Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me. The setting doesn't belong to me. In fact, the whole concept doesn't belong to me, alas. What's a girl to do? Answer...fan fiction.
Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone keeping up with this little piece of my overactive imagination. I appreciate it very much.
****
Firecracker
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
"So...just what are ya sayin', Doc?"
The Denobulan doctor smiled at the ship's engineer. "I'm saying that I believe T'Pol has passed three months. Of course, it's hard to tell having no menstrual cycle to use as time frame, but it's fairly safe to say that we're in the fourth month at this point."
"Why's that?" Trip demanded.
"Can't you see?" Dr. Phlox looked at his patient. "Haven't you shown him?"
T'Pol gracefully slid off the examination table and reached for Trip's hand. "Vulcan fetuses develop faster in the first few months than Humans." She placed his palm over her lower belly. "Can you feel it?"
Trip frowned for a long minute. Her stomach did feel a bit rounder, firmer somehow, but not all that much different than her usual firmness. He shifted his weight to his other foot, taking care to keep his hand in the same spot. If there was anything to feel, he was determined to feel it.
"Perhaps you cannot," T'Pol eventually said.
"No!" The father-to-be shook his head. "Gimma a sec..." Having been brought into the pregnancy late, he wasn't about to let any of the little moments slip by him again. Since that day three weeks earlier, he had been at every daily check-up, had started watching everything that went into T'Pol's mouth, and fallen asleep several nights with his ear pressed to her abdomen, listening for a heartbeat.
Another minute passed. "Just tell me what I'm sup'osed to be..." Trip's eyes flew open. Underneath his hand, like a child was blowing bubbles on his skin, he could feel the smallest bit of motion. "Is that...kickin'?"
Dr. Phlox nodded. "Quite astounding, isn't it?"
"Izzy didn't kick 'til Momma was a lot bigger..." Trip covered the special spot with both of his hands. "He's gonna be a soccer player!"
"He?" T'Pol arched an eyebrow. "I do not believe that has been established yet."
"Nor will it for awhile. Even with its Vulcan half accelerating its growth, the fetus is still not quite big enough to determine gender." The doctor grinned suddenly. "I have to admit, I was worried for awhile. Human and Vulcan DNA being compatible...one thing's for certain. It will make a most fascinating article for the Interspecies Medical Database."
T'Pol replied over Trip's head. "The Vulcan physicians posed the hypothesis that it was possible, but the Humans were most reluctant to provide them with any sexual cells with which to test the..."
Trip ignored them both. He really didn't give a damn about the science of it all. Through the woman he loved, his very own flesh and blood was reaching out to him and it was, at that moment, the most amazing thing in the entire universe.
Fingers grazed his cheek. He blinked, but didn't remove his hands from her belly. It was T'Pol, touching him, something very rare outside of the privacy of their cabins. "Did you hear me?" she asked.
"Um...shoot it my way again, darlin'."
"I have to get to the bridge."
"Oh." He drew his hands away with much reluctance. "I guess ya can't take off this shift, can ya?"
T'Pol looked up at him. "I think the Captain has been most generous with both of us these past few weeks. I do not wish to push his patience by neglecting my duties."
"Yeah...he has been pretty great 'bout not puttin' ya on night shift. And makin' sure Cook makes the right kindsa food for ya." Trip grinned. "Guess that's more best friend than Cap'tn showin' through there."
With the doctor, they left the examination room and came back into the main part of Sickbay where Isabella was busy wrapping gauze around a crewman's hand.
"What happened?" Trip immediately asked, recognizing the injured man from Engineering.
"Ensign Donaldson burned his hand in the Mess Hall," Isabella replied, her voice even and low. "He has full use of it and should be completely healed in a day or two."
Donaldson smiled at his superior officer. "Your sister has a magical touch, Commander."
"There'll be no magic goin' on here," Trip declared. "And I expect to see ya back at work tomorrow, Ensign, bright and early."
"Yes sir!"
He glanced back at his sister who was far too focused on her simple task. "Izzy..." When she didn't reply, he sighed. "Keep up the good work."
