Author's Note: Please see previous notes. Past memory in bold. Bond conversation in italics.

This story has stuck with me a little so I thought I would explore it for a few more chapters—nothing epic. Just some more writing around this.

Let me know what you think!

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Trip Tucker sat on the shuttle home watching the video Leslie had sent him her internship programme. He had received exactly one communication from Leslie in the week since she'd been gone on her internship and she had seemed happy. He was comforted by this fact because the night before she left, they had a huge fight when he saw the non-bathing suit that she had packed.

"What is this?" Trip asked with a stern voice as he held up a fist of material for his daughter. He could tell by the surprised look on her face that she knew exactly what he had found.

"Why were you going through my bag?!" Lesslie screeched.

"What is this?" Trip asked her slowly.

"I can't believe you were going through my private things!" Leslie screamed.

"Leslie, What. Is. This?" Trip asked, anger popping from his every pore.

"Mine!" Leslie said as she tried to pry it from his fist.

"No, it's garbage," Trip said as he snapped back his fist and walked toward the garbage chute.

"Dad, no!" Leslie cried.

"You are 13!" Trip snapped as he opened the door to the chute and threw the bathing suit inside. There was no recovering it at this point, the incinerator their home was on the grid with would take care of that.

She started to cry and ran upstairs to her room slamming the door shut.

Trip punched the wall, paced the kitchen for five minutes, then meditated for ten minutes before he took a deep breath and climbed the stairs toward her room.

He had been innocently opening her bag to put in a couple of gift cards for the camp so she could buy herself a sweatshirt or whatever she wanted when he came across the bikini. It was a mere three patches of material, barely covering her blooming figure that she got from her mother, with the words 'Try Me' in glitter across the chest. He lost it.

Trip knocked on her door, he could hear her crying inside and when just a moan came he opened the door and walked inside.

Her room was light purple and looked like someone with a split personality disorder lived there. Half of the things on the wall were from this music group Drzo who screamed their lyrics, wore elaborate animal masks and always seemed to wear t-shirts with Armenian folk lyrics on them. She loved them and their faces adorned half of her walls. Also around the room, were pictures of friends, her family, cute dog memes, and glitter bunny rabbits intermixed with electrical and computer equipment because the girl was an engineering and science genius. Clothes were strewn everywhere as were shoes. Packing had been an event involving shopping for new clothes, getting a new bag to pack them all in, updating her song lists, doing all the advanced readings so she showed up to her Internship camp prepared. And somehow, in all of this, he'd missed the bikini.

"Les, we need to talk," Trip said as he sat down on the end of her bed and placed a hand on her hip. She was buried under a blanket with Puppsie on it (her favorite childhood character).

"I'm not speaking to you," Leslie said from under the blanket.

"Well I guess you're just listening then," Trip sighed. "I know you are upset about the bathing suit. Hell, I'm upset about the bathing suit, but we've got to have a talk about what is appropriate and inappropriate to wear."

"Mum had a bathing suit exactly like that!" Leslie snapped.

"Your mother never wore a bathing suit that said 'Try Me' on it," Trip said.

He watched a hand sneak out from under the blankets, grab a digital frame and toss it at him. Trip looked down at it and smiled. Leslie was six in the picture and they were at the beach. He was sitting on his hip with T'Pol in front of him and Leslie was throwing sand up in the air. They were all laughing. T'Pol looked radiant in her bikini and he looked happy, and young.

"Your mother was a woman, in her 70's, I might add," Trip informed her.

"She's showing just as much," Leslie counter, not getting his point.

"And when you are in your 70's you can walk around naked at the beach for all I care," Trip said with a chuckle. "But you are 13 sweetie, and not only was the bathing suit, or lack of it, not for a 13 year old, but the saying was…"

"From my favorite song!" Leslie snapped.

"What?" Trip asked.

"It's ironic dad!" Leslie screeched.

"Stop yelling at me!" Trip yelled.

Leslie sat up and stomped across the room to her player and started one of those god awful songs that seemed just like a bunch of screaming to Trip.

"Turn it off!" Trip yelled.

The music stopped.

"It's a song that's ironic, it's about being a strong woman and…and…"

"I don't care what you think the message was you were conveying, it was not that," Trip said seriously. "Sweetie, you were hiding it from me for a reason."

He watched Leslie start to fidget, a sure sign she was looking for a defence argument.

"Come and sit," Trip said nicely.

She didn't move from her spot. He sighed, heavily.

"Les, maybe to you and some of your friend that's song lyrics, but other people who don't know the song think of it as a sexual invitation," Trip said as he met her eyes.

"Ewww, dad," Leslie said, disgust in her voice.

"I'm serious," Trip said. "'Try Me' is like you are saying you'd sleep with anyone, that you are just a…a…a thing that men can use and discard. You're 13. You are still supposed to just be a kid for a while. Sex comes later in life and it can be…"

"Dad!" Leslie said as she covered her ears.

Trip stood and pulled her hands down from her ears.

"Your grandpa said something to me once that stuck," Trip said as he looked down at her. "If you can't talk about sex, then you aren't ready for it."

Leslie looked at him surprised. "Dad, I don't want to have sex with anyone."

"I know," Trip nodded and smiled down at her. "But that bathing suit says otherwise, and I didn't want you finding yourself in a situation where the boys at your camp thought you were a girl interested in sleeping around, a girl who thought little of yourself. In a perfect world you should be able to walk around naked…"

"Ewww!"

