Author's Notes:

I don't own them; I'm not sure the converse is also true. No balance was added to my credit chit. All done for love, not money.

This is a missing scene story from "The Andorian Incident". It occurs during the scene with the Vulcan transceiver and the blanket Trip refuses. It attempts to deal with T'Pol's strange behavior during this episode, and ties it into the folara she experienced during her prior stay at P'Jem, which she doesn't fully remember until "The Seventh", so I suppose it can be said to be a spoiler for both episodes.

Head canon: Things got - interesting, and maybe a little dangerous - on Rigel Ten, when TnT shared a cell...more on that in future stories.

There is likely to be more to this story, if people are interested. And, as always, reviews, criticism, and conversation welcomed, even if it takes me a while to get round to them, due to the writing! =)

Observations

T'Pol watched Commander Tucker covertly as he bent over the damaged energy packs, no doubt taking full advantage of a rare opportunity to explore Vulcan technology that hadn't been labeled 'classified.'

There was no logic in wishing she was beside him, now, where she could breathe in his unique olfactory signature, and use her focus on it to block out all others. There was also no logic in the undeniable fact that she had grown unaccustomed to the scent of her own species' males, to the point where the cumulative effect of the twelve monks, Captain Archer, and the lingering notes of their Andorian captors was moderately nauseating.

Nor was there any logic whatever in imagining herself and the Commander back aboard Enterprise, safely away from P'Jem. If she were given another chance to do so unobserved, would she choose to share with him the strange sensations and resistance she had felt since Captain Archer decided that they should visit this retreat?

Wishing and imagining were inherently illogical activities. One ought to live with intention, but, when there was no way to move forward toward the goal, intention must logically be adapted or discarded. Therefore, she must set aside the fact that he was only four meters from her. T'Pol knew she was being closely watched, although the monks appeared to pay her even less attention than they bestowed upon her crewmates. Whether logical or not, she felt the intensity of their scrutiny, and their judgment, which found her lacking, perhaps even suspect.

Logically, the cause was sufficient. She'd brought the humans here, to a Vulcan sanctuary. Perhaps it was desecration, of a sort. None had addressed it directly; that wasn't the Vulcan way. However, they hadn't invited T'Pol to meditate with them, and, when the Andorians brought simple food, she was not included in their communal meal, or even invited to share water. Both of her human companions had been included. The Captain had accepted, but Commander Tucker had declined – politely, but definitively, choosing to eschew the company they refused her.

She had wanted to sit with him, to offer her own meager company in appreciation of what he had denied himself. However, she was too conscious of the non-focus of the monks, and her own illogical mistrust of them. She wouldn't reveal her attachment to this particular human, because it was a vulnerable tangled place in the pattern of her life, and she wouldn't have it turned into a matter to be examined by others, when she had so little understanding of it, herself.

It was a certainty that her collusion and ease with the humans was already being judged. The monks' behavior suggested that they considered her tainted by human emotion, and responsible for bringing a primitive species here to observe them, and, in so doing, exacerbating the difficulties they were experiencing with the Andorians, who viewed their presence here, and Enterprise's, as proof that this was more than an ancient sanctuary.

Was it?

A listening post would be a clear violation of treaty. There was no logic T'Pol could discern in breaching an agreement that had brought, if not peace, at least a cessation of open hostilities between their two peoples. The skirmishes had brought loss of life and injury on both sides; the treaty prevented further damage.

Logically, she must consider the possibility that the Andorians were correct, and that, despite the apparent illogic of such an action, there was indeed a listening post here. The Imperial Guardsmen had searched all visible areas of the sanctuary, twice before, without results. Their abuses of the Captain made it clear that they had yet to discover anything untoward in this investigation. She had seen nothing that suggested another purpose to P'Jem, unless one were to count the transceiver, which according to Commander Tucker's comment to the Captain, was 'just about a fossil.'

The transceiver unit was located in catacombs that were hidden from the Andorians' scans.

The monk known as Sektin had directed Commander Tucker; there was something in his manner that suggested secrecy. Perhaps, as they said, it was only to protect the items of cultural significance that were stored there, and their honored dead.

But, logically she couldn't discount the possibility that there was more hidden in the catacombs than one would expect in such a place.

Like a stone slab, and a secret chamber where hands held her down, and voices chanted words she couldn't understand?

T'Pol only narrowly succeeded in repressing a shudder of fear and revulsion. She couldn't repress the need to crouch in closer to the wall, hoping for nothing more than to be forgotten. Perhaps, if she could speak privately with Commander Tucker, the inexplicable symbiosis of ideas that often occurred between them might provide a plan, or the beginnings of one. Certainly, his relaxed manner would assist her in reclaiming her equilibrium. But she would give the monks no further cause to make a study of her, if she could prevent it.

As though he was capable of sensing the direction of her thoughts, the engineer looked up from his work, his eyes scanning the room. He was standing watch, even now; perhaps that was why he was still adjusting the energy pack? She watched his regard travel from one monk to the next as they began to settle for a deep meditation that the humans would likely perceive as sleep. He returned his focus to the work for a moment, then regarded Captain Archer with a slight frown. The Captain was obviously in pain, and there was nothing he could do to ease it. That was certainly disturbing to him; Commander Tucker seemed to have an intrinsic need to see to the well-being of others. It was not always logical, but T'Pol found it soothing when his gaze came at last to her.

