Trip
Trip thinks about the weeks that have passed since he met T'Lara. Her people have some amazing compounds and he's come to realise the coup it was for Hugh to get his hands on them, provided they perform as well as the Vulcan's say they will. He doesn't really doubt they will, Vulcans are way too cautious to risk their reputations on things they haven't tested extensively. In fact if Trip's experience, on the Warp 5 project, with proscribed Vulcan testing regimes is anything to go by, he considers it entirely possible that it was T'Lara's great grandfather that developed this stuff and they are only just ready to put it to use now.
He's gone back to his design and, using the new compounds, has been able to take 50% off the thickness of the outer hull, which is enough to get the engine down to their target size. But then, still inspired by what he has to work with, he's takes out an old matter/anti matter injector design he'd been tinkering with during his MIT years, reimagines them with some of these new materials and the variable compression nozzles and comes up with an injector design small enough that he'll be able to fit two sets of them in the GDFM. When he shows Hugh and T'Lara, Hugh is naturally delighted with the developments. T'Lara looks them over with the skeptical eye she applies to all his work.
"I don't recognise these injector designs, where did you get them?" She asks. The subtle insult that he is not talented enough to design them himself is not lost on him.
"They're mine, I came up with original designs fifteen years ago when I was at MIT. I just tweaked them a bit, incorporated the new material and some new technologies that weren't available to me then." He answers blandly. He's got enough experience not to let himself get drawn into a Vulcan web of aspersion.
"It was my understanding you did not complete your High School education. How is it that you attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?" T'Lara's not letting up today.
Trip shakes his head. He can't believe that people still buy into that shtick, dreamed up by Starfleet PR for the Enterprise launch, that he was a dropout that learned his trade fixing boat engines and he tells T'Lara as much.
Hugh, completely oblivious to the mild interstellar war going on between the Vulcan and the human, is too busy counting dollar signs. He can barely contain his excitement, after ensuring Trip owns the patent for the original injectors, which he does.
Trip considers T'Lara, she's a strange one. He's never gotten to the bottom of her apparent instant dislike of him. In fact he's surprised at how often she shows emotion. He thinks back to when he first met T'Pol, how frequently they would go at each other over various issues. He knows now what an unusual Vulcan that made T'Pol, how emotional. T'Lara seems equally as emotional but usually less easily provoked, she seems to have incorporated her emotional nature into her Vulcan identity more seamlessly than T'Pol ever did, as if she's more accepting of herself.
The only thing T'Lara doesn't seem to accept is how she feels about Trip. There's the hostility, which is more likely at the end of the day, there have times over the past few weeks where Trip has just wanted to throw up his hands and tell her to go meditate and when she's done come back and talk to him like a normal person. There's confused T'Lara, the one that looks at him as if he reminds her of someone but she can't figure out who. Then there's the scientist, the academic, when that T'Lara comes out to play, Trip is reminded of the times he and T'Pol used to work together on problems. He doesn't have quite the same symmetry of minds with her that he had with T'Pol but he wonders if there is something about his thinking that meshes with Vulcans somehow.
He can't quite figure it out how he does it, but he just seems to get them, he can read their expressions, understand their subtleties, figure out their intentions and expectations. It's not just T'Lara he's noticed it with. Since coming to San Francisco prior to his departure for Vulcan, he's spent time with several Vulcans, including Soval, and sometimes it's almost like he's got a secret Vulcan in his head, whispering their secrets to him. He can even see that most of them feel more comfortable with him than the other humans on the team. He puts it down to all those years living and working with T'Pol, obviously something rubbed off on him. Even Soval seems interested in spending more time with him.
In fact, Soval has been bordering on friendly with him. Sharing meals with him, talking about recent events on Vulcan and Earth and what it means for Vulcan/human relations. They even somehow get onto the topic of Trip and T'Pol's daughter and Trip is pretty sure Soval seems angry when Trip tells him that he has not discussed it with anyone because he is bound the confidential classification. Soval quietly refers him to a lawyer who specialises in human rights law.
She listens to the story with evident horror and takes him on as a client straight away. Two days later she contacts Trip and tells him he needs to apply for a birth certificate for his daughter so she can proceed with her action, which means he has to name her. He spends an evening looking at baby names and keeps getting drawn to the name Amy. He feels uncomfortable naming her without T'Pol's input and discusses it with Soval. He realises what a relief it is to have someone to talk to about his daughter, how lonely it had been to have the knowledge and the grief and yet, be unable to ease that burden by sharing it.
"Is there a reason you were drawn to this name, Amy?" Soval asks him.
"Uh, yeah," Trip feels a little embarrassed at his sentimentality in the face of a Vulcan's impassiveness. "It's because it means 'beloved'."
"I see, that seems an excellent reason." Soval looks at him intently. "and you are questioning this choice because...?"
"I have to..." he's not certain how to verbalise the reason for his hesitation "It's not something..." Trip presses his lips together and sighs. "Usually both parents would select a child's name together. I don't know what T'Pol would want, or if she would even want to do this."
