottom.” She pointed to the space around the bottom edge of the pot. She then handed him a small bunch of leaves taken from other plants. “These are for you to have tea right now. You’ll want to wait two weeks before harvesting these. You can cut the top five to eight centimetres from each stem, right above a leaf node.” She pointed to a specific point along the stem. “You can do that around once a week. As it grows, it’ll get bushier, and you can rotate where you cut for regular mint tea!”

She started putting a few of her supplies back in her toolkit. “Around this time next year, bring it back to me and we’ll replant it. Maybe spread it into more pots if it’s too big. We do that every year or so and it’ll be yours for life!”

Jace listened in complete silence, the kind that wasn’t distant, just intensely present. His eyes tracked every motion she made: to the soil, the leaves, the base of the pot. He didn’t nod, didn’t offer little affirmations like got it or okay, that wasn’t how he worked. But his stillness was the kind that meant focus, not absence. He was committing her words to memory the way troopers memorised escape routes and pressure points.

Then she said it. Next year. Bring it back. Yours for life.

His grip on the pot shifted, barely, not tense, just... recalibrating. Like something small had moved in his chest and the rest of him needed to adjust around it.

Next year. A whole year.

He hadn’t been thinking in those kinds of spans. Not really. Days, sure. Missions, rotations. The idea of this pot still sitting by his bunk in the barracks, of him being there to carry it back to her a year from now, was so simple that it almost felt dangerous.

Jace looked down at the plant. Three mint stems. Roots. Soil. And a future that had just been quietly handed to him like a fact. A beat passed before he spoke. His voice was low, almost softer than usual. “Didn’t expect this to come with a timeline.” Another beat, not quite awkward. Just honest. And then, not quite a smile...but something in the edge of his voice that could have leaned that way, if he let it: “…Guess I’ll have to stick around.”

“You’d better!” Alina said, the excitement in her voice electric. “I’m not giving plants to temporary housing, after all. These little guys need a home, and that’s what you’re giving them. And in return: you get the freshest mint tea this side of Earth.”

She held up a finger to ask him to wait for her and then crouched down to pick up the second pot. In that pot went more soil, and the sprouts she had separated from their mother plant when she received his company.

“I’ll walk you out, it’s a bit tricky, but I needed to get these little guys ready for their new home,” she explained. “The question now is: where to put them so Cressida doesn’t notice for at least a few days, by which point our home is now also their home. And, ah, I hope you won’t give away my little flower secret next time you see her at the gym.” She giggled and winked at him.

Jace didn’t laugh.

But his shoulders dropped, just a little.

Still crouched, the pot steady in his hands, he looked down at it like it might shift again...change shape, sprout words, grow into something else entirely. Home. That was the word she’d used. Twice.

He’d never really had one. Not in the way she meant. Nowhere permanent. Nowhere safe. He’d had stations, billets, ruins, camps, alleys. Had his unit. Had gear. Had routines and evacuation points and fallback locations. But home?

No. That was a word for other people.

The pot was heavy in a way he wasn’t used to, not weight, but meaning. There was life in it. Something that expected care, not command. Not control. He glanced up at her again, watching her crouch and tend to her second set of leaves like it was the most natural thing in the world to give something fragile to a weapon.

A beat. Then he spoke, low and quiet. “Never had a plant before.” Another beat. Still calm, but edged with something that might have been... not vulnerability, exactly, but honesty rubbed raw. “Never had a home that made room for something that needed light.”

He let the words sit. Let her hear them. Then, after a moment, voice settling back into neutral: “I’ll keep it out of sight. Safe.” A breath. “Won’t mention your flower op.” A pause. Then, dryly: “Classified.” There was no smile. But something had softened. This one you need to protect. The thought came unbidden yet he accepted it as part of a truth. Alina was the sort of person you would protect.

“Yes. Classified.” She nodded, matching his expression for just a second before relaxing into her normal smile. “The normal lights of your quarters or barracks should be enough to keep it flourishing, but if they’re not thriving then you might need to move them around a bit. Get the position just right. And don’t forget!” She bounced on the balls of her feet. “They benefit from a bit of talking!” She leaned into the mint plants. “Don’t you, little ones? Sergeant Morven’s taking care of you now, okay? Be good for him.”

Jace didn’t shift much, didn’t look up immediately. He watched her lean in and talk to the plants, her voice light, warm and coaxing like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like the plants might answer. Like they already had.

He didn’t mock it. Wouldn’t. That wasn’t his way.

But talking?

His fingers curled slightly against the rim of the pot, thumb brushing a fleck of soil that clung to the edge. Voice low, neutral: “Not exactly known for conversation.” A pause. He tilted his head slightly, eyes still on the mint.
“Most things I’ve looked after didn’t need words. Just gear checks. Pulse. Cover.” Another pause. Not defensive. Not sad. Just honest. “…But I can try.”

His eyes flicked up to meet hers, just briefly. “They don’t need stories, right? Just..know someone’s there?”

He was listening! And he was taking it seriously! It warmed her heart to know another batch of plants aboard the ship would get what they needed.

“Just a voice,” Alina assured him. “You can come back to me if you have questions or concerns, okay? Now come along. I’ll show you the exit.”

Jace stood slowly, the pot still cradled in his hands with a care that might’ve looked out of place on someone with hands like his; scarred, calloused, built for combat. But his grip stayed sure, not just strong. Intentional. He didn’t nod. He just absorbed her words: Just a voice. That, he could understand. You didn’t have to mean every word, just show up. Let them know you hadn’t walked away. He’d done that before.

He followed Alina when she moved, footsteps careful, the weight in his hands shifting with every step. He didn’t thank her. Not out loud. But he stayed close, and that, for him, was maybe the loudest thing he could say.

----

Petty Officer 1st Class Alina Tevaris
Botanist, USS Guinevere

Sergeant Jace Morven
Platoon Sergeant, Alpha Squad
FGF Detachment
USS Guinevere

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