Awaking suddenly he became keenly aware of the gentle weight against his right upper arm, the scent of her hair greeting his nose gently. His waking mind touched hers, and she sympathetically awoke, rolling over to look into his eyes. The flecked bistre of her eyes burning into the glaucous streaked palatinate blue of his. Neither said a word, neither thought a word, they just stared into each other on the narrow bunk in his cramped quarters. No passions had disrupted the confines of their tenuously impromptu marriage bed, no desire had spurred them to coupling, instead they just lay close and held onto one another in wordless comfort, through the night and into these early hours of the morning. She would have to rise soon, return to her quarters before the changing of the shift. Reaching up she ran her fingers gently across the stubbled jaw and spoke softly.
"What time is it?"
"About zero four fifteen." He whispered.
"It is agreeable that you have taken me through my first Plak-tow, k'diwa."
"It couldn't have been real, I'm not Vulcan." He whispered again, as if they had to keep their togetherness secret from hidden ears.
"It was my desire manifest through you, and in turn you projected it back into me again. I desired the full extent of the mate bond, and you succeeded in providing for it."
He wasn't sure why they were speaking out loud, knowing it could all be said in their head, maybe the act of saying it, of forcing the vocalization made it that much more real to her.
"I don't understand, darlin', what desire specifically?"
"It is not logical to wait three years to conceive. I found the idea of carrying your child agreeable, so subconsciously I used you as a conduit to induce an abridged pon farr. If I am to conceive it would logically increase our bond."
He smiled teasingly, eyeing her up and down, he wanted to wring the concession from her, force her to tell the totally unvarnished truth. He knew there was more than logic at play, but rather than go prying around in her head to find it, he would make her say it.
"So it was only logic, huh?"
"It was logica-"
He presses his lips into her, parting them to taste her mouth, his lower lip dexterously playing against hers, taking the sensation of his mouth against hers and projecting it to her. She whimpers softly as her hands come up to his chest, fingers curling against him. He pulls her close against him, his right hand snaking into her short hair, massaging her scalp while the left reaches under her silken night-shirt to caress the naked skin of the small of her back.
When he releases her lips, T'Pol gasps as the sensation rolled up and down her limbs, passed through her body then out like sparks of bliss that fade with the flush of the contact. "I want to have a child with you, Trip."
He grinned, "See, that wasn't so hard to say, was it."
She gives him the wide eyed pout he has come to adore, "Abusing our bond to acquire information from me is inappropriate."
He can think of about fifty smart-ass comments to make at the moment, but the desire to fence with her just isn't there, he'd rather just lie there, holding her close talking to her softly, "T'Pol, I'm not Vulcan, I know you've got emotions and feelin's a-plenty, you can talk to me about it. Think of me as a second form of meditation, let it out with me, and don't worry about logic failin' you. After all, isn't that what a mate if for?"
"It is rational to assume that our bond will place additional stressors on my composure, and that the best solution is to resolve any emotions that we can between the two of us."
"There ya go."
"However there is the issue that your species is not accustomed-"
"T'Pol."
"-to this type of telepathy, and the additional-"
"T'Pol."
"-stressors on your neural pathways could possibly-"
"T'Pol."
"-be detrimental to your-"
"Sugar bottom!"
This last gem managed to adequately catch her attention and stymie any further expounding on her concerns. She demurely lay still, her eyebrows challenging him to provide an adequate rebuttal .
"What do you think of humans? Not the official line from High Command, what do you think?"
"You are impulsive, arrogant, mercurial, and head strong."
"And...?"
"You are also capable of being disciplined to a fault, fearless, fair, iron willed, and remarkably stalwart."
"So, based on that, do you think you can trust in me, just a little?"
She opens her mouth, pauses, eyes rolling up and to the side as if accessing a component of her memory, then almost squeaks out, "Very well."
