Disclaimers, etc. in Part I.

Author's Note: Yup, we're well past the gates and into the Kingdom of Angst now. (Sorry.) And my deepest thanks, reviewers.


He couldn't breathe. He collapsed to his hands and knees, desperately wheezing, trying to catch his breath.

He'd walked too fast, heading back towards the entrance at a near-run, wanting nothing more than to put some distance between them, but it had been an incline and he'd pushed himself too hard and now he was going to pass out in a goddamned Vulcan tourist park.

Suddenly there was a mask fit over his face, and blessed oxygen streamed into his lungs. Gratefully, he took deep breaths.

Oh, dear oxygen. Dear dependable oxygen. Why had he forsaken it to visit this awful planet?

He realized, suddenly, that there were tourists watching him where he had collapsed on the hot pavement of the walkway, and that the person who had placed the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose was in fact T'Pol, and that she was all but draped over him, caressing his back reassuringly. This perhaps explained why many of the Vulcans who were staring at them had their mouths hanging open.

"I'm okay," he said, pulling away from her.

"Keep it," she said, holding the mask out. "I should not have told you something of such import in such an inappropriate setting."

"What would have been more appropriate?" He spit the words out. "The car? Your mother's house? Our bed?"

Had she already known this last night, when she had clung to him so tightly? But she must have. Those "negotiations" could hardly have taken place between their rising at 4am and this sight-seeing trip.

"I'm sorry," she said. Apparently it was her new refrain.

An older Vulcan man approached them. "Do you require further assistance?" he asked.

"No," he and T'Pol said together, and he rose to his feet – taking another deep breath from the mask he was now holding himself. "I'm fine," he told the man. "Just a little short of breath. Sorry to make a scene."

The man told T'Pol, "You can return the equipment at the gate. I'm afraid this often happens to our visitors from Earth." He turned to Trip and solemnly raised his hand in the ta'al. "Live long and prosper."

"Peace and long life," Trip said, wearily returning the gesture. He turned and headed back up the path towards the entrance and the ground car they had rented. He wanted his own planet, where most people were content with a simple hello or goodbye, and he could walk and breathe without thinking twice about it.

"Where are you going?" she asked, following behind him. Not that he could exactly leave her behind yet. It was her rental.

"I need to go to the embassy," he said. "I need to find a way home."

"You don't understand, Trip. That's not necessary."

"What don't I understand? You just told me you're marrying Koss. That seems pretty damned straightforward to me."

"It's a marriage of convenience. Koss's parents agreed I can return to Enterprise … with you."

He stopped and stared at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I told them that I do not wish to be parted from you. This marriage … it's for my mother. So she can have her position back. It's not…"

"And Koss is okay with that?"

"Koss will do as his parents wish."

Perhaps he just plain forgot to breathe, because suddenly he had to take another puff of oxygen. He saw a bench and headed for it, then sank down onto it. She sat next to him – too close. He inched away and said, "I don't know what you think you're doing, but marrying someone else is the ultimate deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned."

She went quite pale, but said nothing.

"You want to marry him, fine. You marry him. But that's the end of us. Tuckers don't mess with other mens' wives. I don't care if it's a sham marriage or a weird-ass Denobulan marriage, or whatever the hell other kind of marriage you want to come up with."

She said, "I don't want to marry him. I have to marry him. It would most likely only be for a year or two. And I would be with you, not him."

He just shook his head. "You wouldn't be with me. I want no part of this."

"Trip, I have no choice."

Did she really expect him to believe that? "Neither do I."

x x x

On their strained, silent way back to ShiKahr, he began to wonder if somehow this was at least partially his fault. What if he had insisted on talking about what their relationship meant before they left Enterprise – what if he had sealed the deal while he still had the chance? Not that it had really occurred to him how desperately he did want that until now, when it was no longer an option.

Or was it? "Look. T'Pol. Is there anything I can do or say that will prevent this?"

She said nothing. She looked as ill as Trip felt.

"What if I married you?" he said. "Would that get you out of this?"

Her eyes filled, and he felt a sympathetic twist in his gut, though not enough of one to untie the cold hard knot that had taken up residence there. She said, "That would bring shame on my mother and damage an already fragile alliance between Earth and Vulcan. It would also, obviously, mean that we could no longer serve together."

"We could go find a colony, someplace neutral…"

"And do what?"

"I don't know," he said. "We'd have to figure something out."

She shook her head. "You don't really want that."

He was silent. She was right. He didn't really want to dissolve his ties to Starfleet or Earth. Especially not for someone who could even contemplate doing to him what she was currently doing to him.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

The logical path was always going to win out with her, right from the beginning. He had known that, and yet he had let himself get to this point. This trip to Vulcan was ridiculous. Their whole relationship was ridiculous. He was ridiculous.

