Author's Note:

Spoiler Alerts for "Demons" and "Terra Prime"!

This story takes place after T'Pol's fist pon farr as Trip's wife, which a little less than a year after the death of their cloned daughter Elizabeth. I have headcanon that T'Pol miscarried twin sons conceived in the aftermath of Elizabeth's death.

It's possible that my own recent experiences, such as my husband's death early this year, have affected this angsty story.

The Story A Day prompt was to write a story of a character involved in an accident.

The first POV is to be a character who loves the MC and knows their flaws, and that scene happens at home, before the accident.

The second is a character who knows the MC slightly, but is not a friend. It happens during or after the accident.

The third is a character who is meeting the MC for the first time in the aftermath of the accident.

As always, I profit nothing - I just love them.

Critiques and comments always gratefully accepted - they make me a better writer.

"How are my girls this morning?" I rolled over in bed and laid my hand against my wife's swollen belly.

"I'm not 'a girl', and our child doesn't belong to you." Hazel eyes opened sleepily; she could parse words before she was even awake. She was trying to sound severe, but I was getting better and better at reading her emotions in our bond. She was feeling sassy this morning, and was likely to Vulcan me half to death all day long if I didn't do something to stop her.

"Oh, yeah? If she's not my baby, then who the hell snuck in when I wasn't looking?"

"You are her father, Trip. All the genetic tests prove it conclusively. However, an infant is not a belonging. One cannot own people." She was intentionally taking me literally, and I paid her back with a long slow kiss that got her mind all hot and bothered, because Vulcans don't kiss each other.

"Tell that to the Orions."

"I have." Well, of course she had.

"You weren't very convincing, apparently."

Our baby girl delivered a kick that said for sure she'd inherited some of her mama's strength. T'Pol made a tiny groan of discomfort, but I grinned – I've always liked my women feisty, and little Grace clearly wasn't going to be anybody's pushover.

"You enjoy the pain she causes me," T'Pol accused. Before I met her, I never guessed a Vulcan could be petulant – but then, she was a very unusual Vulcan. Just as well, since the garden variety wouldn't have made a good wife for an "impetuous carnivore" like me.

I offered her my paired fingers. "No, pepperpot. I wish it wasn't uncomfortable for you – but I'm also thrilled she's healthy in there." We shared the wave of sorrow for our firstborn daughter and the twin boys who had died long before they could survive out of the womb. "I wish you'd just stay here and work on growing her."

But I knew she wouldn't.

I had Corporal Cole hold Commander Tucker at phase pistol point – that seemed the only way to contain him – and forced the turbolift doors open. It was pitch dark inside – but from somewhere below, there was an inhuman scream that went on and on.

Was she even stopping long enough to take a breath? Weren't Vulcans supposed to be logical? And not have emotions? I got my flashlight aimed down into the car – and was greeted with a version of hell that came complete with green blood seeming to be everywhere, and T'Pol, still screaming that endless, raw scream, holding both hands around the twisted spar of metal that had impaled her abdomen.

She was bloodlessly pale, and eyes glinted as she stared – not at me, or the metal she held, but at some point on the wall. She didn't blink, or even move except for the screaming.

At the best of times, Vulcans made me nervous. It always felt like they were judging me, and I was lacking in any redeeming qualities. That's how I'd felt the half dozen times or so I'd seen T'Pol since I came aboard to command the ship's MACO attachment.

But now, she gave me the heebie-jeebies.

A flurry of motion behind me, and I was pushed aside by Commander Tucker – the human one. He grabbed my flashlight before I could respond, with a strength that had to be adrenaline. "Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn," he was chanting – or at least that's what I thought it was. It was almost impossible to hear over Commander Tucker – the Vulcan one's - screaming.

I made a grab for him – standard procedure said we needed to wait for the ship's doctor – but he slipped past into the tiny emergency hatch, and the scream cut off like it had never happened, like I'd imagined it. "Trip. I can't feel her mind. Our baby is dead."

There was no emotion in her voice at all.

"T'Pol, I must deliver you of the child's body." I spoke carefully, and in our native tongue. The circumstantial evidence presented in the report suggested a powerful limbic engagement. Such responses, once triggered, were highly probable to recur.

However, T'Pol did nothing to acknowledge my presence. Nor did she cease her intimate contact with the human male who lay with her on the narrow Starfleet biobed. The readings presented by this arrangement were neither useful nor coherent.

"Our baby's name is Grace. She isn't 'the child's body.' She's a person, damn you!" T'Pol's mate was staring at me in a way no Vulcan would.

"I intended no offense- " Most unusual, that this human understood Vulcan.

"Then don't make our baby a non-person." The human spoke too loudly.

T'Pol's arms tightened around the man in secondary limbic response. He made a pained sound. An alarm sounded on the bed's diagnostic display, indicating a stress point on three ribs on either side of his torso.

"You will harm him if you do not restrain yourself, T'Pol."

"He is mine! You will take nothing from me, this day!" Her eyes were open, but unfocused, the pupils fixed. There was no medical reason for her blindness. The Denobulan doctor had called it an "hysterical response."

"I'll – be fine."

"Six of your ribs are in danger of fracturing along fault lines from a previous injury."

"That injury was from pon farr – when we made this beautiful little girl. I survived her Burning. If you need to break them again, pepperpot, go ahead."

T'Pol seemed confused – perhaps something which resulted from mating an evolutionarily inferior species which could offer no bond. "Trip – I can't feel Grace."

"I know, pepperpot." The human stroked her face, and she allowed it. Before witnesses.

"Our daughter is dead."

"I know."

T'Pol made a strange sound, and her eyes produced a surplus of tears, just as her human mate's did. A Vulcan ritual phrase, made real between them. "I grieve with you."