"And not have to worry about anyone trying anything that you didn't want to happen," Trip said as he looked down at her thoughtfully. "But we don't live in that world."

"Dad, I bought it for the lyrics," Leslie said.

"I know," Trip nodded. "And I threw it out because of them. I'm sorry if I over-reacted, but you weren't wearing that bathing suit."

Leslie's shoulders dropped and so did her head. She started to cry that soft, noiseless cry Trip was, unfortunately, too familiar with.

He pulled her little body against his and kissed the top of her head.

"I'm so sorry sweetie, I know these waters you are navigating are rough, and I'm not the best person to read your map, but…"

He felt her arms reach around him and hug him tight.

"But I love you, and so does your mum," Trip said.

"Does she know?" Leslie asked, suddenly worried about her dead mother's disappointment.

"No," Trip said. "I blocked. I didn't think that…"

"Thank you," Leslie squeaked before she gripped him even tighter.

Trip patted her head and kissed it again as he rocked her from side to side. He knew he couldn't tell T'Pol this, like a few other things over the last couple of years, he knew he needed to let Leslie know that some things were just between them. She didn't want to be a disappointment to her mother, and he didn't want her to feel that he told T'Pol everything and that somehow her mother was judging her from beyond the grave.

T'Pol adored Leslie and would never, ever, judge her, but a young, insecure girl thinks everyone is judging her. He needed her to at least think that her mother still thought she was sweet and perfect in every way.

"Do you have another bathing suit you can bring?"

"Yeah," Leslie said as they parted. "The pink one with the stripes."

Trip nodded. It was a suitable one piece bathing suit he'd seen her in many times.

"I love you sweetie," Trip said as he looked at her blowing her nose. "Don't you ever buy something like that again and hide it from me."

Leslie nodded, she knew he meant business.

Trip listened to her communication one more time before he saw that it was his stop and disembarked his transport near the corner of his street.

He walked a few houses and opened the door to his silent house. His daughter was gone for another 2.5 weeks, T'Pol was dead, and although his friends had tried to get him to make plans, he'd opted to just stay in for a couple of weeks and get some things done around the house. He had some half built shelves he needed to finish, a pantry that needed cleaning out, some bills he needed to pay, the list was long and boring, but it was his.

He placed down his things and went and sat in a chair, closing his eyes and seeing his beautiful wife before him gardening.

"Hi Darlin'" Trip said to her as he walked toward her.

"Hello," T'Pol smiled at him, surprised by his appearance. "Are you still at work?"

"No, I cut out early for the day," Trip said before he kissed her gently.

T'Pol looked at him surprised. "You are sad."

"Yep," Trip said with a nod.

T'Pol didn't ask the obvious question and instead hugged him.

"She's having fun," Trip said. "I know I was sick of arguing with her and looking forward to her being gone for a few weeks but…the house is so quiet."

T'Pol nodded.

"Maybe I should have taken Malcolm up on that trip," Trip said softly.

"Could you still go?"

"I don't know if I want to, not really," Trip said.

"Trip," T'Pol started. She had tried to broach this subject before, but he'd shut her down. "You need someone."

"Please don't," Trip begged her.

"You need someone to come home to," T'Pol said.

"I come home to you," Trip said softly.

"Someone you can converse with, who can help with Leslie," T'Pol said, staying on point.

"We talk all the time, you have helped me enormously with the last couple of years and…"

"To be affectionate with," T'Pol continued.

"I like just being affectionate with you," Trip chuckled as he rubbed a hand up and down her back.

"I'm serious," T'Pol said clearly.

"So am I," Trip replied as he pulled back and held her shoulders so he could look her in the eye. "I'm just going through something, that's all. I'm very happy the way things are."

"Trip…"

"Please, I don't have the energy to argue about this," Trip said with a mournful gaze. "Can we just eat and watch a movie?"

T'Pol sighed and nodded.

"I'll be right back," Trip said before he disappeared. He made himself a quick meal and when he came back, she was curled up on a couch with a cup of tea. "What's the film tonight?"

"Day 97," T'Pol said.

"Feeling like action-adventure are we?" Trip smiled at her as he plopped down on the couch.

"The storyline is problematic, but the acting is above average," T'Pol said.

Trip sat down and started to eat his curry as she began the movie. They spent the entire night watching the action film, getting some action of their own on the couch, and Trip fell asleep with T'Pol in his arms.

He woke in the morning on his living room sofa alone and shivering from the cold in the house, he'd forgotten to pull up a blanket over his naked body before he fell asleep.

Trip rose from the couch and stretched his back. One good part about Leslie being away was that he could have nights like these with T'Pol on the couch. Usually these activities were kept to the bedroom so, if he forgot to pull on clothes before he fell asleep, he was in his own room with the door closed.

Trip ambled naked toward the washroom where he relieved himself before jumping in the shower and cleaning up. He'd taken the day off work, he hadn't told T'Pol because he knew she'd worry about him. He just needed a day to himself. Where he could just do things that needed to be done and she worried so much about his health, including his mental health, that he didn't want to talk about it. He would get some breakfast and start on the shelves before he hit the pantry, then the weeds when it warmed up in the afternoon. It was a full day and, for once, Trip liked being out of his head for a little bit.

XXX

TBC