Archer balled and relaxed his hand into a fist, repeating the act again and again. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, like sudden negative-G induced nausea he could feel it all the way into his knees and elbows, like a sudden urge to vomit violently. He wasn't sure why but he felt rage. The Vulcans could be crass, insensitive, even obnoxious, but he would not anymore want to see them dead than he would want to see Earth destroyed. The revelation about the Romulan invasion fleet had fortunately reached them before they arrived at Weytahn. The estimates of the Vulcan ship that had survived the attack was that the Romulans could only manage warp 6 and were probably cruising at 5.5 to ensure any of their slower transports weren't separated from the battle group. Even if MCS stripped Earth of its defense flotillas and they pushed the Potemkin, Revenge, and Huron out of dry dock, it would still be 6 days before any other reaction force could reach Vulcan. He had half a day's lead and the best engineer in Starfleet, with any luck they could make Vulcan in four days and help shore up the defenses until the assembling Task Force: Dragoon could reach them. Reliance on Tucker's engineering skills and Reed's gun crews they stood a chance to hold off the Romulans until relieved.
"Archer to engineering." He said the words softly, the way he did when the killing rage started to overcome him.
"Engineerin'!"
"Commander Tucker...what can you give me on the engines." His voice was again soft.
Trip knew what this meant, the rage was on him, he wasn't sure about what, but at times like this it was best to achieve one's magnum opus. It was perhaps the one thing augmentees could legitimately call a burden. At some point prior the development of the first series of Augmentees in the 2020s, they had discovered a way to alter the low-expressing MAOA, creating the so called "killing" gene. It was the brutal, morally relative center piece of Augmentee war capacity. It activated under the correct stressors, flooding the brain with serotonin and the body with Dehydroepiandrosterone, the spike in aggression allowed Augmentees to commit almost unthinkable acts of violence against an enemy in combat. Trip knew this first hand, having remembered vividly the mayhem he had inflected on attacking Klingons and a particular Xindi reptilian whose lower jaw he had ripped off in the process of trying to break its neck. The gene was just one component in close quarters and combat drill. Catch-words were utilized to divorce the act from reality; kill became reduce, enemy became belligerent.
"Sir, we've got a protocol in place that can sustain warp seven point seven five with warp eight for about forty five minutes. But..."
"I don't like pregnant pauses, Commander."
"It's risky sir, we could scram the reactor. It would knock us out of warp and restart would take about an hour."
"It won't blow the engine?"
"No sir."
"And it would get us to Vulcan faster?"
"Vulcan? I thought we were headin' to..." He stopped, "Yes, sir. Would cut the trip down to about four days."
"Do it Trip. Get me eight as long as you can and once you can't hold that anymore, get me seven seventy five."
"Roger that, sir. Sir, if I may, what the hell-"
"Vulcan is about to be invaded by a Romulan armada, Trip."
He was silent for a moment, when he replied his voice echoed the brutal mental calculus of Archer, "I'll give you eight for at least an hour sir, even if it kills me."
T'Pol suddenly felt the presence in the bond. It wasn't Trip, not in a way she knew him. She stood, using all her willpower she made it to the Turbolift and inside before collapsing against the wall with a gasping sob. It was as if the dark place he hid things in was part of his presence now. She felt unspeakable violence radiating from him, something terrifying to even her strongest elements of Vulcan willpower. Murderous intent rolled off his bond-image, passing over and around her, moving outwards and away. He existed in inky blackness as implacable as the ferocious pragmatism that was the instinct of his people. The vengeful wisps, each carrying in their smoke-like coils hundreds of whispered voices, angry and vengeful. But as they touched her, rather than destroy they warmed and numbed her. It was protection; a hyper pronounced instinct to ward her.
Trip?
The response as the dark place/Trip looks at her is a deafening blast of sound; hateful and violent. It does not brook her desire for conversation, this thing in her mate's mind seems to want nothing more than to protect her by folding her into itself and brutally eradicate anything else. She knows the horror of it will destroy her, the shock of seeing inside this part of the human soul could kill her outright as her mind and body fails to cope with the pseudo-kolinahr of human instinct. The horn/blast/roar strikes her again as she freezes in mental terror at the primeval inevitability, and all she can do is shudder uncontrollably.
T'Pol, get away from it.
Trip?
Get away from it, it's not for you, you can't look in there, walk away from it.
I can't, I'm...afraid.
I can't make it go away, T'Pol, you can move, you can walk away from it. It won't follow you.
I'm scared, Trip! She is a child again, wailing in fear at the sounds of a sand fire storm in the night. Unbidden she feels herself revert to the child, the same fears, the lack of logic. The knowledge of a woman trapped in this effigy of her mind crying for mate, father, or anything that could save her from this monster. Her legs wouldn't work, her arms couldn't move, all she could do was sit and scream and sob and cry tears of the emotional excess that only existed in Vulcan children when something shattered their fragile world. The walking horror that she knew was her mate's instincts passed over her and she froze completely as she experienced the faded edge of the cyclopean engine of wrath. The same voices carried on the dark wisps that screamed and bellowed sounds of hate and gnashing teeth whispered softly in her ear.