"I assure you, Mr Tucker, T'Pol's thoughts, and feelings, on the matter of this child are very similar to your own." Soval looks at Trip thoughtfully. "Perhaps you could choose a Vulcan name with a similar meaning? In that way you would honour her Vulcan heritage in the her given name and her human heritage with her family name. "
Trip nods in agreement "You know, that does seem like a really good idea. I assume you know a Vulcan name with the same meaning?"
"The closest I can think of is, T'Shanik, it means 'Lady loved at first sight'."
He likes that, he likes it a lot. In fact, he has a strange certainty about the name but does not trust his instincts where T'Pol is concerned and says as much to Soval. Soval gives him an enigmatic look and assures him that T'Pol will be of the same mind.
A week later, the day before he departs for Vulcan, he is back in Soval's office staring at the birth certificate for T'Shanik Tucker, who died before she lived, before he knew she existed or even could exist. He has instructed the lawyer to have her remains sent to Vulcan once Starfleet releases them. He doesn't want her body to lie amongst these people, who in the end are his people, but are the ones who created her to die and the ones who sought to deny her very existence. He's not sure what will happen once her remains arrive on Vulcan and says as much to Soval. The Vulcan calmly agrees to handle all the details of the repatriation and the funeral rights once she gets there, which includes informing T'Pol. Trip has a strange feeling of tightness in his chest at thought of seeing T'Pol, for the first time in months, at their daughter's funeral.
Finally, Trip feels that he has done what small thing he can for his daughter that never was and thanks Soval for his assistance. Soval accepts his gratitude with grace and invites Trip to join him for lunch. As they walk along a colonnade they look down at a Vulcan wedding taking place in the courtyard below. Trip is struck by the familiarity of the scene, a feeling of deja vu that certainly hasn't have come from attending a Vulcan wedding in the past. Soval, seeing his attention has been caught by the spectacle, is strangely indulgent of his curiosity and speaks at some length about the rituals involved in a Vulcan wedding and then goes even further to explain the telepathic bond that forms between spouses. Trip takes it all in silently, while watching the the couple with their hands extended, first and second fingers touching. He has a sneaking suspicion that Soval isn't telling him all this accidentally. He wonders if he is being warned. If Soval is aware of his failed relationship with T'Pol and is trying to let him know that it could never have worked, because his human mind was incapable of forming this bond and her Vulcan mind would have always been seeking it.
He feeds this new information into the shield he is building around his heart. His latest attempt to numb himself to what he has lost. He has become an engineer of his emotions, focused on their containment and suppression. Because he's about to spend six months on Vulcan, and he's pretty sure if he wants to hold it together, he needs to keep away from her. It is with that carefully cultivated numbness that he prepares to travel to Vulcan.
There had been some debate about whether he should go on an Earth or Vulcan vessel. The latter being faster, the former more comfortable for a human. It had dragged on a bit and in the end he had put his foot down and told T'Lara that he would take the journey on one of Hugh's transports (that guy has his finger in a lot of pies) for no other reason than because, as an employee of one of Hugh's companies, it meant he could at least tinker in the engine room. He realises that he is looking forward to getting out to space again, to fine tuning an actual, working engine rather than just a hypothetical one. He's surprised at himself, it's been months since he's looked forward to anything.
So it is, almost seven months to the day since he last saw her, he finds himself back in space. He stares down at Earth through the viewing port in his quarters, watching it shrink to nothing as they speed away and feels nothing but relief to be gone. He is shocked by the strange new awareness that Earth has come mean betrayal to him. He wonders how he will feel when it is time to come back. But mostly, he feels relief because the further he gets from his home planet, the closer he gets to hers and every time he thinks about it, it feels a little bit easier to breathe.
XXX
Soval
He is surprised by the appearance of Charles Tucker when he sees him again after so many months. He realises he should not be, humans' physical well being is generally so much more tied to their emotional well being than Vulcans. He should have reasoned that, given the physical effect of an incomplete, un-nurtured bond on a Vulcan, that it would take its toll on a human as much physically, as well as emotionally. Emotionally, however, Tucker is difficult to read. There is a certain dullness that humans seem oddly oblivious to, but he notices Vulcans occasionally glancing at Tucker as if trying to fathom something they have detected in the human that is somehow amiss, but are unable to marry their innate knowledge of Vulcan bonds with a neglected one in a human.
He has long ago realised that humans have far more control over their emotions than Vulcans have ever given them credit for. Certainly their emotional life is far more finely tuned than Vulcans were ever capable of. The Vulcan emotional world is a blunt tool that is either almost fully suppressed or all encompassing. Humans, on the other hand, are capable experiencing a full gamut of emotions, all while their intellectual capabilities remain at full capacity. Even with this understanding, he is amazed at this human's ability to push his emotional turmoil aside and continue, at least outwardly, to function somewhat normally. Certainly his intellectual genius is not stunted, even the Vulcans who work with him are impressed by his innate ability to conceptualise and innovate in his chosen discipline.
