Trip had been mostly hiding down in the Engine room, watching over the modifications to the warp drive while T'Pol, Archer, Phlox and Hoshi dealt with the medical emergency on Valakis. His expertise wasn't needed there and for once he was grateful. Checking the readings every few minutes didn't take very long and while he was waiting to do the next check he was reading up on Vulcans in their own database. Once he would have gotten a kick out of trying to figure out what they weren't saying. Now he was worried that he was going to miss some thing very important.
In fact he was still reading when T'Pol came to his quarters after her shift. After sitting her down in his only chair, Trip flopped down on his bunk. "My mom sent me a letter wanting to know if we were both ok with the bonding and if we were, what's your favorite color?" he said.
"I do not understand what significance my preferred color choices have to your maternal parent," T'Pol said startled. Even for Trip the question was not logical.
"Oh it's significant alright. My mother loves to do hand crafts even though she lives in Florida which is a place known for its hot weather. If we're both ok with the idea of being married, she's going to start on a wedding quilt for the two of us. Plus knowing her, she'll also be knitting socks or slippers or sweaters or some darned thing to keep you warm. She's convinced that space instillations and starships can't keep people warm enough." Trip sighed. "She made sure that I've had a new blanket for every duty station I've had off planet."
"She is correct, although I'm aware that my discomfort is more due to species differences than to the ineffectiveness of your machinery." T'Pol said.
"You're cold? Why didn't you say anything?" Trip said, jumping off his bunk.
T'Pol accurately read his intention of fixing what he saw as a problem. "I am a Vulcan; therefore temperatures that are comfortable for Humans are quite cool to me. However, to heat the ship to temperatures that I find comfortable is illogical as they would quickly prove to be detrimental to the rest of the crew." Trip nodded and started to pace. T'Pol could see the expression she was used to seeing when major malfunctions happened to parts of the ship, his 'problem solving' face she had heard it once described. "And my preferred colors are red and blue."
Trip nodded, made a note on his computer and continued to pace. T'Pol was glad to see him make the note, she knew that if he had not he would have forgotten the information. "Dr. Phlox asked for my advice on whether I believed that Ensign Cutler was capable of sustaining an interspecies relationship. I had to tell him that I did not know. Before I was made aware of our bonding I would have said that Humans were not emotionally mature enough to handle an interspecies relationship. But if that were true, we would not have bonded, and Ensign Cutler is more emotionally mature than you are."
Trip stopped pacing, the blueprints fleeing from his mind. "Emotionally immature?!? Is that how Vulcans see Humans? No wonder we're having such a hard time getting along lately. T'Pol, I seriously doubt you have ever met a Human who was emotionally immature. No one would subject a Vulcan to that knowingly. Oh they'd let kids hang around you but only in small doses. Kids don't know how to control their emotions and yes, we Humans do control ourselves, just not anywhere near what you Vulcans do!" He knew that T'Pol was now aware that Humans had to vent their emotions but he didn't really think that she fully understood.
"What are the signs that a Human is emotionally immature?" T'Pol asked curious. She had learned more about Humans in the last six months than most Vulcan sociologists had learned in decades.
"Never mind, if you stay on board long enough I'm sure Starfleet will be sending out an example sooner or later, just keep your eyes open to how other Humans react to the new recruits. That'll give you an idea. As for Cutler, she may be more serious than I am but she is not more emotionally mature. I'm just much more enthusiastic. I know I act like a big kid a lot of the time but that isn't necessarily being emotionally immature for a Human." Trip said. He walked back to his desk and sat on the edge. "Cutler will be able to handle a relationship if she wants one. Which one of them is coming on to the other?"
"I believe the attraction is mutual, although they both seem to be quite tentative. I do believe however that they will be able to make an amicable decision," T'Pol knew she was postponing her reason for coming to Trip's quarters but she was reluctant to speak about the letter and data package that her mother had sent them.
"Well they're both adults and most people would probably say they're more compatible than we are," Trip admitted. "Hey, I've been trying to study what the Vulcan database says about Vulcan culture and I've come across something I don't understand. Would you mind explaining what 'finger touching' means. I mean it seems to be something specific but the database doesn't go into any details, just that it's a sign that the Vulcans are married."
"As you are aware Vulcans are touch telepaths," T'Pol began, grateful for a somewhat neutral topic. "Because of this we do not touch except within certain very limited ways. For instance, when Spock greeted me it was with the touch we use between family members. It allowed both of us to determine that we were related and allowed Spock to check for our bond." She showed Trip the palm touch. "Normally this is used only between close family members. Spock is my sister's grandchild, or will be when he is born in this universe. This is the first touch we learn to use outside of our parent's marriage bond."