Friend. Cherish. Love. Protect. Cover. Friend. Wife. Love. Protect.
The words echoed softly as tender whispers as she felt the sensation of her fists...no, they were his fists, crushing bone, the sickening texture of flesh rendered to pulp as fists drove the disparate pieces of some being's skull back into its brain pan. The same hand digging into a throat, fingers curled into wrathful talons that forced skin and muscle to give before the pressure then the soft and slippery warmth of blood bathing the hooked phalanges as a chunk of muscled tissue, hollow and essential, came away in the hand. She felt a litany of bones cracks, joints pop, flesh and muscle smacking against knuckles. The sounds of high speed projectiles slapping into flesh that could not yield with enough speed. The smell of blood, bile, cordite, and offal. All those horrible things he remembered but tucked away, and still the comforting whisper continued.
Love. Protect. Wife. Touch. Adore. Love. Cherish. Protect.
Again the angry blast of noise emanated from the thing, carried forward and muted as it moved past and away and the world went white before her eyes.
Trip grit his teeth as he felt T'Pol disappear from the bond, the jolt of pain going down his spine, up into his skull and through his limbs felt like it was trying its hardest to knock him unconscious. He bit his tongue, hard, feeling blood immediately. The new source of pain distracted him from the pain coming from the sudden bond disconnect and he looked back at the pressure containment readout. Kelby, Hess, and Rostov were all sitting in wait like overly eager junior college third-base coaches. As they watched the engine creep slowly to warp 7.65. Trip could feel the subtle vibration in the engine housing, less than a few micrometers but it would build unless they could find the perfect containment ratio that would allow the steady flow of reaction mass at a speed high enough to allow a constant feed of matter and antimatter to the fussy reactor.
"Adjusting to point one for two."
No noticeable change, the engine was now reading warp 7.67. He quickly ran a calculation, the results displeased him, they showed no significant change in warp reaction until he got into the unknown zones between .153 and .164. They couldn't play the creeping game if they wanted to get 8.0 for the Captain.
"Adjusting to point one five five."
The speed immediately jumped along with just about everything else. The Chop had gotten pronounced but they were registering Warp 7.73 as fractions of the warp speed register slowly ticked higher and higher leading towards the 7.75 they had hoped for. His fingers began to fly over the controls as he set in another set of adjustments, fighting against the warp field turbulence.
"Adjusting to point one five nine."
The chop got worse, again as the reactor suddenly registered Warp 7.86, they were getting frighteningly close, but they were playing with very dangerous physics and dynamics now. The warp field turbulence could possibly cascade, damaging the ship. He fought to concentrate despite the growing sense of panic he felt at T'Pol's absence in his mind. Her panic and fear before she disappeared, the cries and screams that had come from her. He had to discover some way to suppress the cold murderous instinct, to hide that dark place deeper where she couldn't wander to close to it. Oh, Darlin' please be alright, please talk to me if you can hear me.
Point one six oh."
"Mayweather to engineering, I am at seven point nine two, but I am starting to lose warp field integrity."
Trip could feel the chop increase slightly again, but something was different this time, it was more like a sympathetic vibration, mostly in the grav plating, something was working, the engine was straining less, they were close.
"Kelby! Get on the intermix ratio! Hess, Rostov, make sure we've got clean transfer on the warp plasma. Just hold it a little longer, Travis." Tucker barked, all but ignoring the growing heat in the confines of Engineering.
"Aye." the comm. from the bridge remained open but silent.
T'Pol, baby, please talk to me, can you hear me?
"Point one six two."
"Re-optimizing intermix ratio, I'll follow you up." Kelby shouted back over the frenzied thrumming heart-beat of the engine.
What happened next startled everyone, the ship seemed to buck like a sudden choke in an engine as it was throttled up, the acceleration was immediately palpable. The numbers climbed slowly, ten thousandths, thousandths, then hundredths of a warp factor; 7.9211, 7.9213, 7.9304, 7.9451.
"Pont one six three."