He watches Tucker's Vulcan interactions with interest. His whole demeanour seems to change when he communicates with Vulcans. He reasons it could be years of experience from working with T'Pol, but Soval suspects it is more likely to be the effect of the bond. As if Mr Tucker is accessing shared knowledge of the bond and instinctively adjusts his behaviour to suit Vulcan sensibilities. He can make the switch between cultures almost instantaneously, even with T'Lara, who frequently demonstrates she has not completed the process of grieving her lost fiancé and is not above using the erstwhile engineer of the Enterprise as an outlet for her anger.
To his credit, Mr Tucker endures her aggression with surprising equanimity, if not a little confusion. Soval has to admit he is impressed with Tucker's command of his emotions. Prior V'Shar intelligence reports would have had the reader believe that Mr Tucker has little to no emotional discipline, yet the unprovoked verbal slapping he endures daily from T'Lara gives lie to that assessment. Soval sighs to himself and vows to speak to the young scientist. He hypothesised that she might find an outlet amongst the more emotional people of Earth, for her entirely understandable grief in response to the loss of her betrothed, but he has not detected an easing of the emotion. He knows he will be forced into the quite uncomfortable position of raising the topic with her to determine if they can, together, formulate some kind of solution for her, at least for the relief of Mr Tucker who is bearing up so stoically under the weight of her misplaced ire.
But before approaching T'Lara, he has some issues he must address with Mr Tucker. The first, which falls under the purview of his role as the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, is the status of the deceased hybrid child that was created from T'Pol and Charles Tucker's DNA. As the offspring of a Vulcan, the child is considered a Vulcan citizen, but there is a distinct effort by Starfleet to "brush the affair under the mat" to use the vernacular. This is a somewhat inadequate approach from the Vulcan perspective, as it does not address the telepathic connection Vulcan parents form with their children, which begins in utero, even for the ones spawned in tanks by insane bigots with the intention that they die tragically young.
Soval is appalled that Tucker has been prevented, by virtue of the classification that has been applied to all aspects of the case, from disclosing the existence of the child to anyone,. He is perplexed by the arbitrary way humans often treat their emotions as if they are a nothing more than an inconvenience rather than a biological necessity. He grieves on behalf of this human who has been abandoned to such appalling knowledge and left to suffer in silence. It is fortunate he has already discussed the issue with an a Embassy staff member who is an expert in Earth law and has a referral for a lawyer who can assist Mr Tucker with at least getting legal acknowledgement of the child.
The relief from Tucker at the opportunity to discuss the tragic infant is palpable. Soval is even surprised by hints of a bond with the child. The vivid dream of drowning that Tucker experienced when the child died could be coincidental but seems to correspond with some of T'Pol's experiences at the same time. It is intriguing this hybrid bond, if it wasn't considered such a private matter it would be fascinating to investigate its nature.
Which brings Soval to the second of his tasks. Tucker's apparent interest when he spies the wedding occurring in the Embassy courtyard gives Soval the perfect opportunity to enlighten Mr Tucker on the nature of Vulcan mating bonds. He and T'Les both agree that there is no way to know how Mr Tucker will respond when informed of the existence of the bond. As a member of a largely non-telepathic species they have entertained the notion that he may be repulsed by the idea of sharing a open psionic link with another individual. They decide together that the best way to introduce the concept is to enlighten Tucker about the nature of Vulcan matebonds prior to leaving Earth, which would give him several weeks to process the information so the existence of his own bond with T'Pol would not come as such a complete shock when he learns of it. Despite following his and T'Les' careful plans for the reintroduction of Trip and T'Pol he has few concerns about the human's feelings about T'Pol. During the process of making arrangements for the remains of their child, Tucker had been altogether too concerned about what her point of view may be for Soval to be left in any doubt about where Trip's feelings lay.
Now there was only to address the issue of T'Lara. He considers her lack of a potential mate may be a source of stress for her and she may benefit from an early return to Vulcan so she can resolve her personal affairs. Her secondment still has six months to run but, given her involvement with this project, it is entirely suitable for her to return to Vulcan early to continue in her capacity as the Vulcan liaison with human team. It will simply be viewed as a natural extension of her role here on Earth and no one will be tempted to consider that she has been censured, which is by no means the case. He sends her a message, requesting that she meet with him and ponders how it is that, as member of a species that has supposedly eschewed emotions, he seems to have been dealing with people's feelings on a strangely regular basis recently.
He takes a moment to bask in the satisfaction that comes from the resolution of several issues before moving on to the next set of tasks that require his attention. Much has changed, for the better, between Earth and Vulcan over the past seven months. He ponders how the members of both species will view the news of the inter-species relationship and hybrid child. He realises that he feels a certain optimism for the future, for their future, that was absent under the old Vulcan regime. As a Vulcan, it is illogical to hope, but it is a seductive feeling and rather than suppress it as he normally would, he takes a moment to just enjoy it. A small, private moment to just let the feeling wash over him, to take it all in and to breathe.
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