Disclaimer: All characters (except Laura) belong to Paramount.
A/N: I've abandoned "Secrets," didn't like where it was taking me. I'm going to start over with
the same kind of idea, but slightly different. Let me know what you think!
The thin young man sat on the edge of his bunk, hunched over himself, breathing shallowly through his nose. His light blue eyes were open wide, but unseeing in the darkness of the quarters. His hands, calloused and roughed up -a working man's hands- gripped his knees like talons seeking purchase in a wind storm. His handsome features were twisted in a grimace, one that would require a close range blast from a phase pistol to remove. He felt movement on the bunk behind him, but did not acknowledge it. Some days his nightmares woke her as well; others she slept through peacefully, the only evidence showing her his night of terror the state in which he found himself in the morning. This was obviously not one of those nights.
"Trip?" The whispering voice was a welcome intrusion in the blackness. An overhead light was flicked on, bathing the room in soft yellow light. Two arms snaked out of the shadows behind him, and wrapped tightly around his middle. He leaned backward into the embrace, grateful for the contact. However horrible the nightmare had been, having her with him made everyone liveable. She kissed the back of his neck, felt the salty wetness there, and frowned. How long had he been suffering in the dark without waking her? She wondered. It was a futile gesture, she knew. He wouldn't tell her. Charles Tucker III was the best man she had ever known, able to talk to her for hours on any of a number of subjects, himself excluded from the list. Oh, sure, he explained his nightmares to her, in a very technical, engine manual-type way, but he never told her how all this made him feel.
She closed her eyes, and asked, "was it a bad one?"
She felt him nod, and was almost certain that he didn't trust himself to speak. She could feel his body trembling through their touch. He twisted around in her arms, hugging her tightly to himself, burying his face in the curve of her shoulder. When forced to endure a night like he just had, the only thing that could bring him back to himself faster than a trip out the nearest airlock was her contact. He was thankful for it, drank it up like a man dying from thirst. She didn't say anything, knowing words would not comfort him. Instead, she rubbed his back slowly, from his shoulder blades down to the band of his pajama pants, and back up several times. After an indeterminate amount of time, she could feel him beginning to respond. His shaking had subsided, breathing had slowed. Finally he pulled away from her, offering her a weak smile as he scooted back on the bunk and leaned against the wall.
"Sorry,"he muttered, scrubbing at his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to wake you."
She moved so she was sitting next to him, and said, "Trip, honey, you're supposed to. I'd gladly go without sleep to stop you from having to go through that."
He didn't respond. He couldn't. Her honest words touched him so deeply he could feel tears pricking against the backs of his eyes. He reached out and grabbed her hand, holding it tightly, and hoping she got the message. She did.
"I'm here for you." She touched his cheek gently, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead. This time he was unable to stop himself from responding to her kindness. He closed his eyes, but a tear escaped nonetheless, running down his face and dripping off the line of his jaw.
"Hess to Commander Tucker." The comm spewed the unwelcome words into the air, and Trip was suddenly thankful they had spent the night in his room. He briskly wiped his face, knowing full well that his picture was not transmitted over the comm, and reached out to hold the button down.
"Tucker here." His voice sounded weak to his own ears, but he knew he could pass it off as drowsiness.
"I'm sorry to wake you, sir, but we're having some trouble with warp core readouts."
Trip's thoughts about his own state were pushed out of his mind by the careful words of his second in command, Lieutenant Anna Hess.
"I'll be right there." His acknowledgment was made without hesitation, and he sprung from his bunk even before the link had been cut. He hurried over to the bathroom attached to his quarters, grabbing a towel from the shelf and scrubbing at himself with it. His weakness was washed away by adrenaline, replacing thoughts of his dead sister with that of an exploding warp core if he didn't get down there fast enough. He dressed quickly, pulling on the uniform from the day before.
Lieutenant Laura Simmons, MD, was in the same place he had left her. She frowned disapprovingly at him as he leaned over her, supporting himself with an arm on each side of her waist. "I'm sorry we don't get to have breakfast together."
"Anna had better have a good reason for calling you down this early. If she doesn't, I'm gonna find a really good reason to confine her to decon for the next couple of days."
Trip's sudden, bright grin was disarming, given his fragile state of several minutes before. In the time spent with Trip, Laura had become all too aware of the rapid emotional changes he could wing through. He had lost her around a sharp curve more than once.
"It's nice having a girlfriend with the power to do that." He kissed her briefly, then straightened, and said over his shoulder on the way out, "I'll see you at dinner."
Laura almost didn't hear his last words. Although she could feel the way Trip felt about
her, he had yet to say anything to confirm it. Hearing herself in the context of girlfriend from
his mouth brought a wide smile to her face. The man frequently amazed her. Before meeting
him, she wouldn't have believed a man like him could be in existence. It didn't seem possible.
But here he was. A man whose sense of loyalty to the Captain and the ship he served aboard
overrode any thoughts of himself. Laura could spend every day for a million years with Trip,
and it would never be enough.
Commander Tucker straightened slowly, wincing as the kinks in his back worked themselves out. 'I'm too damn old for this.' The warp core emergency had been a false alarm. Most were. This time, two of the plasma relays had fused, causing a chain reaction all down the line. The sensors monitoring the warp core had overheated, and were giving off false readings. Trip sighed heavily. When given the choice between replacing plasma relays, a job a first year cadet could do, or having breakfast with the beautiful doctor, there was no contest. But it was too late to salvage the morning. Laura was no doubt already on duty in sickbay. Trip decided this was one of the time when keeping their relationship a secret served only to frustrate him.