The ship seemed to jump again forcing the chief engineers eyes over to a warp field reading. The Field itself was changing in shape, taking on a more conical shape, the sharp tip in line with the nose, and a large wide flat back end. That was it, drag...sub space collapsing in to fill the sudden void at the back end of the cone was shaking the outermost rear edge of the warp field. If they could just bulge the end, create a boat tail, it was just like a bullet.
"Hess! Adjust exhaust venting. We need to gradually force the majority of the venting to the forward coils with a two point five percent decrease descending." Tucker bellowed in the now withering heat and painfully noisy engine room.
"Aye, sir!"
"Engineering, Mayweather! Seven point nine seven...seven point nine eight...seven point nine nine five..."
Trip felt a sudden thunderous heart-beat, he could feel the sudden moment of tension on the bridge, as they made history, done what had never been done in known space. A moment of joy and pride in himself and his crew doing the impossible, making it work. Then to have it all dashed to pieces as he remembered the terrified wailing of T'Pol in his mind and the fate of her world, her people, her mother. The anger he felt at it all threatened to wash back over him again until he remembered what it had done to her, and he fought it down, the process of doing so almost painful.
"Eight point one! Warp field stabilizing!" Mayweather shouted into the intercom. "You did it, sir! You did it!"
A cheer went up through engineering, they had made history; not in a test, not in a shakedown cruise, they had done what no one else had done heading into a combat-imminent situation without weeks of speculating and theorizing. Just another in his resume of impossible feats, and it didn't matter to him one iota at the moment.
"Cap'n, We're goin' to need to start ventin' waste heat through the ship, temperature is climbin' pretty high right now in engineerin'."
"How bad is it, Trip?" Archer's informality belied his intense command presence.
"It's about noon-ish in Death Valley in August down here right now, if we start ventin' I imagine we can get it down to El Paso in June."
There was a muted chuckle, "Understood, proceed as you see fit, and I'd like to see you in my ready room at your earliest convenience."
"Aye, sir."
He walked over the Kelby, his senior engineer was dripping sweat, fingers flying over keys as he examined read outs. He looked up noticing Trip's approach and side stepped a second without saying a word so the chief could examine the information he was quickly compiling. Trip looked down at the data, it was pleasing and disappointing at the same time.
"Sure this is all right?" Tucker queried.
"Look who you're talking too."
"So we're sucking down reaction mass at one hundred fifty percent of normal and the temperature is going to stay at about a hundred ten down here. But how long can we sustain?"
"Sir..." Kelby looked at him in a mixture of incredulity and admiration, "You did it, this is Warp eight flight, we can sustain it as long as we can keep people conscious down here and as long as we still have reaction mass."
He pulled up another set of figures, "Vibration levels, engine heat, coil integrity, dylithium matrix, EPS manifolds...they're all in the green. We can do this for a week if we wanted too."
Tucker landed a clapping open hand on Kelby's right shoulder, "Good job."
"Thank you, sir."
Trip turned and walked past the core, looking over to his other two senior engineers, "Hess, Rostov, I owe you two a beer."
With that he climbed the gantry to the core itself, checking his readings, locking in settings as an operational macro. All the settings in the core and the nacelles would have to be saved if they wanted a repeat performance. The numbers didn't lie, they were at Warp 8.1028 If they could maintain, they would reach Vulcan in under 80 hours, of course they would go through a sixth of their fuel reserve doing so. It was going to be a torturous three days for his people. Turning to face away from the engine which even now was accosting him with its heat, he shouted.
"Alright everyone listen up! I'm relaxin' the grooming standard, strip down to your skivvies or get in athletic utilities, it's gonna be hot as hell in here for the next few days. Everyone is to consume at least one half liter of water per hour you are on shift. Make sure you have electrolyte packets, you need to be taking one of those every two hours. Also, get us some fans in here. I know it's gonna be hell, but we're gonna have to endure it." He looked around, despite the discomfort his people all had elated looks on their faces, excited to be part of the history making team, "We got a solid copy on that?"
"Aye, sir!" They almost all shouted as one.
"Carry on."
He descended from the gantry and approached Kelby again, "I have to head up to the bridge, I'll be back down to relieve you as soon as I can."
"Aye, sir."
He walked out of engineering calmly, not wanting his concern and fear to show to his people, each step came a little fast than the first until he broke into a desperate run. He had to find her, find out what happened. If only she would have closed him out, run away from the dark place and closed her mind off. All he could sense of her now was a small mote of suffering, like the residual hysteria from her breakdown minutes before. He tried to focus on it, to hunt it down and find her.
