Notes: I realize I need to shed some light on the structure of the story. It is really a story about long-term repercussions of a given event. The first chapter is the event. The next chapter roughly takes place the next day. The third chapter roughly takes place within the next year. The fourth chapter takes place within the next hundred years. In that hundred years, Trip dies of old age. T'Pol is still youngish in Vulcan terms and remarries. I thought of making her remarry Koss but that was pushing it.

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Peter - One Year Later

Peter checked the address again on the white square envelope. It was the correct address, the right date. He swallowed nervously, looking at the Vulcan embassy. Perhaps he should have let someone know where he would be, perhaps he should be worried. Summoned to the embassy late after work one evening, perhaps it wasn't wise to go in. He hadn't had any of those thoughts when he had found the white envelope in his slot, amazed that these things still existed. The address had looked like it was written in Vulcan but it was clearly English characters. He imagined the mailman must have silently cursed the alien who didn't realize how difficult it was to read what they wrote. It was a different penmanship than the thank you card, though.

The invitation had been a surprise. He didn't even know the Vulcan embassy did such things as events, he always imagined they spent their days efficiently working at... Come to think of it, he'd never given any thought to what they did for a living. And now he was looking at the tall somber building, wondering if perhaps he should have enquired further. He brushed the thoughts off as mild paranoia in the face of the unknown. Not many Humans got to cross the threshold to the Vulcan embassy, that would be something else he could tell his grandkids about. If he ever found someone to date steadily.

He crossed the wide gate and entered the embassy compound. It was definitely not what he had imagined. Who would have known the tall walls guarded a large garden, replete with alien exotics. He couldn't see any greenhouse walls, but the temperature inside was hot and dry. Even though it was January outside. Or perhaps that was the point... He went through the inner garden at a restrained space, trying not to gawk too visibly, feeling that everyone could tell he was gawking, even though he tried to walk apace with the robed Vulcans that had entered before him and those that were coming behind him, alone or in small groups of two's and three's.

It was January outside and he had his overcoat on. By the time he reached the end of the garden he felt overheated. An usher came and offered to take his coat. Peter reluctantly let go of it. Last time he had handed his overcoat to a Vulcan, he had ended up freezing his pattootie off for three weeks. He followed the crowd middling around up a few steps that extended from one side of the building to the other, followed the movement into...

What struck him first was that the next space was cooler, making him feel like he had reached an oasis even though the ambient temperature was well north of what he preferred. He looked around, forgetting to feel embarrassed about gawking, how could he not. The entire building was unexpectedly alien inside, looking as if it had been hewn from rough reddish rocks, with overhangs and pitons and mountainous features. He had to keep reminding himself he was on Earth, this was the inside of the building, he was not outside on a hot and rocky planet, no matter what his eyes and nose and ears were telling him. He couldn't figure out how tall the place extended but it was a perfectly alien environment.

Soon he was milling around with the hundreds of other attendees, sipping a strange drink from tall narrow glasses. The taste was intriguing, different. He wondered whether there was any ethanol in it or anything that would have the same effect on Humans. He looked around at the crowd and realized with a jolt that he was the minority. There were only a handful of aliens like him, Humans and non-Vulcans, roaming around, some seemingly blasé about the place and others like him, obvious newbies, jaw half-agape as they craned their neck in all directions. He found himself slowly making his way to the next Human male, someone familiarly comfortable. There was safety in numbers.

He hadn't quite reached his goal when a uniformed man appeared at his elbow. "Peter Kristofferson?"

Peter startled, saw with relief the blond hair and blue eyes of another guy like him. He smiled in return, the man was pleasant, made one want to interact with him. "Yes. And new at this, as you can see!" His joke was an obvious attempt at covering his open-mouthed wonder and the fact that his best suit was easily outclassed by a hundred outfits around him. But the officer, Peter hoped he was an officer, didn't pay any attention to the veiled excuse.

"Trip. Trip Tucker. Commander Tucker, if you want to be formal about it." He extended a hand, warmly clapped Peter's. "I want to thank you. But first let me introduce my wife." With that the officer scanned the crowed, trying to locate the said wife. "Where is she?" Based on the man's affable vibe, Peter expected a short and plump mother-earth wife, someone who'd make him wish he could be invited to dinner every weekend. "Ah, there she is." The commander was looking at someone behind Peter's head. Peter turned around with a large smile.

And froze.

It was her. The woman from the street. Peter felt dumbstruck, nervously turned his hand palm up in an embarrassed offering of apology.

"Live long and prosper." The woman gave him the taal, shot a look at Trip. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. He noticed she had a robe on with the same ensignia as her husband. Who noticed Peter's puzzlement, leaned over with a conspirational smile. "Commander T'Pol to you." She gravely inclined her head. "I wanted to express my gratitude for your intervention." Her face was as unmoving as a still lake and yet he knew she was smiling at him.

