Only Vulcan
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Enterprise
Copyright: Paramount
"How are you, T'Pol?" asked Captain Archer softly as he settled down by her bedside.
She liked the way he mispronounced her name as Pol. Slurring over the "T", softening its edges with the long use of familiarity, was such a very human thing to do. Commander Tucker did the same thing. It made her feel like smiling.
Which, in itself, she thought, was proof that the captain's concern was warranted.
"My synaptic pathways are still healing," she said."Dr. Phlox tells me I shall require at least two more days in Sickbay."
"Well, make sure you take them," Archer replied, mock-sternly.
"Yes, sir."
He smiled. It was a startling sight in that rugged face, as if a mountain or a thundercloud had rearranged itself to smile at her. It brought home to her how rare this sight had become; how worn out he must be, with the entire Xindi mission resting on his shoulders. He did not have the benefit of Vulcan discipline. Fear for the lives of his crew and his homeworld; rage toward the Xindi for attacking them; frustration at the slow process of gathering information; remorse for nearly killing that Ozarian pirate; and now, on top of it all, concern for her.
He must be feeling all of it, unfiltered. Including -
"Captain, did I … on the Seleya … " Her eyes squeezed shut for a moment, a futile attempt to block out her mind's eye as the memories came roaring back. You don't trust Vulcans. You never have. You want us all to die! She'd pulled a phaser on him. Set to kill. And he'd never lost his patience with her for a moment.
"Captain, I apologize for all the things I said," she whispered through the lump in her throat.
Shame smelled of copper, like the bloodstains on the doors of the Seleya. In a few days, no doubt her healthy, logical mind would tell her how senseless it was to blame herself for a drug-induced tirade. But she needed to apologize right now, the way one needed to shed tears in a room full of smoke. Her rage and paranoia had poisoned her, poisoned the trust and admiration she felt for this man. Pure emotions, deserving of better company. They demanded to be felt as she looked up into his face. The scratches on his cheek were healing, but the shadows under his eyes were as dark as ever.
"T'Pol, you weren't yourself!" His voice roughened. "I don't blame you for an instant. How could I? If you could have seen how you suffered from that drug … "
"Drug or no drug, I should never have made such vicious accusations. Not with the truth directly before me as you made every effort to keep me sane."
She remembered his hands on her shoulders, his voice level, cutting through the green haze of her temper with reason and compassion. If someone had told her three years ago that a human Starfleet officer would one day become her anchor to logic, she would have considered it a very poor attempt at humor. Today, she was simply grateful.
"Well," one corner of his mouth raised in irony, "I've got to say I'm a little bit relieved."
"Relieved, sir?"
He grimaced. "Bad choice of words. What I mean is … " He leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands. "I'd hate to think of you still seeing me that way. As a bigot who blames an entire species for the choices of their High Command."
A spark of warmth flickered through T'Pol's unprotected mind. Had her good opinion really come to matter to him so much?
"You are not a bigot, Captain," she told him, with all the firmness she could muster. "You have proven otherwise, many times over the course of this journey."
She would have stopped there, but his hazel eyes under their thick dark eyebrows seemed to demand her honesty.
"I was … frightened," she confessed. "The condition of my former shipmates … such loss of control is a Vulcan's worst imaginable fate. From fear to blame, it was an all-too-easy step."
Sovin's mindless struggle against his restraints, the blank savage faces of her colleagues, still filled her with horror. She'd failed to save them. So much easier to attack the aliens surrounding her than to look her own helplessness in the face.
"I understand." He nodded.
"I am also far from home." The wistful note in her own voice disturbed her a little, even as it softened him with silent empathy. "I have no complaints, Captain, far from it. This crew and I have adapted to each other remarkably well. However, it is inevitable that I should feel … displaced … at times."
"Alienated, you might say?" His flash of amusement at his own play on words did not mitigate his kindness.
"Perhaps."
He sighed and shook his head. "I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that."
"Do not worry about me, Captain." She bit down on an impulse to reach out and touch his hand, as Ms. Sato might have done in a similar situation. "You have more than enough responsibilities already. You are … " How did Commander Tucker put it? " … only human."
Archer snorted a laugh. "That's right. And you're only Vulcan."
"Your point?"
"My point … "
He must have been thinking along similar lines as she was, because his hand hovered above hers for several seconds. Perhaps he remembered what she had told him about Vulcan touch telepathy, or even the rumors floating around about her neuropressure sessions with Commander Tucker, because he placed his hand rather awkwardly on the edge of the mattress instead. She did not know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Her sessions with Tucker had taught her just how powerful a touch could be. If the captain's hands were to affect her in any way like the charming chief engineer's, there would be trouble.
But, no, it would be different. Tucker's hands left trails of heat everywhere they touched. Archer's hands, holding her shoulders on the wreck of the Seleya, had cooled her like rain in the desert.
"My point," said Archer, smoothing a crease in the mattress, "Is take care of yourself. And, uh … on that note, I guess I'd better leave you to it."
He stood up, brushed some nonexistent dust off his uniform, and straightened his shoulders in military fashion. "Take as long as you need, Subcommander."
"I will."
He nodded formally and turned on his heel to leave.
"And Captain … ?"
"Yes?"
She hesitated. One side effect of suppressing emotions was never learning how to put them in words, especially not in English. The way he carried himself, standing so tall under the weight of his heavy burdens, reminded her of how differently he had walked under the influence of the Lokak virus. It had made him crouch like a wild animal. She had tried so hard to keep him from losing himself. The sight of his body taken over by a wild and unpredictable stranger had been painful to endure. Was that how he had felt watching her succumb to the Trellium-D?
He had stunned her before she could kill him. Someone must have carried her unconscious body through the wreckage of the Seleya, past so many of her mad, violent compatriots. Carried her to safety against all odds.
Something told her it had not been Reed or Hawkins.
"Thank you," she said.
He smiled again, that force of human nature, so simple for them and yet so hard-won, before drawing back the curtain around her bed.