Spoiler Alerts for "Breaking the Ice" and earlier episodes!
This story details a personal mission on the part of Trip Tucker...he's going to get their resident Vulcan to call him by his nickname. But that's not going to be easy...even for a charming engineer.
I've used a bit of headcanon here. Trip and T'Pol have met before, in a sense, in the Fusion nightclub, where T'Pol followed soft jazz that changed her life.
The Story A Day prompt was to write a story with a Cinderella structure: try, fail; try, fail; try, fail; try - win a chance at happiness.
As always, I profit nothing - I just love them.
Critiques and comments always gratefully accepted - they make me a better writer.
Trip Tucker had a mission. It all started when Miss Pointed Ears Under That Cowl strode right into Jon Archer's Ready Room, ears bare for all to see, carrying a PADD and a seemingly impenetrable Vulcan arrogance.
Right then and there, he decided.
He was going to break through all that, and find the woman who had swayed and closed her eyes while listening to soft jazz on a Tuesday night in San Francisco.
He really didn't have a choice. She'd swayed and sighed her way into his fantasies that night, and she'd taken right over, erasing every other woman he'd dreamed of. And then she stayed put with admirable stubbornness, driving him wild on a regular basis, and fueling the most sinfully passionate dreams – dreams without a shred of logic to them.
Of course, she wasn't a severe, ramrod-straight, condescending, handshake refusing ….person…in his fantasies.
But he knew a few things about her no one else did, and he was going to get her to warm up to him here on Enterprise, the way she had back there. Or, at least, the way he thought she had. Since they'd never even gotten to the handshake or introduction phase back then, it was maybe more in his imagination than not – but he was damned well going to find out.
He was an engineer, and he knew that the way to set a goal was with a measurable and conclusive outcome. His was getting her to call him Trip. If he could get a handshake out of her at the same time, all the better – but she was going to do more than answer his, "I'm called Trip," with a toneless and dismissive, "I'll try to remember that" as she turned her masterpiece of a backside to him.
It hadn't been smooth sailing, so far. He'd nearly killed her in a cave and got himself knocked up by a completely different alien lady by sticking his hands in her box of pebbles. But he'd also comforted her through some strange nightmare during the Andorian invasion, and that made him think he might just be getting close.
It was a little like designing a Warp 5 engine from the ground up, but he was starting to see the schematics. It wasn't likely to be one big, grand gesture, not with her. It was going to have to be a scaffolding mission, gradually getting her more comfortable with humanity in general, and him in specific. And it wasn't exactly going to be easy, because Jon kept on blaming her for her entire species, and that didn't exactly cast theirs in a good light for someone who seemed almost fanatically determined to see everything through a lens of logic and only logic.
But then he got the packet from Ian's class back on Earth, and there was a picture he really, really wanted her to have – the one Ian's best friend Gaby drew – a picture of an extra-green, huge-eared T'Pol looking ready to take on both Earth and space – apparently with hearts, stars, and an astro-cat named Lady. He loved that picture so much, he'd made a copy for his personal computer terminal, but he wasn't going to tell her that.
The thing was, he couldn't just give it to her outright. He knew her well enough by now to know that she'd never accept it. But she seemed to like rising to his challenges as much as he liked rising to hers, and she took being teased about her Vulcanness as a challenge.
So he got Phlox on board. That part was easy – Phlox was so jovial, he made Trip look serious, and he'd been around enough Vulcans that he didn't seem in the least intimidated by T'Pol. All Trip had to do was be in the Mess Hall with Phlox and plant a subtle suggestion that he was sharing out the images, and Phlox took care of the preliminaries.
And, if they hadn't come upon the comet just then, he might have gotten a lot more mileage out of that picture. He'd gotten her with the realistic portrayal of Enterprise, goaded her a bit with the tentacled first contact, and then brought it all home with her portrait, which he was sure she secretly liked even if there was no way she'd say so out loud.
But maybe, just maybe, he'd gotten somewhere. She hadn't refused, after all, and she had looked. And thengiven him a look that held a bit more than Vulcan superiority – he and little Gaby had surprised her, for sure.
He hadn't expected to get a bonus opportunity the same night, but he wasn't the kind of guy to let a perfectly good chance go by, either. When she came into the Mess Hall late in the evening, her focus on her PADD, just as he was about to settle in for a well-earned piece of pecan pie and a glass of cold milk – just the way Mom used to serve it up for him every Friday after school – he knew he had to make his good luck count. He was still right by the drink dispenser, and she didn't rebuff him when he engaged her in conversation. No one would be accusing her of being good at small talk anytime soon, but she responded, and that counted for enough that he invited her to join him, and, because he was a gentleman, he even pulled out a chair for her.
Apparently, that gesture didn't translate to Vulcan – it probably wasn't logical, when she could just as easily set down her PADD and tea and do it herself – but he left the chair out anyway. And then he kept the conversation going, even when she said she was very tired. That by itself was something. He'd never heard any other Vulcan admit to even a hint of mortal frailty.
He wanted to cheer when she came and took that chair, but he chattered on about the fires in Sickbay and his lifelong love affair with pecan pie instead – and then had an inspiration about how to shake this conversation up a little. He raised his fork and offered her a bite, just knowing she would refuse, but still hoping she wouldn't.