Out of the corner of her eye, Isabella watched him leave with T'Pol. She smiled softly. It was completely typical of her brothers, especially her oldest brother, to overdramatize the need to protect the family baby. But aiming the brunt of that protective vibe at the insignificant man sitting in front of her was just funny, considering with whom she had been spending most of her nights.
They had been right in the Academy. Captains did get the most comfortable beds.
****
Trip insisted upon escorting T'Pol onto the bridge, which she took in stride having become almost accustomed to the pampering of an expectant Human father. If Trip could have figured out a way, he probably would have been following her around with a feather pillow in case she stumbled.
She hadn't been quite prepared for his reaction to the baby kicking. Even the first time it had happened she had only nodded and continued her survey on the gases in the nebula through which they were passing. And while she had taken a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that the child was thriving, Trip had responded as though it were the single greatest miracle of nature ever witnessed. It made her wonder how he was going to be when she gave birth.
"There you two are!" The Captain stood up as they stepped onto the bridge. His smile was hearty, but his eyes shifted every few seconds. "How is everything?"
"Just fine," Trip replied, proudly. "Any action up here?"
Jonathan shook his head, a bit too vigorously. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Well then...guess I'll get back to the boiler room." Trip winked at T'Pol as he started back they way they had just come in. He stopped as a thought him him. "Capt'n...I wanna invite Izzy to dinner tonight."
His old friend paled slightly. "Why?" He recovered smoothly. "I mean...why not?"
The engineer nodded. "See ya then."
As soon as Trip was gone, the Captain's entire frame relaxed. He turned, quickly bringing his attention back to the blank viewscreen. Behind her work station, T'Pol summed up his body language with great ease. The man was guilty of something. She only hoped her first instinct was wrong and that it had nothing to do with Isabella Tucker.
****
Dinner was hellacious for Jonathan Archer. Being seated across from the girl...woman he had been sleeping with for the past few weeks and catty-corner to his best friend, her wildly protective older brother, was probably any man's worst nightmare. But his guilt was doubled knowing that there was nothing between him and Isabella but sex. If there were something more, some emotion with which he could justify his actions, it might have been easier to be around Trip.
As it was, he spent most of the meal staring at his plate, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Even T'Pol was off-limits; every time he looked at her, she seemed to have been already staring at him, almost expectantly. Each time, he would dig back into his food with too much energy, over-compensating for his own guilt.
Isabella watched him without the same remorse. It was fun to look at him, not because of the guilty expression he had personally stamped onto his face but because he was simply a handsome man. Not overtly good-looking like the ambitious command cadets, the boys she had dated at the Academy with their chiseled features and youthful vigor, but a sort of mature good-looking that didn't strike you right away. But when it did, you couldn't get enough. Apples and oranges, she had come to realize boys and men were.
"Yer not eatin' much," Trip pointed out to T'Pol, breaking the silence.
T'Pol looked down at her grilled Terran vegetables. "I have eaten all that I can."
"Are ya feelin' all right?" He set down his fork. "Is there anythin' ya need?" Isabella rolled her eyes, but no one except T'Pol noticed.
"I only require rest." She stood up. "If you will excuse me, Captain." He nodded, his gaze firmly set on his dinner.
Trip pushed his chair back with a loud, metallic scrape. "Doc said ye'd be gettin' tired more often. I should go with ya."
"If you wish," she said in a softer tone that indicated it was exactly what she wanted.
"Night, Capt'n," Trip said, leading the Vulcan woman towards the door. "Izzy."
To his surprise, his sister actually looked straight at him. "Night, Charlie." When they were gone, Isabella turned her attention to her new lover. "Yer awful quiet tonight."
"Yes. Knawing guilt can do that to a man." Jonathan threw down his fork and ran his hands through his hair. "We need to talk."
She carefully speared a piece of squash. "We are talkin'."
"Isabella." He waited until she was looking at him again. "What the hell are we doing?"
"Eatin' dinner." Her reply was flippant and irreverent. When his forehead crinkled, she sighed. "Why does it have to be a big deal? We're consentin' adults who do really well together in bed. I don't see the probl'm."
Jonathan shook his head. "Of course you can't understand. And you wouldn't be blamed for this, anyway. I'm the Captain; I'm the responsible one. And I've let things get completely out of hand. Isabella..." He leaned forward. "We're not just breaking strict Starfleet rules. What we're doing could seriously jeopardize our relationships with someone we both care very much for."