She lowered her lids enough that he would think her eyes closed; she didn't trust herself not to communicate, through a shared regard, the degree to which this human intrigued her. Still, she could see that he watched her, his expression puzzled in the way it had been when they were attempting to modify Enterprise's sensors to detect plasma decay. He was an engineer; perhaps his desire to help others, even a Vulcan, was part of what made him exceptionally qualified for the position he held.

He had known she was troubled, last night. His questions and presumptions had been somehow threatening, and her own responses to his concern more so. She had retreated behind the remote persona humans seemed to expect from all Vulcans, and denied his understanding and his overture of deeper connection.

Could she go back, now, she would perhaps tell him of the hands and the faces that were neither dream nor memory, but no less real, in her sudden remembrance of them.

But the Vulcan Science Directorate had determined that time travel was a logical impossibility. She was here, on P'Jem, and she had said nothing. She could neither undo that, nor return to the place where she might speak with him where no others would hear.

The young monk who had led Commander Tucker into the catacombs approached him, carrying a folded blanket. "There is one to spare," he said, but the engineer replied that it would only get in his way. But T'Pol was certain that there was another, unspoken reason. There were three visitors to P'Jem, and only one extra blanket. He wouldn't accept a blanket while another went without.

Trip kept a watchful eye on the room and its occupants while he puttered with the Vulcan transceiver's power pack. This was the first Vulcan technology he'd ever had the chance to study, even if it probably ought to be a museum piece. He was damned well going to learn all he could about it while he had it. Besides, he'd figured out a long time ago that people tended to ignore him when they thought he was working.

Well, most people, anyway...

T'Pol was huddled up, arms around her knees, watching him, even though she closed her eyes every time he looked at her. The way she was acting made him nervous. There was something going on with her in the Mess Hall last night, and whatever it was was still eating at her. She was all hunched up against the wall, not talking with anyone, like she wanted everyone to forget she was here, or like she'd given up on ever getting out.

Damn. He ought to have kept the blanket Sektin offered him, so he could give it to her. Maybe it wouldn't help, but she looked so damned alone, and he wanted to make this easier on her, whatever the hell 'this' was. When he was little, he liked to hide under blankets when life got too rough. Might help her feel a little safer, too, and it would for sure keep her warmer than her thin uniform could.

Every monk but the leader was making a point of ignoring her, even though they weren't treating him or Jon that way. T'Pol herself hadn't initiated a conversation since they got here. Now, she was far from what anyone would call chatty under the best of circumstances, and her grasp of small talk was just about nonexistent, but she wasn't usually anything like the silent waif in the corner. He remembered her at the Suliban helix, when she'd come up out of the Cap'n's chair at Warp 5, hitting him with a double-barreled 'specious analogy'. If he hadn't backed up fast, she'd've run right into him, because he was sure she wasn't going to back off, not one hair.

Trip just wished he knew why the most confident woman he'd ever met was acting like a scared little girl with no friends, and why he got the idea that there was a whole lot more to this than he could guess at or maybe even understand. Last night, he'd thought she was on the edge of telling him, but he must have pushed too hard, or said the wrong thing, because she'd shut down tight, walked away – and she was still all closed off -

Except that she was watching him back, from under nearly closed lids, and he thought maybe she was hanging on to him, somehow, like she had in that Suliban cell. It wasn't going to keep her warm the way the blanket would have, but it was something, maybe. He decided he was going to keep a close eye on her, but not in an obvious way – she seemed way too uncomfortable around these monks, like maybe she thought they were judging her for consorting with lowly humans.

Or maybe she was embarrassed to be seen with them. That thought stung a little, but then again, he and Jon had both been pretty vocal about their displeasure at her being assigned to them, in the beginning, so it was only fair to cut the lady some slack.

Sektin gave the blanket to Jon, who started right in badgering T'Pol to take it. There was something relentless about Jon Archer when he made his mind up, but it couldn't even begin to compare with T'Pol's brand of stubborn. She refused outright. No surprise there. Even now, she was going to play Tough Little Vulcan. Not that she didn't have every right to. On a good day, she could probably take out four armed Andorians all by herself. These blue guys were mighty agitated, but they didn't seem to be any stronger than your average human, and they weren't the size of Klingons, so she'd have the advantage.

And that meant that this wasn't a good day for T'Pol.

But Jon seemed to miss that altogether. He'd decided she needed to be under that blanket, and he was overriding her desire not to be. If she wouldn't take it for herself, she was going to share it with him. Even when she bluntly told him, "The cold is preferable to the smell," he didn't get the message, or didn't accept it. He all but ordered her under with him.

Jon was Trip's best friend, and his commanding officer, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be an ass sometimes. A gentleman would never order a lady to sleep with him – even fully clothed in a hostage situation. Certainly not if she'd already told him he stank. He might leave the blanket there for her, and he might offer her his body heat, but gentlemen didn't make issues of those kinds of things.

But Jon did make an issue of it, with all those Vulcans here listening with their superior hearing, and then he made it all worse when he got his way, and actually insulted her people as though he thought he was in command here, and then questioned her loyalty, when, up to now, she had sure as hell been more loyal to them than they'd been to her.

Jon was Trip's best friend, but when T'Pol told him tartly that she'd never disobeyed his orders, then turned her back on him, taking the blanket with her and leaving Jon without, Trip had to put his hand over his mouth to hide his grin.