"So am I," he said.

x x x

He could get passage back to Earth on a Vulcan shuttle, but it would take all his transportation credits and more. He could get relatively cheap passage on an Earth freighter, but the trip back would take over a month. Or he could hitch a free ride on a Starfleet vessel that would get home much sooner, but it wasn't departing for another three days.

"You can put me to work in the engine room," he said. "Right now, if you'd like."

"The ship hasn't even arrived yet, Commander," the Starfleet Operations officer explained. She was a calm, matronly sort of woman, which he found soothing. "The earliest you can board is Saturday morning. Why not see more of Vulcan while you can?"

"You would not believe how tired I am of this planet," Trip said. "They had to give me oxygen today."

The woman chuckled. "Believe it or not, you do adjust to it after awhile. I've booked you in. We'll see you at the shuttle to space dock Saturday at 0800 hours."

"How about accommodations?" he said. "Are there any available? I think I've overstayed my welcome with my current host."

"We do have Starfleet lodging on the grounds," she said. "Nothing private at this time, I'm afraid, but if you don't mind bunking with an ensign or two, we'll find you a bed in officer's country. Just show up, and we'll get you sorted."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll be back later."

x x x

He told T'Pol about the arrangements he'd made – she had waited in the car – and back at T'les's house, he went to pack up his bags.

All the way home from the Embassy T'Pol had said nothing, and neither had he. As soon as they arrived at the house she disappeared. She was obviously distressed, but he couldn't exactly feel sorry about that. What the hell had she expected?

It was T'Les who came to his door and said, "There's an Admiral Forrest asking for you."

Shit. He'd wondered if he might get chewed out by Jon for not telling him where he was going. But Forrest?

He followed T'Les to the monitor. "Admiral?" he said. T'Les walked away, but with those Vulcan ears, who knew what she might hear. "Is everything all right?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Commander?"

On any other day, Trip might be unnerved by the admiral's obvious anger. Today, Forrest represented the least of his troubles. "Sir?"

"You're at T'Pol's house? And you shared a cabin with her?"

"I was on leave and she invited me to visit Vulcan. It was a lot cheaper to share a cabin."

Forrest scowled. "Do you have any idea how this looks? There are suggestions all over the media that Enterprise's second and third officers have embarked on an interplanetary romance."

Trip stared stonily back at him. "The suggestions are wrong, sir." They were now, anyway.

"Then what the hell are you doing there?"

"Sightseeing," he said flatly. "We saw the Fire Plains today. And as it happens, I'm heading home on the next Starfleet ship available. I've never been one for deserts, sir, and I've had more than enough of this one."

"I have what looks like a pretty sound intelligence report that she has been treating you as her husband."

"I don't think that can be an accurate report, sir." He stuck his tongue in his cheek and made a quick calculation. T'Pol hadn't authorized him to make any announcements, but surely a wedding was a matter of public record, even on Vulcan. "She's getting married in just a few days, and not to me."

"What?"

"His name is Koss," Trip said. "He's an architect. They've been betrothed since they were children."

"Why didn't we know about this?"

"Vulcans keep these things pretty private."

Forrest scowled. "Does that mean she's not coming back?"

Did it? Trip suddenly felt knocked off balance in a brand new way. He probably ought to be relieved at the idea, but his gut was telling him something quite different. "You'd have to ask her that, sir."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Tell her I want her to call me,"

"Yes, sir."

"I guess this situation is salvageable after all. You can represent Starfleet at the wedding. At least that should quiet all these rumors."

"Admiral, I've already made arrangements to head home before then."

"Then change them."

"Sir," Trip pleaded. "Please don't make me do that."

"Damn it, Trip!" Forrest said. "How is it Jon didn't even know you were there?"

"It was kind of a last-minute decision to go."

"You need to think harder about the possible consequences of your actions, Commander! I don't care if you're on leave or not. You're an officer, and that means you represent Starfleet and Earth. This could have become a significant diplomatic incident. Fortunately, you've also presented us with the perfect way out. I'll have someone from the Embassy contact you about the proper protocols."

"Sir," Trip said, defeated.

He sat there, slumped, too appalled even to move.

T'Les returned. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

He shook his head wordlessly. He'd forgotten to drink enough water and his head was pounding, but that seemed appropriate somehow.

"T'Pol told me you were leaving," she said. "I am sorry to hear that."

"Actually, the admiral just insisted that I stay long enough to represent Starfleet at the wedding."