T'Pol?
A compulsion of logic told him to head towards the center of the saucer section, she would have fled the bridge, taken a turbolift, the breakdown happened so quickly she would likely still be near there. He ran through the litany of possible worse-case scenarios, praying internally that in each case it wasn't so.
T'Pol, can you hear me?
Trip... It was a small sound, weak and pitiful.
I'm comin' baby, where are you?
He knew immediately the turbolift she would be in, approaching he pressed the call key, the seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. He heard the approach, the slowing, then the stop. Impatience and fear got the better of him, he forced his fingers into the gap of the door, forcing it open. Before him T'Pol sat on the floor of the turbolift, hands still clinging to the railing inside, her face turned away as if just clinging to consciousness. He almost leapt to her side, taking her face in his hands.
"T'Pol...T'Pol...it's me."
She didn't seem to respond, her lips pale and her eyes locked at some indeterminate catatonia induced point of reference.
"T'Pol, it's me baby, c'mon darlin' talk to me."
Her eyes focused and all she saw was the shadow shrouded Trip-shaped monster, eyes glowing with that eldritch jonquil shade. She pushed away at it as it tried to touch her, its hands holding her face gently. She did not want this thing to hold her, to protect her, she did not want its violence as a shield. But at the same time, she did...something primal and instinctively Vulcan felt loved by it. The fear and wonder still permeated her like a sour-sweet smell, something instinctual and elemental that wanted to be embraced by the monster and occulted into the dark caves where it waited to visit its wrath on anything that threatened her. Her hands pushed and clung alternately as her logic and instinct warred. This thing, this aberration was speaking to her, using the words of her mate. The soft endearing terms, the gentle touch and caress of her ears, the soft lips on her brow. The oily smoke of the shadows whipped away leaving nothing but Trip, her Trip in front of her.
"-alright baby, I'm here, you're alright."
"Trip!" she choked on the emotions that made her want to scream, out loud, from her own throat rather than just in her mind.
"Let's get you to sickbay."
She felt the strong limbs passing around and under here, his powerful right arm hooking under her legs while the left passed under her arms and around her back. She found herself hoisted into the air effortlessly. Some instinctual part of her mind was telling her that this was a prelude to mating and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was being borne forth effortlessly by her mate's strength, he smelled of sweat, a seep of hormones pushed his pungent musk outwards, she felt intoxicated by it as her mind continued to reel under the inadvertent accosting she had received from his. She began to plant small kisses along his jaw, trying to induce him to mate with her again, unsure if he was Trip or the monster, or if he was, indeed both; the instinctual needs overriding everything in her.
"Not now, darlin'."
Her breathing was speeding, the olive tinge showing again in her skin, but he was feeling nothing from her mind, there was nothing conscious occurring, just snatches of impression, vague and almost instinctual. It was like he had short circuited her brain, it was rebooting from its BIOS. She was being touched, held, she seemed to recognize his appearance and smell, input. It must mean she was supposed to engage him in mating behavior, output. He couldn't help but marvel on how simplistically Vulcans defaulted to fight or mate instincts. He allowed muscle memory to carry him to sickbay as he pushed all his consciousness into the now cracked and confused landscape of their link.
T'Pol, listen to me. It's me, Trip, your K'diwa. I know what you saw scared you, but it's alright now. Focus on my voice, remember the Kir'Shara, remember the logic.
K- diwa...Ket-cheleb, K'diwa.
He felt the mental impression, she was reaching for the dark place, wanting it. This was bad, he wasn't sure what he was going to have to do to reach her logical mind. Should he feed the desire? Let her partake of it until she exhausted her want and slaked the instinct that sought out most aggressive and base elements of his personality and soul?
T'Pol, can you understand me?
Po wafu t'nash-veh aitlun?"
T'Pol! He bellowed the words in his mind, harsh, strict and terrible.
Trip! The stern voice, the command pulled something out of her, discipline, obedience
Listen to me, I need you to focus, I need you to come back.
My instincts, they are pulling me to...that... She struggled with each projected word.
Why?
It is...beautiful...to the instinctive Vulcan mind.
What should I do?
Let me...partake of it...until the instinct is...sated.