She swallowed. "Charlie's made it very clear who's most important to him in the world. And it's not either of us, Jonathan. It's her. I lost my brother and you lost yer best friend to her." There was a pause. "But maybe...just maybe...this is more about you havin' lost *her* than anythin' else."
"I care for T'Pol as my friend and colleague," he quickly corrected her. "That's it."
"Sure." Isabella stood up and slipped into the seat her brother had occupied. Closer to him, she could reach out and touch his hand. "I'm not on duty tonight. Can I help ya forget her?"
He closed his eyes. "It's not a good idea for us to carry this any..." Her hand moved to his cheek, stroking it with extreme tenderness. His eyes opened. "Wait ten minutes after I go before you leave." She smiled and nodded. Jonathan stood up; his stomach was jumpy, his conscience heavy, but, to his great dismay, his body was already looking forward to the evening ahead.
****
Time moved differently without the sun dictating it, but it was well after the equivalent of midnight when Trip realized that sleep was just not going to claim him that night. There was too much going on in his brain. At the same time that he was figuring out how many man-hours it was going to take to make some necessary adjustments to the warp core, he was also worrying about his dying relationship with his sister, wondering whether his baby was going to have pointed ears or normal lobes, deciding that T'Pol was even more beautiful when she was sleeping and trying to figure out why the Captain had been so nervous lately.
With the greatest of care, he lifted T'Pol's arm from his chest and eased out of bed. She shifted to her other side, still blissfully asleep, managing to remain that way while he pulled on some civilian clothes. He gave her a soft kiss on the forehead before he left his cabin.
In minutes he was on the bridge, but the Captain appeared to be off-duty. It was not odd; he got to pick and choose his shifts after all. But when Trip thought back, he couldn't recall a night in the past couple of weeks where his friend had taken the graveyard shift, as he usually did at least a few times a month. It was what made him such a good leader; he wasn't at all hesitant to rub elbows with the lower officers.
Malcolm Reed was the senior officer on duty that night and he stood up from the Captain's seat when Trip entered. "You're not coming to take my chair away, are you?" he asked.
"It's yers, pal," Trip assured him. Besides the two of them, there were only two ensigns on the bridge keeping up operations. "Slow night, I take it."
"Actually it's not all that bad." Malcolm sat back down. "There's a transmission coming through the comm station, but the universal translator is being bloody slow tonight. I doubt it's anything urgent though."
"Why don'tcha wake up Hoshi?"
The British man gave him a look. "Have you ever tried to wake Hoshi in the middle of the night?"
"Can't say that I have." Trip grinned. "But the question is...why have *ya* tried it?"
His comment was ignored. "Let's just say she has a mean right hook for someone who looks so delicate. I'd rather wait until morning."
"Yer in charge." Trip yawned. "Guess I'm more tired than I thought. If ya don't need me...I'll be gettin' back to bed."
"Goodnight," Malcolm called out as he left.
Rather than retrace his steps back to his cabin, Trip took the long route through the Enterprise's corridors, a route that just happened to take him past the Captain's quarters. He hesitated for a moment knowing that his friend would mostly likely be asleep, but wound up stopping in front of the door. With all of the excitement over the baby he hadn't gotten to spend much time with Jonathan. It was not a pattern he wanted to fall into.
Maybe he could even ask for help with Isabella. She had always looked up to his best friend; perhaps she had confided in him about her problems with him and T'Pol being together. The Captain might have insight on how he could fix things with his sister.
It couldn't hurt to ask. He raised his hand to press the door chime.
****
Isabella had been roused from a lazy doze by a warm tongue on the sensitive flesh of her left palm. She curled up her fingers before slowly opening her eyes. A smile followed as she realized what was going on. Sometime while she was sleeping, her hand had fallen over the edge of the bed and had come to the attention of Porthos.
She lifted her head from the pillow just enough to peer over that edge. On the floor, the little beagle wagged his tail, fairly begging to join her. "All right," she whispered. "Just for a minute."