She raised an eyebrow. "Starfleet is not invited to the wedding, but you are welcome to stay. It is customary for both the bride and groom to have their closest friends present, and you are clearly that for T'Pol."

That thought choked him up so badly he couldn't even speak. He ducked his head to hide his feelings.

T'Les withdrew, perhaps tactfully, and he sat there and tried to get a handle on himself. What now? If he had to be here for the wedding, there was little point in dealing with the hassle of getting transport to and from the embassy. He should go back to the guest room and unpack. But instead he just sat there, breathing in and breathing out, and felt a great and vast emptiness open up inside him, dry and dusty and hopeless.

Eventually T'Les returned. "Do you have any idea where she is?" she asked.

He shook his head, then remembered that Vulcans didn't really shake their heads and managed to articulate, "No." Get a hold of yourself, Tucker. "Admiral Forrest would like him to call her."

"Well, if you can find her, you can deliver your admiral's message."

So he got up and walked back through the house, but found no sign of her. She was not in the back garden, or the front courtyard. His gut clenched in anxiety, even as he tried to tell himself that where she was shouldn't matter in the slightest to him now. "She's not here," he told T'Les.

She pursed her lips. "Perhaps she felt the need for a walk," she said, and Trip looked out at the hot afternoon sun and thought, "Now?"

He went back to his room and sat on the bed. She knew he could not go after her in this heat. Did T'Pol perhaps think that disappearing would keep him from leaving? Or did she just want to avoid watching him go?

If so, the joke was on her.

She did not return home in time for dinner. T'Les served it at the usual time, and he tried to force himself to eat, but he could not. His head was still aching and he had no appetite. Neither did TLes, he noticed. "Where would she go?" he asked. "Should we try to find her?" If Enterprise were in orbit, he'd hail them and ask for a scan. But Starfleet didn't have a single ship in orbit right now.

T'Les said, "That might be difficult." She looked outside, where night was beginning to fall. "I will inform the authorities."

"The authorities?" That seemed a bit extreme.

"It is not safe to walk the local deserts at night without proper defenses," she said. "There are dangerous predators. Perhaps she has been away so long that she has forgotten this." She gave him a little glare, and went to the monitor.

x x x

Time passed. Trip would normally have been asleep by now, but instead he sat opposite T'Les in the living room and waited.

"T'Pol always suffered disappointments more profoundly than most other Vulcans," T'Les said. "I thought perhaps it was because she lost her father at a difficult time in her development. But her emotions are far more blatant now than they ever were before."

"The Expanse was difficult for her," Trip said. "It was difficult for all of us."

"Is that how you came to be involved?"

"Maybe. The doctor asked her to give me neuro-pressure. I wasn't sleeping well because I kept having nightmares. My sister had died in the Xindi attack …" He sighed. "T'Pol helped me. We … got closer."

"She should not have agreed to that. Neuro-pressure is hardly an appropriate activity to share with a stranger."

"I was not a stranger. We had already worked closely together for two years. We were friends. We always had each other's backs." T'Les straightened in offense, so he hastened to explain. "That just means we depended on each other. It's dangerous out there. And lonely. Especially for her, I think. She was the only Vulcan on board. Plus she was a senior officer. So the captain and I were really the only people she could socialize with."

"She had no business staying so long on an alien ship."

"She knew we needed her," Trip said. "I think she likes to feel needed."

And this was, perhaps, exactly what he had taken away from her today.

About twenty minutes later was a knock at the door at last, and two Vulcan patrol officers escorted a dusty, dull-eyed T'Pol into the house. "We found her walking a significant distance outside the city walls," one of them told T'Les. "She appeared to be somewhat ill, so we took her to the hospital first. She has been medicated," the man said, and handed over a packet of information. "The healer recommends sleep and…" The man coughed uncomfortably. "Observation. He said he will visit her tomorrow afternoon."

"We will await him," T'les said gravely, and the men left.

T'Pol stood there, swaying slightly, then honed in on Trip. "You're still here," she said.

"Turns out I'm not going to the embassy after all," he said. "Admiral Forrest wants me to stay for the wedding." He didn't pass along the message about her calling the admiral. Clearly, that could wait.

She regarded him for a long moment. "And will that still be the end of us?"

He understood now that he must not extinguish all her hope, though he also could not bring himself to lie. He swallowed hard over the sudden lump in his throat and said, "I hope I will always be your friend, T'Pol."

She blinked and looked away, clearly affected, though he wasn't sure how. He hoped he'd offered her enough, for he could do no more. Not if she was really going to marry Koss, which all the forces in the universe now seemed to be lining up to ensure.

"Come, T'Pol," her mother said softly, and led her off.


To be continued (though I did poll readers on whether a chapter was needed when this first went up)