A noise from further down the enormous hall made him look over. It was not so much that it was a noise but that the sound was louder than the soft murmur of voices all around. Someone said something in Vulcan, loud enough that everyone could hear, and the people started streaming forward further into the huge chamber. Peter found himself swept along between the commanders, which he thought was as good a placement as any. He willingly went along, expecting them to abandon his side as soon as they reached their objective, which as far as he could tell was a low stage he could now see at the end of the hall. Once they left him to find their VIP seats he would look around again the other Human man, try to seat next to him.

The stage was of slabs of large stones of different sizes that interlocked in a gracing low staircase. Again, it looked and felt alien. He mentally measured the stones, weighed them, wondering how they had gotten the entire thing together. Then he was at the base of the staircase, the commanders still at his sides. He made a movement to disengage, walk back towards the edge of the crowd. They must have forgotten he was there. Commander Tucker grinned, shot him a side glance. "Not yet, young man. We're not quite done with you."

It was only when they reached the top of the podium that Peter realized he was somehow critical to the order of events. A couple of elderly Vulcans slowly shuffled up after him, then a younger one whose hair was all grey. He didn't know why but somehow he sensed this was the most important person in the room. Peter started aligning embassy and ambassador. Would it be that this was the ambassador? The man came to him and Peter reflexively held his hand out for a handshake, realize he had done so, and once again found himself offering up his palm as a manner of apology. He didn't know how they did it but he could have sworn the old man was smiling at him even though not a muscle on his face moved. Peter heard someone cough. He knew enough about fake coughs hiding laughter to know it was one of the Humans in attendance, possibly even the commander. But the old man didn't let that bother him. "Live long and prosper. I am Ambassador Soval." Peter nervously swallowed, nodding in return. He was hopeless with the taal. One of the really older men handed him some kind of receiver and Peter found he could understand Vulcan.

What happened next had the quality of a dream. There was some kind of speech, which he would have actually understood if stress was not muting all the sounds around him. When the speech ended, the woman, Commander T'Pol, walked to him and presented him with a small box. He opened it with trembling fingers, looking at the small silver medallion nested in the box. He looked at her in question. "It is an IDIC." The Vulcan woman said. "In coming to my help, you embodied the qualities that the IDIC reminds us of, of infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

Next to her, her husband was beaming proudly. The Vulcan crowd started clapping. It was an awkward applause, from people trying to follow a custom that was not theirs. Their movements were unnatural, spastic. Peter hid a smile, touched that they tried. He looked at the commander and his Vulcan wife. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations indeed. He stared at the medal nestled in its box. Somehow, he already knew he would keep it until his death.

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Sixty Years Later

T'Pol

"It is time." The healer approached slowly, steeling himself against the grief permeating the room. His patient was still holding to her husband, had held him as he died, it was now time to let go.

He had helped manage the bond severance over the past few weeks, ensuring his death would not precipitate her own death, or worse, madness. She sat unmoving, unseeing. The healer never touched patients unless he was entering into a mindmeld with them but this time called for an exception. He laid a hand on her shoulder and she shivered from the sudden contact. In spite of his efforts at setting up his shields, her grief cut through the healer's abdomen like a scythe, forcing him to inhale sharply. She recoiled upon hearing his pain. "I apologize."

"There is no need for apologies. The cause is great. It is time to let go." He repeated.

She finally released her hold on the body and the Human physician quickly stepped to the biobed, the Vulcan assistants close behind. The assistants froze in place upon seeing the two tears slowly inching their way down from her open eyes. It was always an unsettling sight to see a Vulcan bawl, though the cause here was a worthy one. Losing one's bondmate was an irreparable wound and they understood the reason for the emotional upheaval, even if logic should have dictated that one did not bond with a short-lived species and expect otherwise.

The healer moved so as to shield her from the sight of her husband's body being wheeled out. "Let me help." When she didn't answer or react, he called out to her again. "T'Pol!" Her eyes looked at him but her mind was far away.

"Mother?" The healer turned towards the door, her eldest son was entering the room. He had the coloring of his father, but the healer knew for having helped with the successful gestation that his body was Vulcan, like that of his brother and sister. "I grieve with thee," the healer offered the customary comfort.

"Mother?" This time the question was addressed at him.

"It will take time, but she will be whole again." He turned back towards his patient, stooping over her, laying his aged fingers on her psi points as he sought to establish contact. "My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts..." At least her Human bondmate had died peacefully of old age. It would require a prolonged course of treatment but she would eventually recover.

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Jenna

The baby howled her indignation at being torn from the warm environment of the womb, sucking in lungfuls of icy air that hurt her lungs, unaware of the consternation that greeted her arrival. The atmosphere in the delivery room was muted, the attending physician and nurses were talking in soft tones, subdued voices. There was no cheering. In a corner of the room, a man sat on a chair, his head between his hands. On the biobed next to him, a woman lay, the grey cast of her skin letting the world know that the spark of life had left her.