With a little help, Porthos climbed up onto the covers and made several circles before curling up alongside her sheet-covered chest. Isabella stroked his soft head for a moment with her right hand. The motion stirred the heavy arm draped over hers.
Behind her, Jonathan lifted his head from the tangled mass of her blond curls lying over the crook of her bare shoulder. He breathed in deeply, still half-asleep. "What's going on?"
"We have a visit'r," she replied, craning her neck around to see him. "Porthos was gettin' lonely."
He reached further over her body to pat his dog's head. "I thought I put him in the bathroom."
"Ya can't stop a determined pet." Isabella turned her head back around. "He seems perfectly okay with me bein' here." Jonathan reburied his face in her hair. "I wish his owner felt the same."
His reply was muffled. "You know how I feel about all of this."
"I know what ya say when we're not between these sheets." Her foot moved up and down the length of his calf. "But it's a different story when we are."
Jonathan raised his head again. "What sort of person would I be if I didn't feel guilty about sleeping with someone young enough to be my..."
She cut him off. "Let's not play the age game. It's nev'r stopped anyone before; don't see why it should now." Isabella twisted her body around until she was facing him. "If ya really wanna stop all of this I won't make a scene. I'm mature enough to deal with rejection. I mean, I dealt with Charlie's pretty well...it'd be even easier with someone who doesn't love me."
"I care about you, Isabella." He glanced back and forth between her storm-colored eyes. Her carefully applied makeup had smudged during their lovemaking and dozing; soft charcoal kohl outlined each fringe of eyelashes giving her a shadowed, mysterious look. "I just don't want to hurt anyone."
"No one's gonna get hurt," she assured him before taking his mouth in a deep kiss. "'Cept maybe Porthos who keeps havin' to give up his bed." The dog wagged his tail again upon hearing his name. "I won't even let ya get hurt. Unless ya wanna be..." Her mouth turned up in a wicked little smile.
Jonathan shook his head. "You're a firecracker, Isabella. And I haven't played with those in a long time."
"Well..." Her eyelids fluttered as his hand slid over the curve of her waist underneath the sheets. "Ya seem to have gotten back in swing of it..."
The door's chime tore through their steamy kiss that followed. He immediately froze. Isabella blinked. The chime rang again. They stared at each other.
"Who..." Jonathan began to call out before she covered his lips with her slender fingers. "It might be important," he whispered a second later.
"If it is, they'll say so," she whispered back.
The door chimed again. "Capt'n," the voice on the other side called out.
It was unmistakably Trip. Jonathan cursed under his breath. "He'll give up in a minute," Isabella assured him, even after a third chime of the door.
But in the corridor, her brother was getting impatient. Even if the Captain had been completely out of it, he would have woken up by then. Unless something had happened to him...
There were only two people on the ship who knew the emergency code to the Captain's door and he was lucky enough to be one of them. Having flashbacks to their first year on the Enterprise when time-traveling entities had shifted his friend around at will, Trip punched the number into the keypad. A second later, the door slid open.
The two figures in the Captain's bed sat up, one clutching at the sheets to keep herself covered. A long, painful moment passed. Finally, Jonathan spoke. "Trip...this isn't what it..."
Trip threw up a hand. His entire body was ridged as he backed up a step. "Izzy...ten minutes. My cabin."
"Charlie..." she began.
"Ten minutes." He aimed a deadly look at his supposed best friend. "If yer late, I'll come back and drag you outta here." The door slid closed, sealing up the illicit lovers once again. To his relief, Trip managed to make it back to his cabin without collapsing.
It wasn't until he reached his bed, where T'Pol was sleeping on his abandoned pillow, that his knees gave out. He sank down onto the edge, causing her to wake suddenly. She sat up in the dark. "Trip? What has happened?"
He didn't move even when she got up and came around in front of him. Kneeling down to his eye level, she tilted her head to one side, waiting for his response. Finally, he blinked. "T'Pol...it's been a bad night."
When his forehead landed on her shoulder a moment later, she barely hesitated a second before wrapping her arms around his neck. The look on his face...horror, shock, pain...it was the expression that had haunted her dream, like Isabella's anger and....
She looked up at the ceiling. The blood....the baby. It was the last image. The one yet to come true. T'Pol rested the side of her head on the back of Trip's. Having dreams was not all it was made out to be.
