T'Pol had given no warning that she would engage in conversation with Jonathan Archer. Protocol and his own directives placed her in the role of observer. Conversing with humans was a skill that required a great deal of practice; typically, an attache would spend several months witnessing before attempting it.

He had selected T'Pol for his staff because she was the infant who had dared to touch the flame. That implied an intrinsic need to understand; she might take risks that weren't precisely logical, but would certainly provide valuable insight into this complex and highly emotive species.

His attache's response to the human's question was succinct; well within acceptable parameters. That Archer responded with another angry question was wholly expected; he seemed willing to hold all Vulcans responsible for his father's inability to advance his engine design sufficiently before his death.

Soval focused on his breathing until he was able to suppress his own unwanted response. He was too near pon farr not to be affected by the involuntary pheromone releases that were characteristic of early telerotic awakening.

T'Pol lifted her chin and answered the human's challenge. Fascinating - she met Archer's stare directly, projecting presence in a manner that a human male would respond to.

Soval was aware of an elevation in his own respiratory and circulatory systems. A tingling in his fingertips urged him to draw nearer to her, to feel her bioelectric signature...

T'Pol's next response to Jonathan Archer was correct, despite the further violation of protocol.

The human starship captain responded by intimating a desire to physically harm T'Pol. She said nothing more, only made a slight shift in her facial expression that his observations suggested were readily understood as acknowledgment among humans.

She gave no indication that it would almost certainly be impossible for Archer to accost her. Even without her superior strength and reflexes, she would prove a formidable opponent.

T'Pol remained still as the conversation deteriorated in the manner most attempts to guide humans seemed to.

Her elevated pheremone production quickly saturated the air in the small waiting area, and provoked his own inevitable response. Though he was long mated, and T'Pol a relative; he couldn't fully repress his reaction to the powerful telerotic awakening of a female Vulcan.

He raised his voice to Maxwell Forrest when it was decided that Enterprise would return the Klingon. While Soval knew his human associate would forgive the lapse, he found it, and his awareness of T'Pol, distressing.

They must vacate the chamber. While not the ideal resolution, it supported the arrangement he had with Maxwell: Jonathan Archer's hostility toward the Vulcan people had been harnessed for the benefit of his own species.

There was a danger in his decision to place T'Pol on Enterprise as an adviser and observer of this first Terran deep-space mission. While Archer's responses to her proved that he was unaware of her awakening, and so was not the catalyst for it; T'Pol's proved just as definitively that it had indeed been a human male that had precipitated her maturing telerotic state. Her use of human kinesthesiology was conclusive.

On Enterprise, she would be vulnerable in a way few Vulcans were. It was quite possible that their behavior would influence her own, in ways she wouldn't be aware of and couldn't guard herself against.

Protocol prevented him from addressing the topic; reproductive privacy was a fundamental Vulcan right. Soval considered all he knew of this young woman, including the seven times she had left the compound unescorted and in violation of protocol. He weighed the risks and benefits for her, for humans, and for the Vulcan people.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

Logical – but it wasn't logic that made the decision, but Soval's desire to honor the infant who had touched the flame.

T'Pol stared at her flame, the scars on her fingertips pulsing softly. She didn't understand what had driven her to speak when she was intended to remain silent. She was further confused by Ambassador Soval's failure to censure her immediately; why had he chosen to allow her inappropriate behavior to continue?

Why had she spoken? At the time, it had seemed crucial to answer Jonathan Archer's questions, and neither the Ambassador nor his chief assistant, Tos, were answering him.

What had the human meant, when he said that he was restraining himself from "knocking her on her ass?" She didn't understand more than that it was clearly a threat against her person – but there had been something else, when he gave voice to his threat. An awareness of the human man named Trip, the way he had looked when he smiled, the changes it wrought in his face. Some lingering awareness of him suggested that, if he knew what the starship captain had said, and her skill in combat disciplines, he would smile.

Was that the concept humans referred to as humor? A disparity between perception – in this case, that her smaller size, and perhaps her gender, translated to vulnerability to attack – and reality - her greater strength and faster reflexes, in addition to a decade of elite training while serving in the Ministry of Security?

Why was she pondering the nature of humor when she may have endangered her career, and committed an act which would precipitate her return to Vulcan?

Why could she not focus on the flame, and her meditation?

There was a soft chime in a specific pattern. She was being summoned to attend Ambassador Soval.

T'Pol rose smoothly, but, instead of going at once to the door, she went to the two tall windows. She stood for a moment, her fingers tracing the illustration on the cover of a hide-bound volume that rested on a table before them, and wondered if this was the last time she would look out onto the fog-shrouded streets of this world.