The doors to sickbay opened as he bore the burden of his woman forward, laying her gently on a biobed as Phlox approached in a lather of medical concern. He immediately crossed to the readout on the biobed noting the irregularities occurring in T'Pol's neural patterns. With a speed belied by his normally composed nature he crossed to a medical cart readying a hypospray.
"Doc, wait."
"What happened? Is it her abnormal ovulation?" Phlox's concern was easily identifiable in his voice.
"Doc, listen to me...do you know about the low-expressing MAOA gene?"
"The violence gene?"
"Yes, all military model Augmentees have a modified version of the gene."
"What does this have to do with T'Pol?" He sounded flustered, rightfully so.
"Vulcan is about to come under attack, Cap'n contacted me and told me what was going on so I could push the reactor to give us more speed, when he told me the gene started to fire off." He looked at the Doctor, making eye contact, his expression dripping with seriousness, "This isn't something that fits with medical science so please trust what I'm going to say."
"Did you attack T'Pol?" Phlox was abnormally calm, almost understanding given his visible agitation just moments before.
"No, but she was subjected to a part of my mind that I hide from her, hide from the telepathic bond, the link."
"Your subconscious."
"I guess that's what it is, I just know that it's all the things I don't feel comfortable about her knowing about. Anyway she got exposed to it and she couldn't handle it, she's reverted to her instinctual self." Tucker's voice had changed, the twangy elements of his vocalization being replaced with cold and deadly serious precision.
"Do you know what I need to do?"
He took a deep breath, knowing what he was going to recommend went against anything that resembled good sense or rationality. He didn't like it, didn't consider it safe, but he had to believe that T'Pol's understanding of her Vulcan mind and the needs of it was far greater than his or Phlox's for that matter.
"I need you to inject me with adrenaline, she needs to satisfy the instinct so it will become passive again and her logic can take back over." The last word hung as he waited to see the Denobulan's response.
"Are you certain of this? Her neurology is showing an already hyper excited state."
"It's what she told me she had to do." He let the words hang, emphasizing how little either of them understood about the complexity of Vulcan neuro-telepathy.
"Very well, please hand me your side arm."
Trip assented and looked at the Doctor with confusion.
"I will stun you if you become uncontrollable." He stated matter-of-factly.
Trip couldn't help but let out a single snorting chuckle, "Don't worry Doc, it's not like Augmentees fly off the handle."
"Better safe than sorry, commander. What else do I need to do?"
"Nothing, I'll do it all, I just have to satisfy the part of her mind."
"Should I set up a privacy curtain or leave sickbay?" The consideration of the Doctor was almost touching.
"No, it's all going to go on in our heads."
T'Pol continued to babble in Vulcan behind them, her words tinged with the dusky tones of desire. She was pulling at her clothes, unsure how to get them off but feeling a drive to do so, her posture on the biobed welcoming her mate to mount. Phlox couldn't help but arch a bemused brow and suppress an awkward smile. It was a horrible time to do so, but he could not help it, he just had to make a joke, to poke fun at Mr. Tucker about their conversation the previous day.
"Mister Tucker, are you absolutely certain that you have not had more regular sexual contact with T'Pol."
Trip grimaced, "Oh c'mon Doc...seriously? Now of all times?"
"Just thought I would ask, I will administer the adrenaline now."
The sting at the injection site was nothing compared to the sudden burn he felt of the adrenaline hyper stimulating his nervous and muscular systems. Quickly, before he lost control to the rage he was building he took T'Pol's hand, twining fingers with hers forcing the depth in the touch telepathy. He let out a low rumbling grunt as he felt the low-expression MAOA gene regain control of his mind, he closed his eyes and consciously spurred it forward, standing behind the subconscious darkness and speaking to it in a way that he knew would force it to obey.
Phlox watched carefully as the human intertwined his fingers with the erratic Vulcan. He forced his eyes shut, his expression showing discomfort and remained still. No more than four seconds elapsed before T'Pol's back arched, her feet scrambling for purchase on the biobed, her brain activity was going berserk. The sounds leaving her throat were indistinguishable from pleasure or pain. This was concerning him greatly, he was trying to give the commander the benefit of a doubt but it was looking increasingly like he would be forced to intervene. He ready the hypospray with a powerful sedative, if necessary he would sedate the sub-commander before any potential damage became permanent. The brain waves suddenly spiked off the chart and she let out a sound like a death rattle, a single long groaning sigh of an exhale then lay very still. Her heart rate, respiration, brain waves all disappeared for a split second, Phlox was just turning to grab the crash kit when they resumed, the massive drop in activity approximating a flat-line to machines that were not designed to deal with biometric feedback this erratic. She took a series of deep breaths and raised her head.