****
To Be Continued
Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone keeping up with this little piece of my overactive imagination. I appreciate it very much.
****
Firecracker
by Kristen Elizabeth
****
"So...just what are ya sayin', Doc?"
The Denobulan doctor smiled at the ship's engineer. "I'm saying that I believe T'Pol has passed three months. Of course, it's hard to tell having no menstrual cycle to use as time frame, but it's fairly safe to say that we're in the fourth month at this point."
"Why's that?" Trip demanded.
"Can't you see?" Dr. Phlox looked at his patient. "Haven't you shown him?"
T'Pol gracefully slid off the examination table and reached for Trip's hand. "Vulcan fetuses develop faster in the first few months than Humans." She placed his palm over her lower belly. "Can you feel it?"
Trip frowned for a long minute. Her stomach did feel a bit rounder, firmer somehow, but not all that much different than her usual firmness. He shifted his weight to his other foot, taking care to keep his hand in the same spot. If there was anything to feel, he was determined to feel it.
"Perhaps you cannot," T'Pol eventually said.
"No!" The father-to-be shook his head. "Gimma a sec..." Having been brought into the pregnancy late, he wasn't about to let any of the little moments slip by him again. Since that day three weeks earlier, he had been at every daily check-up, had started watching everything that went into T'Pol's mouth, and fallen asleep several nights with his ear pressed to her abdomen, listening for a heartbeat.
Another minute passed. "Just tell me what I'm sup'osed to be..." Trip's eyes flew open. Underneath his hand, like a child was blowing bubbles on his skin, he could feel the smallest bit of motion. "Is that...kickin'?"
Dr. Phlox nodded. "Quite astounding, isn't it?"
"Izzy didn't kick 'til Momma was a lot bigger..." Trip covered the special spot with both of his hands. "He's gonna be a soccer player!"
"He?" T'Pol arched an eyebrow. "I do not believe that has been established yet."
"Nor will it for awhile. Even with its Vulcan half accelerating its growth, the fetus is still not quite big enough to determine gender." The doctor grinned suddenly. "I have to admit, I was worried for awhile. Human and Vulcan DNA being compatible...one thing's for certain. It will make a most fascinating article for the Interspecies Medical Database."
T'Pol replied over Trip's head. "The Vulcan physicians posed the hypothesis that it was possible, but the Humans were most reluctant to provide them with any sexual cells with which to test the..."
Trip ignored them both. He really didn't give a damn about the science of it all. Through the woman he loved, his very own flesh and blood was reaching out to him and it was, at that moment, the most amazing thing in the entire universe.
Fingers grazed his cheek. He blinked, but didn't remove his hands from her belly. It was T'Pol, touching him, something very rare outside of the privacy of their cabins. "Did you hear me?" she asked.
"Um...shoot it my way again, darlin'."
"I have to get to the bridge."
"Oh." He drew his hands away with much reluctance. "I guess ya can't take off this shift, can ya?"
T'Pol looked up at him. "I think the Captain has been most generous with both of us these past few weeks. I do not wish to push his patience by neglecting my duties."
"Yeah...he has been pretty great 'bout not puttin' ya on night shift. And makin' sure Cook makes the right kindsa food for ya." Trip grinned. "Guess that's more best friend than Cap'tn showin' through there."
With the doctor, they left the examination room and came back into the main part of Sickbay where Isabella was busy wrapping gauze around a crewman's hand.
"What happened?" Trip immediately asked, recognizing the injured man from Engineering.
"Ensign Donaldson burned his hand in the Mess Hall," Isabella replied, her voice even and low. "He has full use of it and should be completely healed in a day or two."
Donaldson smiled at his superior officer. "Your sister has a magical touch, Commander."
"There'll be no magic goin' on here," Trip declared. "And I expect to see ya back at work tomorrow, Ensign, bright and early."
"Yes sir!"
He glanced back at his sister who was far too focused on her simple task. "Izzy..." When she didn't reply, he sighed. "Keep up the good work."
Out of the corner of her eye, Isabella watched him leave with T'Pol. She smiled softly. It was completely typical of her brothers, especially her oldest brother, to overdramatize the need to protect the family baby. But aiming the brunt of that protective vibe at the insignificant man sitting in front of her was just funny, considering with whom she had been spending most of her nights.
