Author's Note: Please take a look at previous notes.

Thank you everyone for giving all of these snapshots a chance! I know some of the endings are frustrating and some of the stories may be sad, but thank you for looking at my sandbox of ideas and giving me some input.

I have a few more that have been sitting on my computer that I'm going to clean up and post. I usually try and post a happy one after a sad one so if you read a serious or sad one, there's usually something lighter following FYI.

This one is probably one of my favorites, but I'm really not sure it has any legs besides this little bit. I hope you enjoy it.

Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

XXXX

"So, how's Berlin in the winter?" Trip asked her over the video call. He could see she was sitting in her apartment and the sky was dark behind her; it was still morning in Montreal.

"Cold," T'Pol said. "I've also been told that it has just begun."

Trip chuckled. It was their monthly call of a one-year intermission from their relationship and he was starting to wonder who made all these conditions, her or him?

"That Vulcan woman, S'Erra still riding your hard at work?" Trip asked.

"She still wishes to prove that the post-secondary education system for Vulcans on Earth is better than the one I received," T'Pol said as she leaned forward and reached for her tea. She was wearing a sweater and socks and still felt a chill most nights. She didn't have him to keep her warm.

"That's awfully ballsy," Trip chuckled.

"She is making it her mission to correct every error she finds in my work and write a two page explanation for each and every notation," T'Pol huffed. "My patience is waning."

"Maybe you just need to report her at this point?" Trip suggested.

"Then she would have won," T'Pol said with a huff.

"Well, it sounds like she's putting your new meditation regime to the test, that's for damn sure," Trip smiled at her.

T'Pol nodded and placed her tea down.

"Montreal is quite cold right now," T'Pol said.

"You've been keeping up with my weather?" Trip asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It is part of my news feed each morning," T'Pol said as she shifted in her seat. It was, truthfully, something she looked up each day; the weather and local news in Montreal where he was staying.

"Look, I'm going to be in Munich for a conference in a couple of weeks and…"

"Our agreement was one year," T'Pol said clearly. "It's only been seven months."

"You know, I don't remember agreeing to no visits?" Trip said, annoyed.

"We did," T'Pol said softly. In truth, she wasn't sure it was a smart agreement; she desperately wanted to see him. "But, I am willing to amend the agreement if you are. We didn't anticipate that you or I would be in the vicinity of the other during that time."

"No, no, we didn't," Trip nodded.

"Perhaps we could say that your visit is a substitution for a phone call in one month?" T'Pol suggested.

"We don't get both?" Trip asked.

"I…" T'Pol stammered. "Let's call the visit an unexpected change and keep the phone calls."

"That sounds like a plan to me," Trip smiled at her.

"When will you be…?" T'Pol asked but then stopped when she heard someone walk into his office.

"Just a second," Trip said to her before he picked up a paper and handed it to his assistant.

"Sorry about that," Trip said as he looked at the time. "I've just been called into a meeting and have to go. I'll send you my details and see you in Munich?"

"I will try to get a day off," T'Pol said with a nod.

"Wait, just a day?" Trip asked, surprised.

"I do work," T'Pol said.

"Yeah, but…well, you don't work seven days a week," Trip sighed.

"True," T'Pol said. "This new term I am off work Friday and Saturday."

"Then come to Munich Friday and Saturday while I'm there," Trip smiled at her.

"Agreed," T'Pol nodded.

"I'll see you in a couple of weeks darlin," Trip smiled before the video call was disconnected.

"Maxine!" Trip called from his office.

"Yes?" A woman asked as she appeared at his door.

"I need you to change my travel plans. I need to be in Munich the Friday and Saturday."

"But the conference ends Wednesday," Maxine replied.

"Then extend my plans and take it from my personal account," Trip said. "I'll be back on the Monday instead."

"Yes, sir," Maxine nodded before she left.

XXX

Trip wandered around Munich on Thursday and wondered how she got the warmer deal in all of this. For one year they had taken experimental positions. She as a professor and researcher at a small Vulcan university in Berlin, he at an experimental firm toying with warp drives and theoretical work on black hole travel. Montreal was balls-freezing minus 30 cold and Berlin was a balmy 10 degrees. People were playing with their children in parks, hell, he didn't even need to winter boots he brought, just shoes with a good rubber sole for the ice. But, the more he walked, the more he wondered how they had got here in the first place.

Things had been going fine. Scratch that, things had been okay. He had been looking for a bigger commitment from her and she had been avoiding the entire topic. It had become a sore spot between them. Then she had proposed this: a one-year break where they were both free to explore life without the other, possibly other relationships, and seriously think about what they wanted for their future. At first, he thought she'd lost it. He didn't need a year away from her to know he wanted her, but then he realized, maybe she needed to know (for sure) that she wanted him. So, he'd reluctantly agreed.