With a growl of annoyance, he lashed out with a booted foot, connecting with the removed plasma relay. It flew about ten feet, sliding to a stop in front of a pair of polished black boots.
"Now, what did that relay ever do to you?"Captain Jonathan Archer asked, his left eyebrow raised in a questioning look. Trip pointed threateningly at the burnt out piece of equipment.
"I told him nobody talks about my mama like that!" With a self-righteous smirk, he turned back to the panel he had been replacing, trusting that the Captain would explain the reason for his visit to engineering. He was not disappointed.
"How are the repairs coming?"he asked, kneeling beside the Commander and lending a hand to the stubborn panel. Trip blew out a long sigh, then turned on his toes to look at the Captain.
"Another couple of hours at least. Captain, it's the eight damn time this month that the plasma relays have fused. With your permission, I'd like to meet with T'Pol later, see if we can't come up with a solution."
Archer nodded, standing slowly. "Fine with me. Just run the changes by me before you implement them."
Trip nodded, as he replaced his spanner back into it's case. He stood, taking the container with him. 'Tell him,' he shouted to himself. 'Tell him you've found the girl for you. TELL HIM!!!'
"Um, sir, the crew's pretty hyped about movie night. It was a good idea to re-introduce it."
The Captain clapped his chief engineer on the back. "It was a good suggestion. I'll see ya later, Trip."
Jonathan turned to leave, but the voice screaming in Trip's mind forced him to act. "Jon, wait!"
The older man whirled around, eyes slightly wide in surprise. Trip rarely called him by his given name, and even less often while on duty. He felt anticipation bubbling in his stomach as his sub-conscious came up with several scenarios that left his good friend in trouble.
"Um, can I talk to you in my office?"
The office of the chief engineer was less an office, and more of a cubicle set up in the corner farthest from the warp core. The Captain didn't feel it necessary to remind him of that as he followed him through the department.
Commander Tucker could feel his hands shaking slightly as he pulled out his desk chair and sat down hard. He knew in his heart of hearts Jonathan Archer would be happy to hear he had found someone. Captain Archer, however, was as unreadable to him as one of Hoshi's Klingon novels. He swallowed uneasily, realizing with a start that he hadn't said anything in several long minutes. He looked up at his Captain, his older friend, who was still taller than him, even when sitting.
"Um, well, I don't really know where to start."
Jonathan's face was suddenly filled with concern. "You aren't in trouble, are you?"
Trip shook his head emphatically, feeling his face flush with colour. "No. No, it's nothing like that. Actually, quite the opposite."
He looked down at his desk top, and started picking at a glob of sealant that had somehow found itself in his office. It would be so much easier to just come out with it. Wouldn't it?
Jonathan watched his friend carefully, the nervous butterflies refusing to leave his stomach even after Trip assured him it was not bad. But the younger man had him puzzled. Although whatever he had to tell him was not bad news, Trip obviously didn't want to part with it. It couldn't be about his sister; in Archer's book, that still fell under the 'bad' category. Maybe it was another suggestion concerning the crew. But he almost seemed embarrassed. Like he had been caught doing something he shouldn't. Jon frowned slightly, shifting through possible solutions in his mind. The blatant answer suddenly hit him like a phaser cannon blast between his eyes. The smile that crossed his face almost cracked his face in half.
"Trip,"he said, abruptly. The Commander looked up in surprise.
"Who is she?"
The response he was given wasn't what he expected, but confirmed his suspicions
nonetheless. Trip's face turned an even deeper shade of red, colour rising all the way up to the
tips of his ear. His jaw dropped slowly, and his mouth hung open for a long second before he
came to his senses and shut it with a snap.
"Um, I'd rather not tell. I don't want to jinx it. You understand?"
If even possible, Jonathan's smile widened even farther. "Sure. Just promise me this fling won't get in the way of your duties."
The redness faded from Trip's cheeks, and he looked quietly indignant. "No, Jon, you don't understand. It's not a fling. This girl...Well, she's incredible. I think...I think I love her."
The Captain's eyebrows almost disappeared under his hairline. "Oh. I have to be honest, you surprise me. I didn't think you were ready to settle down yet."
"Hey, wait a sec! Nobody's settling down. I don't see 2.4 kids and a white picket fence in my near future. Not now, anyway. Finding the Xindi's still the number one thing on my mind."
"I didn't mean to imply that I thought anything less, Trip. You just surprised me, is all. I'm glad you've found someone. Just, please if this relationship gets in the way of the mission, change something."
Trip held his friend's gaze for a long minute, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, I promise. We're not even in the same department."
He stood, indicating to the Captain that he needed to get back to work. "I really appreciate your take on this, Jon. Believe it or not, I was kind of nervous to tell you."
Jonathan laughed, squeezing his friend tightly. "Well, that is quite a surprise. Certainly had me fooled."
They exited his office together, each pondering how lucky they were to have a friend as
good as the other. They parted ways at the lift, Captain Archer returning to the bridge, and Trip
back to his to-do list.
A/N: Please review if you like it, or not. If you don't like it, I won't bother publishing it. Too
much work! =p