They had been right in the Academy. Captains did get the most comfortable beds.
****
Trip insisted upon escorting T'Pol onto the bridge, which she took in stride having become almost accustomed to the pampering of an expectant Human father. If Trip could have figured out a way, he probably would have been following her around with a feather pillow in case she stumbled.
She hadn't been quite prepared for his reaction to the baby kicking. Even the first time it had happened she had only nodded and continued her survey on the gases in the nebula through which they were passing. And while she had taken a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that the child was thriving, Trip had responded as though it were the single greatest miracle of nature ever witnessed. It made her wonder how he was going to be when she gave birth.
"There you two are!" The Captain stood up as they stepped onto the bridge. His smile was hearty, but his eyes shifted every few seconds. "How is everything?"
"Just fine," Trip replied, proudly. "Any action up here?"
Jonathan shook his head, a bit too vigorously. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"Well then...guess I'll get back to the boiler room." Trip winked at T'Pol as he started back they way they had just come in. He stopped as a thought him him. "Capt'n...I wanna invite Izzy to dinner tonight."
His old friend paled slightly. "Why?" He recovered smoothly. "I mean...why not?"
The engineer nodded. "See ya then."
As soon as Trip was gone, the Captain's entire frame relaxed. He turned, quickly bringing his attention back to the blank viewscreen. Behind her work station, T'Pol summed up his body language with great ease. The man was guilty of something. She only hoped her first instinct was wrong and that it had nothing to do with Isabella Tucker.
****
Dinner was hellacious for Jonathan Archer. Being seated across from the girl...woman he had been sleeping with for the past few weeks and catty-corner to his best friend, her wildly protective older brother, was probably any man's worst nightmare. But his guilt was doubled knowing that there was nothing between him and Isabella but sex. If there were something more, some emotion with which he could justify his actions, it might have been easier to be around Trip.
As it was, he spent most of the meal staring at his plate, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Even T'Pol was off-limits; every time he looked at her, she seemed to have been already staring at him, almost expectantly. Each time, he would dig back into his food with too much energy, over-compensating for his own guilt.
Isabella watched him without the same remorse. It was fun to look at him, not because of the guilty expression he had personally stamped onto his face but because he was simply a handsome man. Not overtly good-looking like the ambitious command cadets, the boys she had dated at the Academy with their chiseled features and youthful vigor, but a sort of mature good-looking that didn't strike you right away. But when it did, you couldn't get enough. Apples and oranges, she had come to realize boys and men were.
"Yer not eatin' much," Trip pointed out to T'Pol, breaking the silence.
T'Pol looked down at her grilled Terran vegetables. "I have eaten all that I can."
"Are ya feelin' all right?" He set down his fork. "Is there anythin' ya need?" Isabella rolled her eyes, but no one except T'Pol noticed.
"I only require rest." She stood up. "If you will excuse me, Captain." He nodded, his gaze firmly set on his dinner.
Trip pushed his chair back with a loud, metallic scrape. "Doc said ye'd be gettin' tired more often. I should go with ya."
"If you wish," she said in a softer tone that indicated it was exactly what she wanted.
"Night, Capt'n," Trip said, leading the Vulcan woman towards the door. "Izzy."
To his surprise, his sister actually looked straight at him. "Night, Charlie." When they were gone, Isabella turned her attention to her new lover. "Yer awful quiet tonight."
"Yes. Knawing guilt can do that to a man." Jonathan threw down his fork and ran his hands through his hair. "We need to talk."
She carefully speared a piece of squash. "We are talkin'."
"Isabella." He waited until she was looking at him again. "What the hell are we doing?"
"Eatin' dinner." Her reply was flippant and irreverent. When his forehead crinkled, she sighed. "Why does it have to be a big deal? We're consentin' adults who do really well together in bed. I don't see the probl'm."
Jonathan shook his head. "Of course you can't understand. And you wouldn't be blamed for this, anyway. I'm the Captain; I'm the responsible one. And I've let things get completely out of hand. Isabella..." He leaned forward. "We're not just breaking strict Starfleet rules. What we're doing could seriously jeopardize our relationships with someone we both care very much for."