And of course, because she was Vulcan, there were conditions. She'd wanted radio silence and had finally come around to monthly calls. There were secondary conditions set that in an emergency or dire situation more calls could be placed. He'd set the condition that they were not to speak about anyone that had come into their lives in a romantic way. The thought of her with another man, or a Vulcan man, made his blood boil and he didn't need to know his name or anything about him to make the mystery man more real. And she had said no visits, he did remember that even though he pretended he had not. But when this conference in Munich landed on his desk, he had to take a stab at a visit; it had been seven months and he missed her. Missed her completely.

He wasn't sure what to expect in the next two days. He was scared she would take the opportunity to tell him that the deal for a year was off because she'd met a crazy-amazing Vulcan man who had stolen her heart. He was scared she would look at him differently; that seven months apart was just enough time to come to her Vulcan senses and decide it needed to end. He as scared that the months of awkward conversations over the phone would extend into two days of awkwardness that would tell them both that it was over. He was scared of a lot of things. What most scared him was the unknown.

XXX

T'Pol walked through the streets to the café where they would meet for breakfast. Her high speed train had meant a five am departure to make their breakfast date. She calmed herself down with breathing exercises as she walked, trying to remind herself that he was just here for two days and that it didn't mean anything had changed. But, things had changed. She had spent the last seven months longing for him. Their monthly calls were a lifeline and she even thought of instances where she could invent an emergency to just call him. She was once in a bicycle accident that left her with a sprained wrist, but after many days of contemplation, decided that didn't classify as an emergency and wasn't worthy of a second phone call that month.

She knew he had dated several women, knew it in her heart that a man like Trip left single wouldn't be for long. She wasn't sure if any of his relationships had become serious and both hated and loved Hoshi for keeping her appraised of his relationship status. He was, after all, single. She had devised this ridiculous plan to make him see the other possibilities and hope that she was still the best choice. She didn't' want to spend her life with a man who fell into a relationship with her, she wanted to be with a man who actively chose her above all the human women. Who wasn't going to one day regret his choice.

She hadn't, quite illogically, booked a room, assuming, possibly wrongly, that she would stay with him. He hadn't mentioned shared accommodations and she had developed a plan on her trip in that involved booking a room during a visit to the washroom if he indicated they would not be staying together. Her biggest fear, the illogical voice in her head that kept popping up to tell her she should have accepted his proposal and never looked back, was that he had come to tell her she was right. That there were too many differences, too many hurdles, that he had found a lovely human woman and was going to be happier without her. She would know when she saw his face.

T'Pol rounded the last corner and saw the café ahead of her. And, standing outside in the cold was Trip, waiting for her. She knew his frame anywhere. His back was toward her and he was reading a sign in a nearby window, his head cocked slightly to the left. She approached him quickly, trying to calm her hammering heart. At the last minute, when she only 2 metres away, he turned and looked at her and smiled. His broadest, biggest, smile. Then he extended his arms and she walked quickly into them, engulfed by his embrace, his smell, and his body as it wrapped around hers and brought her home.

She closed her eyes and just lived in that moment, when everything was right and good. Then, he pulled back from her and smiled before he kissed her passionately on the lips. She, again, fell into the moment, taking in every butterfly that made it's way into her stomach, every shiver that went down her spine, and every gasp that came from their lips.

They pulled apart slightly and, breathing heavily, he held her cheek in his cold hand and chuckled.

"I wasn't sure what to expect," he huffed.

"I wasn't either," she admitted, her own breath short.

Then hadn't stepped back from each other much, their wool coats the only barrier between their pressed bodies.

"I still love you darlin," Trip said as he watched her eyes.

They watered, and he knew she felt the same but would probably never say it.

"I love you," T'Pol choked out quietly. "And I have missed you, completely."

Trip's eyes watered, it was the first time she'd said that in all the years they'd been together. He swallowed hard.

"That's good to hear darlin, because I booked three weeks vacation just before I left, and I was hoping to join you in Berlin after we're done here," Trip smiled at her as he held her face in his hands.

She laughed and then buried her face in his chest. He'd only seen her laugh twice before and she was embarrassed about it each time.

Trip kissed her hair and pulled her back in against him even tighter.

"Seven months has taught me that that you are all I've ever wanted," Trip said quietly into her hair. "I don't need another five, do you?"

She shook her head in the negative and he reached down and pulled her chin up so she was facing him.

"I would like us to get married," T'Pol said softly as she met his gaze.

"That's what I was hopin' you'd say," he smirked before he leaned in and kissed her again.

XXX