She refused, but it gave them something else to talk about, while she dissed the sugar content of a dessert – clearly, she hadn't ever tried a dessert, because she was totally missing the point of what dessert was for, and he put it on his mental checklist to get her to try something sweet at least once, so she could base her opinion on actual taste rather than the ingredients.
Not tonight though – because she went back to reading whatever was on her PADD – withdrawing back into herself even though she was sitting in the same spot. He decided to give it one more go, and commented on her reading material – and that's when he knew something was bothering her. It was in the way she set down the tea, and swallowed, her eyes were unfocused in that turned-inward way that meant personal trouble in humans.
"You all right?" Maybe it was a breach of privacy to ask her that, but it wasn't likely anyone else on the ship was liable to notice if she was having some kind of problem, and she was part of the crew. Maybe Vulcans didn't need friends, but hurting was hurting, and no one should have to hurt alone on a ship full of people.
She looked directly at him for a second or two, her eyes saying things he wished to hell he knew how to interpret, and then she said, "I'm fine, Commander. Good night." He didn't know if she thought he believed her, but, if she wasn't ready to talk, his engineering instincts said it not to push her. Still, he wanted her to know he was here, and not just in a professional capacity.
"Sweet dreams," he said, and, though she didn't respond, he felt like maybe, overall, he'd gained some ground.
And then the Vulcan ship showed up, and, right after that, the weird power surge that turned out to be an encrypted message sent to T'Pol's quarters – maybe something to do with that PADD that had her so upset? Maybe he shouldn't have gone to the Captain about it. Certainly, he shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. But hindsight was always perfect. At the time, he'd been sure there was some covert reason why she was getting encrypted messages, and he did what he thought a good third in command ought to do when the second in command might not be trustworthy….
But he should have asked her. Should have at least felt her out, to see if the conclusions he and Jon had jumped to were way off base…or he should have talked to Hoshi, at least. Hoshi, who'd maybe tried to warn him by saying she didn't think it would be right to translate the message.
But no. He'd had to go with his impulses, and read her letter – a letter he didn't really understand, but which he sure as hell wouldn't want anyone else sticking their noses into if it was his. He knew he'd done wrong by her in a big way. That made him mad, and defensive – but he knew he had to fess up to her, because there wasn't any way he could look her or his mirror in the eye until he did.
He could feel all the progress he'd made sliding away in the face of honest to goodness Vulcan anger – anger she was controlling, but not even slightly trying to hide from him. And all the while he knew the ultimatum she faced, and why that damned Vulcan ship was hanging out there like a vulture waiting to pluck her up and take her off to a husband she didn't seem that thrilled with marrying, by the look of that letter.
She had every right to never trust him again. And it just got worse when that supercilious ass, Captain Vanik, came aboard. Trip could feel T'Pol's tension, and he tried to help her out, but Jon and Vanik both seemed to be on their worst behavior. She tried – he wanted to give her a medal for the way she tried. Then it all fell apart, and Vanik said something to T'Pol that was flat-out nasty even without a translation, and she deflated and left without another word.
If he hadn't read her letter –
But she gave him another chance. Invited him to her room, asked his advice. And he wasn't going to impose his agenda on that. He was going to help her, even if what she wanted was to go back and marry her fiancé. A fiance' he'd never guess she had –
Then she dropped that bombshell about her marriage having been arranged when she was a little kid. She was considering selling herself off – and yet, it seemed like she didn't want to, that she was hoping for him to tell her he wanted her to stay…and he came real close.
But she went on and on about duty and tradition and how her personal feelings on the matter meant nothing, and he sure as hell didn't want to tell her she should ditch all that just to be here on the same ship he was on, when most of the time they still couldn't seem to even avoid butting heads, much less recapture even a hint of the magic he thought they'd had back there in Fusion.
When he left her quarters, they were both pretty steamed. Maybe it meant something that she'd lowered her voice when she mentioned confiding, and didn't hide her anger when she thought he was criticizing her culture. She'd told him things he was sure no one else on the ship knew; he'd betrayed her trust, but she'd given him another chance.
So, even though he left with a headache, and the frustration of being sure she was going to go off and do something she was going to hate – maybe even have children she'd quietly resent because she was essentially coerced into it – he thought maybe he could hang onto that little treasure. It wasn't what he'd hoped for – she was still calling him "Commander" – but it was more than he probably had any right to expect from her.
And maybe she'd have gone ahead and done that, if Malcolm and Travis hadn't ended up in a crevasse he couldn't get them out of. Only the Vulcans could, but Jon was still in a mental pissing contest with Vanik. ….until T'Pol talked him into it with a quiet passion and eloquence – and his own words, brilliantly turned to her purpose.
Then she blew his mind a second time by bucking all her world's traditions, and staying rather than going off to marry a guy who couldn't possibly know her even as well as Trip did – and he seemed to be learning by the minute that he didn't know nearly as much about her as he thought he did.
Not one other soul on this ship knew the commitment she'd just made, or the one she'd just broken. In the hour since, he'd been wracking his brains to find some way to tell her that he knew – not just what she was gaining, but also what she was losing.
When he got a message from Chef that he had one slice of pecan pie left, and was saving it for Trip, he knew just what he was going to do. He was going to welcome her to her life among humans in a very human way, to pay tribute to everything she was gaining and losing. Sweetness to celebrate the good, and maybe soften the edges of the bad.
And it didn't even matter whether he got her to call him by his nickname.