She swallowed. "Charlie's made it very clear who's most important to him in the world. And it's not either of us, Jonathan. It's her. I lost my brother and you lost yer best friend to her." There was a pause. "But maybe...just maybe...this is more about you havin' lost *her* than anythin' else."
"I care for T'Pol as my friend and colleague," he quickly corrected her. "That's it."
"Sure." Isabella stood up and slipped into the seat her brother had occupied. Closer to him, she could reach out and touch his hand. "I'm not on duty tonight. Can I help ya forget her?"
He closed his eyes. "It's not a good idea for us to carry this any..." Her hand moved to his cheek, stroking it with extreme tenderness. His eyes opened. "Wait ten minutes after I go before you leave." She smiled and nodded. Jonathan stood up; his stomach was jumpy, his conscience heavy, but, to his great dismay, his body was already looking forward to the evening ahead.
****
Time moved differently without the sun dictating it, but it was well after the equivalent of midnight when Trip realized that sleep was just not going to claim him that night. There was too much going on in his brain. At the same time that he was figuring out how many man-hours it was going to take to make some necessary adjustments to the warp core, he was also worrying about his dying relationship with his sister, wondering whether his baby was going to have pointed ears or normal lobes, deciding that T'Pol was even more beautiful when she was sleeping and trying to figure out why the Captain had been so nervous lately.
With the greatest of care, he lifted T'Pol's arm from his chest and eased out of bed. She shifted to her other side, still blissfully asleep, managing to remain that way while he pulled on some civilian clothes. He gave her a soft kiss on the forehead before he left his cabin.
In minutes he was on the bridge, but the Captain appeared to be off-duty. It was not odd; he got to pick and choose his shifts after all. But when Trip thought back, he couldn't recall a night in the past couple of weeks where his friend had taken the graveyard shift, as he usually did at least a few times a month. It was what made him such a good leader; he wasn't at all hesitant to rub elbows with the lower officers.
Malcolm Reed was the senior officer on duty that night and he stood up from the Captain's seat when Trip entered. "You're not coming to take my chair away, are you?" he asked.
"It's yers, pal," Trip assured him. Besides the two of them, there were only two ensigns on the bridge keeping up operations. "Slow night, I take it."
"Actually it's not all that bad." Malcolm sat back down. "There's a transmission coming through the comm station, but the universal translator is being bloody slow tonight. I doubt it's anything urgent though."
"Why don'tcha wake up Hoshi?"
The British man gave him a look. "Have you ever tried to wake Hoshi in the middle of the night?"
"Can't say that I have." Trip grinned. "But the question is...why have *ya* tried it?"
His comment was ignored. "Let's just say she has a mean right hook for someone who looks so delicate. I'd rather wait until morning."
"Yer in charge." Trip yawned. "Guess I'm more tired than I thought. If ya don't need me...I'll be gettin' back to bed."
"Goodnight," Malcolm called out as he left.
Rather than retrace his steps back to his cabin, Trip took the long route through the Enterprise's corridors, a route that just happened to take him past the Captain's quarters. He hesitated for a moment knowing that his friend would mostly likely be asleep, but wound up stopping in front of the door. With all of the excitement over the baby he hadn't gotten to spend much time with Jonathan. It was not a pattern he wanted to fall into.
Maybe he could even ask for help with Isabella. She had always looked up to his best friend; perhaps she had confided in him about her problems with him and T'Pol being together. The Captain might have insight on how he could fix things with his sister.
It couldn't hurt to ask. He raised his hand to press the door chime.
****
Isabella had been roused from a lazy doze by a warm tongue on the sensitive flesh of her left palm. She curled up her fingers before slowly opening her eyes. A smile followed as she realized what was going on. Sometime while she was sleeping, her hand had fallen over the edge of the bed and had come to the attention of Porthos.
She lifted her head from the pillow just enough to peer over that edge. On the floor, the little beagle wagged his tail, fairly begging to join her. "All right," she whispered. "Just for a minute."
With a little help, Porthos climbed up onto the covers and made several circles before curling up alongside her sheet-covered chest. Isabella stroked his soft head for a moment with her right hand. The motion stirred the heavy arm draped over hers.