"I am so sorry." The physician said the only words that he could say. He kept going through the sequence of events in his mind and kept arriving at an impasse. Who could have predicted that a healthy female in her mid-thirties would suffer a fatal heart attach while delivering her second child? They had tried everything, but her heart would not be revived, as if she had literally given her life itself to the daughter that was blinking her blue eyes onto a brand new world.

The nurse quickly and efficiently swaddled the newborn, wondering who would give her love and care, with her mother gone and her father looking like despair itself. Hopefully there would be a grandparent or great-grandparent, people lived much longer these days, someone who knew of the randomness of life and could shelter the child.

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Another Twenty Years Later

Jenna

Jenna checked from the corner of her eye that she was aligned with the other graduates. She still resented that somehow she was standing there, that she was wearing a dorky costume and participating in activities that earned her unmitigated scorn. But she had no choice. The judge had been very clear that he was giving her one last chance before jail time, and she had taken him up on his offer. Even if she thought he was wasting his time, and if he thought he was wasting it as well. She felt he was lobbing a Hail Mary pass her way, not because of who she was but because of who her grandfather had been. That was good enough as far as she was concerned. Six months in this hellhole, then she'd be out, go back to what she preferred doing. It didn't matter if she'd be threatened with jail time next. She'd find a way to beat the system, she always did.

Like now. Her thoughts went to the vaptube hidden in the rim of her underwear, nobody was the smarter for it. Others got caught, but Jenna seldom was. She looked, observed, figured out the flaws, and then took advantage of them. Until she got too full of herself, too cocksure, she never knew what it was with her, but eventually she'd overplay her hand and get nailed. Like now. She was thinking of ways to break rank and go for a quick inhale. As if that would somehow not be noticed. For once, she kept herself from blowing it. She was a few weeks from the six-month mark, she'd already did most of the time. If she got caught, the last six months would have been for nothing. Better to slide by and get back to normal life.

She clung to her distaste of the compound and everything it represented with all her strength, not even aware she did that as a diversion. If she hadn't, she would have had to consider that perhaps she was enjoying, had enjoyed her time there. But acknowledging that was too scary a proposition. She'd already felt guilty enough that somehow she was not being true to her posse when she accepted the judge's deal, that her accepting his terms was the beginning of selling her soul. But once she was out and met up with her posse, they'd see she hadn't changed, was still old Jenna, hanging out all day, and causing havoc all night. She'd put back all the skin accessories that marked her as one of the group. And this time she'd be smarter about not getting caught.

"Jenna Williams!"

The call made her jump, though she tried to act as noncommittal as always. What did the base commander want with her? She hadn't caused any trouble, not even a fight. Why would they call her out. Seeing the somber face of the commander walking to her she knew it wasn't good news. Were these monkeys going to keep her? Did they lie to her about the deal? She swallowed hard, nodded at the 'good luck', 'keep up', that floated her way from her roomies. The base commander acted as if he hadn't heard, but she knew he must have. He turned on his heel and she followed him back to the base building.

xxx

T'Pol

The healer bent over the cradle dug in the warm sand ofthe birthing cavern, checking that the newborn's psi points were properly activated. In response to the infant's mental stress, the mother sat up on the birthing couch, half-supported and half-restrained by her attendants. The healer quickly grabbed the baby and brought it to the mother before the synaptic system could be triggered into fighting mode and she started attacking those around her.

The father would come into the birthing cave only when the mother and child had established a proper bond, once the mother was reassured that her baby was safe. A premature introduction of the sire into the birthing room would be perceived by the mother as an existential threat to the survival of her offspring. Even if they were at the limit of child-bearing years, like this one was, and exhausted beyond the pale by the pregnancy and delivery, Vulcan mothers turned into weapons of destruction in defense of their young.

The healer had reattached his share of ears and fingers over the years and he knew better than to let a new father into the room no matter how painful the separation was. The paternal bond would not suffer from a slight delay, but there were tales of the mother killing her mate in an unreasoned defensive strike, and he knew of at least two such instances in his lifetime. Not directly. He was exceedingly careful about the reintroduction of the father, always giving strict orders that he alone could escort the baby's genitor into the birthing room.

In this case the infant had already disappeared in his mother's embrace, possibly suckling happily. She would not be letting go of her charge for the first two months. If the bonding succeeded, she would accept the presence of the father at her side and allow him to bond with the infant in turn. He could tell from her relaxed stance that the bonding had succeeded, the father would be safe. He motioned to the attendants to help prepare the mother while he went to summon him.

The man was waiting closer to the door than the healer would have liked but his graying temples told of past successful unions and deliveries, and he had resisted the urge to rush inside in a misguided attempt to bring assistance to his wife. The healer gave the customary announcement, "A new life has come into thy clan." He could tell that the man was on the verge of shoving him aside and pushing his way in, but was kept in place by years of conditioning.

"Will she-who-is-my-wife accept me?" The father was barely repressing the trembling of his hands as he answered with the ritual question.

The healer nodded gravely, his eyes sparkling his delight. He was pleased with the successful birthing, as he logically should be. "T'Pol is waiting for he-who-sired-her-child."

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