Trip scowled, focusing on understanding what she wasn't saying as much as she what she was. "You mean this is how you get to know your family's minds. You already know your parent's minds because as your parents they would always be touching you from the moment you're born. Like when they change your clothes as an infant or teach you to feed yourself."
"Yes," T'Pol nodded. "When it comes time for Vulcans to marry we must allow a near total stranger to touch us. It can be very disconcerting."
"That sounds like the understatement of the century to me, darlin'," Trip snorted.
T'Pol merely raised an eyebrow and continued her mate's education. "Finger touching is the first step and is a gesture used in public between bondmates." She extended two fingers towards him. Trip copied the gesture and T'Pol pressed her fingertips to his. "When our bond is stronger this will increase our connection."
Trip nodded. He also could feel a distant sort of tingling and wondered if that was T'Pol or just his imagination. 'It doesn't really matter,' he decided. 'Eventually we'll touch minds and it has to be a lot better than that Healer. Kind of like the difference between a doctor and a wife,' he guessed.
T'Pol decided that now that they were discussing Vulcan culture it would be a good time to give him the information packet her mother had sent. She wasn't about to give him a copy of the letter that accompanied it. In her distress over having to explain about her bond, she had neglected to inform her mother that the children were already conceived and merely awaited her time for implantation.
Before coming to Trip's quarters she had sent off a reply to her mother informing her that a donor would not be necessary. An alien genetic specialist had already performed the necessary genetic manipulation and that there were already twenty one zygotes ready for implantation in stasis, three times as many as she would need. The extras had been created to ensure that if unforeseen difficulties occurred, there would still be viable children to implant. T'Pol did not tell her mother that she had no objection to bearing more than a single child once every seven years. Trip's two brothers were twins, children conceived and born during the same pregnancy. T'Pol believed that multiple births would be welcomed by her mate but they had not discussed it yet. There was time for that. Her time would not come for another ten years or so.
T'Pol stood up and handed a data pad to Trip. "My mother has sent us information that you would have received from your father if you were Vulcan. I will leave you to study it." Then she left.
Trip smirked a bit at her abrupt departure but didn't blame her. He was beginning to learn just how private a people Vulcans were and the idea of her mother giving him 'The Talk', even long distance, had to be making her squirm. He'd let her do it in private. He took the pad over to his bunk. This was bound to be interesting and important. He'd better take notes.
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Trip was actually glad that Archer had asked him to come to Archer's quarters after dinner. Not only did his friend look like he needed to get something off his chest, Trip wasn't all that eager to go back to his Vulcan studies. T'Pol's mother T'Les had been very blunt and explicit in her descriptions. The thing that Trip had been grateful for was that they were also very clinical where Vulcan reproduction was concerned. He knew that it couldn't have been easy for T'Les to say any of it. It had to be the absolutely worst thing for them. They took a great deal of pride in their logic and this Pon Farr thing stripped them of it completely.
Archer waved his friend into a chair and slumped down into his own. "You know what happened right?" he asked. Trip simply nodded. This was a job that couldn't be assigned. Someone had to be a pressure valve for a Captain or the consequences were devastating. Here on Enterprise, the job was Trip's as Jon Archer's best friend. "Am I wimping out wanting a rule book now?" he asked.
"Hell no Jon! That was one hell of a decision you had to make," Trip said seriously. "We need a guide book. Unfortunately for you, you're the one stuck writing it."
"I'm not so sure I'm doing such a good job as an author," Archer admitted. "How many people did I sentence to death today?"
"You and Phlox bought them time Jon. Don't discount that. The fact is that the line has to be drawn somewhere. Interference in another planet's culture, people or politics can never end well. We shouldn't meddle. We will never know enough about the situation to make a good decision; at least not on a planetary scale. Look at what the Vulcans did to us! And I'm starting to figure out that they really have no clue what they did."
Archer nodded. As they spent more time out here and more time around T'Pol, he was beginning to lose his resentment and suspicions of Vulcans in general. And there was what Hoshi had said. "You're right about interfering Trip. It's just a lot easier when we're talking about politics or something like that. This was a medical emergency."
"You did the right thing Jon. You refused to play God and that is something that every starship captain should have burned into their brains. You know maybe you should take that old saying about writing the book literally. God knows that the best teacher is experience and the brass back home don't have squat." Trip said. "Look back at our first landing party. Although I'm glad that you didn't have the experience necessary to know that T'Pol and I shouldn't have both been there because our trip to the decon chamber got things started for us." He gave a leering grin that startled Archer into laughter and a better frame of mind. It didn't completely lift the burden off of the captain's shoulders but it did give him something else to think about. Not all the decisions Archer made would end in disaster and some would have unexpected benefits.