Behind her, Jonathan lifted his head from the tangled mass of her blond curls lying over the crook of her bare shoulder. He breathed in deeply, still half-asleep. "What's going on?"
"We have a visit'r," she replied, craning her neck around to see him. "Porthos was gettin' lonely."
He reached further over her body to pat his dog's head. "I thought I put him in the bathroom."
"Ya can't stop a determined pet." Isabella turned her head back around. "He seems perfectly okay with me bein' here." Jonathan reburied his face in her hair. "I wish his owner felt the same."
His reply was muffled. "You know how I feel about all of this."
"I know what ya say when we're not between these sheets." Her foot moved up and down the length of his calf. "But it's a different story when we are."
Jonathan raised his head again. "What sort of person would I be if I didn't feel guilty about sleeping with someone young enough to be my..."
She cut him off. "Let's not play the age game. It's nev'r stopped anyone before; don't see why it should now." Isabella twisted her body around until she was facing him. "If ya really wanna stop all of this I won't make a scene. I'm mature enough to deal with rejection. I mean, I dealt with Charlie's pretty well...it'd be even easier with someone who doesn't love me."
"I care about you, Isabella." He glanced back and forth between her storm-colored eyes. Her carefully applied makeup had smudged during their lovemaking and dozing; soft charcoal kohl outlined each fringe of eyelashes giving her a shadowed, mysterious look. "I just don't want to hurt anyone."
"No one's gonna get hurt," she assured him before taking his mouth in a deep kiss. "'Cept maybe Porthos who keeps havin' to give up his bed." The dog wagged his tail again upon hearing his name. "I won't even let ya get hurt. Unless ya wanna be..." Her mouth turned up in a wicked little smile.
Jonathan shook his head. "You're a firecracker, Isabella. And I haven't played with those in a long time."
"Well..." Her eyelids fluttered as his hand slid over the curve of her waist underneath the sheets. "Ya seem to have gotten back in swing of it..."
The door's chime tore through their steamy kiss that followed. He immediately froze. Isabella blinked. The chime rang again. They stared at each other.
"Who..." Jonathan began to call out before she covered his lips with her slender fingers. "It might be important," he whispered a second later.
"If it is, they'll say so," she whispered back.
The door chimed again. "Capt'n," the voice on the other side called out.
It was unmistakably Trip. Jonathan cursed under his breath. "He'll give up in a minute," Isabella assured him, even after a third chime of the door.
But in the corridor, her brother was getting impatient. Even if the Captain had been completely out of it, he would have woken up by then. Unless something had happened to him...
There were only two people on the ship who knew the emergency code to the Captain's door and he was lucky enough to be one of them. Having flashbacks to their first year on the Enterprise when time-traveling entities had shifted his friend around at will, Trip punched the number into the keypad. A second later, the door slid open.
The two figures in the Captain's bed sat up, one clutching at the sheets to keep herself covered. A long, painful moment passed. Finally, Jonathan spoke. "Trip...this isn't what it..."
Trip threw up a hand. His entire body was ridged as he backed up a step. "Izzy...ten minutes. My cabin."
"Charlie..." she began.
"Ten minutes." He aimed a deadly look at his supposed best friend. "If yer late, I'll come back and drag you outta here." The door slid closed, sealing up the illicit lovers once again. To his relief, Trip managed to make it back to his cabin without collapsing.
It wasn't until he reached his bed, where T'Pol was sleeping on his abandoned pillow, that his knees gave out. He sank down onto the edge, causing her to wake suddenly. She sat up in the dark. "Trip? What has happened?"
He didn't move even when she got up and came around in front of him. Kneeling down to his eye level, she tilted her head to one side, waiting for his response. Finally, he blinked. "T'Pol...it's been a bad night."
When his forehead landed on her shoulder a moment later, she barely hesitated a second before wrapping her arms around his neck. The look on his face...horror, shock, pain...it was the expression that had haunted her dream, like Isabella's anger and....
She looked up at the ceiling. The blood....the baby. It was the last image. The one yet to come true. T'Pol rested the side of her head on the back of Trip's. Having dreams was not all it was made out to be.
****
To Be Continued