As if on cue Tucker opened his eyes, shaking his head hands coming up to his pounding temples, suddenly very pale. He smiled weakly, eyes fixed on his mate's, then with a sudden uncomfortable swallow, ran to the closest sink and vomited. Phlox looked back and forth between the two, trying to determine who he should attend to first, deciding to default to T'Pol as she was the one who had been mentally altered with accelerated heart rate moments before. Before he could being administering any aid the Vulcan sat up, looking over to her mate, climbing off the biobed just in time to be caught by the Denobulan before weak knees issued their refusal to hold her upright.
"Sub-commander, do you know who I am, do you know where you are?"
"Trip." She struggled, she still sounded mentally altered, her voice trembling, high from her upper lungs in the tones of panic breathing.
"No...I am not Trip, do you know who I am and where you are." He patiently demurs.
"Help, Trip. Doctor, he's ill." She protested.
"Oh alright, close enough. Sit down and do not move from here." Phlox admonished helping her back up onto the biobed.
He is already upright before Phlox and reach him, wiping blood tinted bile from his lips. The color immediately alarms Phlox who opens his mouth to demand Tucker get to a biobed but before he can begin his medical order he is cut off by the commander.
"It's nothin' Doc, just a combination of adrenaline, heat, and stress."
"You are bleeding mister Tucker." The Denobulan protests.
"I bit my tongue in engineerin' when we were pumpin' the engines." He explains calmly, "See."
Tucker extends the muscle which bears a harsh avulsion on its side, the flesh tattered and still bleeding. Phlox's shoulders sag, mouth injuries are common in humans who still tend to use their mouths as an instinctual extension of their sensory system. They heal quickly and with little necessity for medical interference, still the potential for infection, while remote, still exists. He prepares a dose of antibiotics as a precautionary measure, holding it upwards he declares his intentions.
"I'm going to give you some antibiotics to ensure there is no infection of the wound site."
"Can we make it snappy, Doc? I gotta get to the bridge."
T'Pol, baby, you there?
"Of course, commander, shouldn't take more than a moment."
T'Pol, oh God, please be there.
"Be certain to avoid contact with any foreign objects other than food, if it becomes sore a topical analgesic should lessen the discomfort."
Oh God, I don't know if I can go on now, it'd be like cuttin' out my eyes.
He looks over, seeing her beautiful eyes setting on his, a hint of sadness within; her expression is almost pleading. He pushes at the space where her mind should be, trying to invade it by force, to reestablish the mental beach-head as it were. As hard as he tries, he can only find the same space devoid of any trace of her. His subconscious, the place where all the horrible things the modified MAOA gene has caused him to do, the things that brought her discomfort, the out of control passion...it is scattered everywhere in his mindscape. It is his mind again, his alone and it has returned to the dark and frightening place it was before she caused him to find order in it all. The emotional pain is excruciating, worse than losing Lizzie, worse than the Bat'leth scars, worse than the normal nightmares. He finds he can't look at her, the face too painful to see, those eyes so sad over what he was, what he had done to her, the lie that was Charles Tucker III. Now that she had seen it all, the unvarnished horror of the human capacity, she could not continue to sully herself by being one with him; in mind or body. He couldn't help but feel the tremendous and shattering feeling of loss as he fumbled to accept the reality that she had closed him out.
"Keep an eye on her, Doc, make sure she's alright, okay?"
Trip.
Trip!
TRIP!
Nothing, there is nothing but silence in the bond, and the memory of the sadness on his face. The sorrow born of betrayal and inadequacy. The belief she wants the monster that resides inside him more than his conscious mind. As he turns to leave she rises to follow but is immediately accosted by the overly diligent Phlox, she half ponders making a dash for the door, but given her recent abnormal behavior, this rather uncharacteristic move on her part would likely prompt the Doctor to put her on bed rest. That's when it occurs to her, the altered state, the abnormal behavior.
"Doctor Phlox, would it be possible to do a full scan of my neural pathways?"
