Notes: This is so very dark and sad. What happens when one of two, inextricably bound, is torn away? I mean inextricably. This is Trip/T'Pol post-Terra Prime. TATV doesn't exist.
A low rumble built until it cracked and shook the windows. His feet carried him in a uncoordinated shuffle to the threshold of the door. Trip became absently aware of his fingers on the cold, brass door knob. As if the realization triggered a muscle spasm, his fingers twisted it open and he stepped out into the rain. The Earth rumbled in response, the ground vibrating with the force of a shuddering warp engine as the sky let out an electrical ripple and a white crack.
He sighed loudly, whiskey vapors escaping into the electric night air. His gaze floated across the black road emptily, images of years past playing in front of them and obscuring the shimmery slick blacktop. The thunder rumbled again low, loud and slowly as it rolled out of the sky. It felt like providence; like a kind of slow, irreversible movement inside him followed the thunder's course and touched off electrical sparks in every cell of his body.
He looked up, took an unsure step out from under the awning, and suddenly the patter of the rain against the mud startled him. He wondered how long it had been raining.
"T'Pol," his lips moved mechanically. The word echoed in the back of his mind emptily as it had so many times. His eyes twitched, narrowing slightly with the expectation of anguish... but too much inside had been killed, numbed. When the pain never came, he stood confused for a moment, and then it hit. His face slowly twisted into pain, a movement so familiar, he didn't even notice.
Not sure how long he had been standing there, he blinked rapidly when the tone of the rain pattering on the concrete changed and disturbed the peace of his empty thoughts. His neck craned instinctively and he found splotches of light peering through the cloud cover. It looked like morning. How long had he been standing there?
As if on cue, his head turned from one side to the other, and looked down to find an empty glass tipped downward in his left hand. Dark spots stained his jeans where whiskey and coke had splashed into the fabric from the concrete next to his bare feet. It had long washed away, and the thunder had subsided, but the echo was unbearable.
It was toneless, wordless, distracting; an empty droning to blur out the silence. He couldn't stand the silence... it was like living for an eternity among endless community, only to be left the lone survivor of a merciless plague that silenced all the voices but his own. The silence put tempting ideas into his head... made him think about risking it to join her. It made him want it until he could think of nothing else... until he wanted nothing else.
In some ways, it would be easier if they were gone... easier to let go.
"Trip?"
His mother's footsteps crackled against the concrete lightly, interrupting the sudden birdsong he realized had filled the air. The sky had lightened into shades of cyan and ambrosia. The air moved.
"Honey, let's go to bed," the voice strained to remain even. Trip's eyes fell to the pavement as he shuffled to turn around, his eyes never leaving the pavement before his feet. They moved upwards slowly, landing on his mother. Her face was like a vaguely familiar name from childhood. He stared at it from across an entire lifetime, across the universe.
"Hey... mom?" he blinked. She pursed her lips, blinking rapidly through the anguish that fought to show itself. Tightening her robe, she reached out with her frail, papery hand.
"It's time to go to bed, honey."
"Hmmm..." Trip muttered.
His chin shot up then and looked at her anxiously. "Will T'Pol be joining us for dinner, Cap'n?" Trip asked.
"No, Trip," his mother replied quickly and unfazed by his question. "She won't."
"Oh," Trip groaned, not hiding his disappointment as his face fell. "Must be busy on the bridge."
"Mmhm," she muttered, guiding him over the threshold to the front door.
Trip stopped suddenly and looked up, starling his mother.
"It's a beautiful day," he said his lips curving into a smile.
"Of course it is," she agreed.
"Maybe dad'll take me fishin'!" he said with sudden glee. The smile that erupted from his lips threatened to touch each ear as his mother guided him to the couch.
"We'll go see him this afternoon, and ask, sweetheart," she said, sounding as if she were thinking aloud.
"Mom?" Trip asked, settling himself into the couch and pulling a quilt over himself.
"Yes, sweety?" she asked instinctively, tucking in her grown son.
"Dad's dead." The words came out of his mouth with almost a hint of confusion.
Catherine nodded solemnly, shutting her eyes as if the hold the tears back. "He is."
Trip looked incredulous... and then turned swiftly and buried his head into the couch cushion.
"So is your T'Pol, sweety..." Catherine muttered quietly to herself. Her hand sprang to her lips as her eyes glassed over with unshed tears. She withheld them for the sake of his anguish, for the sake of his endless tears, and for the sake of the shreds of himself he had left behind to dry them and retain some semblance of communion between his broken spirit and her departed memory.