"Certainly, I could complete it in the imagine chamber quite easily. Is there some issue, sub-commander?"
"I believe my recent, episode, has altered my brain chemistry."
When T'Pol returned to the bridge she found that her mate had already been to see the captain and had offered an impromptu cover for her. He claimed that due to the alleged sensitivity of her ears and the lack of intervening bulkhead between the bridge and ready room she must have overheard what was happening to Vulcan. It was then that she found out about the Romulan attack force and she steeled herself to prevent a reaction having already had a pronounced episode of trauma once today. After returning to her post the captain issued a ship wide announcement to all hands, there course had been laid in to Vulcan to provide whatever assistance they could. She could feel the seething anger through the ship, it was almost a smell as the large number of Augmentees in the crew seemed to slip into a moment of contained murderous rage. To her perceptions it was almost as if the room darkened as she saw the gritted teeth and darkened eyes of Reed, Mayweather, O'Donnel, and Gangjeon. She maintained the facade of calm Vulcan detachment throughout her shift, even as she desperately searched her mind for an explanation as to why she could no longer feel her mate.
The sudden mental amputation was disconcerting, she had been aware of his presence, projecting and receiving abstract concepts and feelings for months. Though direct communication through their mind had only been possible since she awoke after her quasi-Plak tow, the comfort she found in the connection was highly pronounced. She plodded through her shift and upon its end immediately resolved to find him. He was, if one thing, predictable, and when she showed up at engineering he was stripped to the waist save for a non-regulation tank top, sweating in the sweltering heat of engineering. Even by Vulcan standards she found it to be warm, and the rest of the engineering crew had been reduced to wearing their athletic shorts and T-shirts to deal with the heat.
His eyes brushed over her but he immediately turned away, reminding her to the hurt she saw on his face when he left sickbay. Approaching again she had been forced to physically grab his arm, allowing herself the moment of appreciation at the sensation of the thick bicep under her small fingers, with the force she could muster she pushed the arm to physically rotate him to look at her.
"Commander, do you have a moment?" She kept her voice calm and measured even as her eyes shone with barely restrained emotion.
His expression proved to be more of a mystery, "Alright sub-commander, lets step into my office."
She barely waited to get into the office before she started speaking, she had to reassure her mate, in doing so perhaps it would calm her as well. "Trip, something went wrong."
"Yeah, I know..."
"My neuro-chemistry has been disrupted, that is what has severed our bond."
"And it's all my fault...right?"
She cocked her head, she hadn't intended for this to become confrontational, "There was clearly an area of your psyche that I did not adequately prepare or compensate for."
"So, in short, my brain is a time bomb that can blow you up at any point."
"Trip, no, it's not that at all." She didn't understand where this confrontational disposition was coming from.
"Maybe you'd just be better off without me to make your brain go haywire."
She felt the wave of anger buffet against her logic, her expression cooled, the desperation and attempts at understanding swimming under the surface of her eyes now replaced with adamantine disdain. "Perhaps, it is a matter best discussed between adults, if you locate one, perhaps this conversation can be continued."
"Did you just..."
"I see no logic in continuing this conversation until you can operate on a level above hormone ridden adolescence, Commander Tucker."
Hands clamped behind her back she spun on her heal and exited the office. He stepped after her, wanting to call her back but the voice catching in his throat as his teeth clenched and his stubborn pride dug its claws in. Just who the hell did she think she was? Six hours ago she was catatonic in a turbo-lift because she couldn't follow the basic instructions to avoid an area of his brain he kept from her. He had been the one who had to deal with a severely lacerated tongue, adrenal overload, and the constant stress of worry while working in an un-climate controlled 115 degree engineering. He was the one who got cut off...because her brain went haywire...she hadn't chosen to do anything.
"Jesus Christ on the cross...what the hell are you thinkin', Tucker?"
She hadn't decided to sever the bond, she hadn't decided to close him out, she had come here, to him, to explain, to reconcile. And now he had bull-headedly run her off, he came off his feet like a hidden spring-board had suddenly launched him and dashed out of engineering, hoping to catch sight of her only to look down an empty hallway. His mouth drew into a wide, thin frown, teeth gritting. Walking back into engineering he re-entered his office and grabbed a blank PADD from its staging rack and began typing out the note. Mentally he began trying to determine what would constitute a good make-up gift for Vulcans.
