Chapter 37

Vergence Disorder (MU)

Refers to the eyes' ability to turn either inward (convergence) or outward (divergence)

(Part 1 of 2)

A/N: I'm giving this chapter a very hard R or T++. There a short section of the scene where T'Pol is looking for Tucker that goes beyond implication/fading to black. It is rough, consensual but not graphic but still pushes the line but I feel it has not gone outside the boundaries into NC-17/M. Others may disagree with me and act accordingly (Admins – rate this chapter as you see it).

Tucker tucked the covers around her before he left. Mickey and Vorack ignored his insistence that this was not the best time. Equally as adamant that it was vital that he return to the station. He had two missions for the evening. The first was to meet with a group of traders who had been brought to the ship to meet with Nim to negotiate deals for several cloaking devices and for the future needs of the Resistance. With Nim only allowed to leave the brig to make the arrangements and T'Pol restricted from duty it fell to Tucker to impress them and finalize the arrangements. His second mission was to spend some social time mingling with the crew who were enjoying the many recreational activities the station offered.

The deals had been finalized the obviously uncomfortable Tucker sat, tapping his fingers on the tabletop, with Mickey at the next to last bar watching the crew milling about and exchanging meaningless chit chat with those who stopped by their table. Several of the 'hostesses', as he politely referred to them, had stopped by with some pretty sad attempts to interest Tucker in their services but he refused to even acknowledge their presence for fear they'd hang around and keep trying. Mickey had tried to run interference but had been taken out of action when at Tucker's insistence he accepted an invitation from a very persistent Rigelian. The officer ignored the attentions, at first, but Tucker really needed to be alone and took pity on the head of security knowing it could be months before they visited another planet or station. And being on the senior staff meant Mickey had to oversee the security concerns for the entire fleet and protect Tucker and T'Pol. Their protection had become a fulltime job since as fleet commanders they were often not on Defiant and required extra protection even when called away to other ships in the fleet. He needed the break so Tucker ordered him to go. As he left Tucker clasped his hands tightly together to stop them shaking and was thankful that T'Pol wasn't here with him.

Having decided to move on to the last stop of the evening Tucker headed out to locate the bar. He'd get a drink, make quick work of speaking to each of the crew he came across and get back to the ship.

"Can we get you anything?" The young female inquired.

"I'd like..." What was that drink Mickey had ordered for him? "...there's this drink that is blue and fizzy. It taste like..." Beer, what humans called beer but then he knew they wouldn't know what that was much less what it tasted like. It had taken hours to find something that resembled coffee to replenish the ships supply until they figured out how to speed up the growth of the beans in the hydroponics garden and then learned how to roast them properly.

"We have two blue drinks. I'll bring both and you can decide if one of them is what you're looking for."

Tucker was contemplating the taste test when several of the crew came over. "Commander, what are you doing over here all by yourself? Come join us."

"I'll stop by in a minute." Tucker stood scanning the room for the hostess who went to get his much needed drink. A commotion caught his attention but no crewmen from the fleet were involved and tonight he was in no mood to be a Good Samaritan so went back to locating the hostess.

She returned handed him the drinks and left. He sipped the first, thinking it was not the drink he'd had before but was drinkable, The second one was sour so he placed it on the table before going to join the crew, who were all intently watching several dancers on the podium near their table. Tucker found a chair and pulled it up to the next table and sat. He watched the dancers for a short time but couldn't decide if they were male, female or something in between and lost interest.

"If you see a dancer you like just signal her and if she's free she'll move to this podium." A being he took for the proprietor offered.

"That's alright. I'm fine." He wasn't fine his thoughts hadn't slowed down. He needed something to distract him for a little bit but this wasn't it. Sitting here watching the crew watch dancers was worst than sitting alone.

Several of the dancers appeared and began pushing in closer to him. "See anything you like?"

Touches on his arm, his aching head, his heart beat quickening, his inability to take a full breath shook him and in reaction he turned and abruptly yelled, "I'm not interested. Just leave me alone." His hands went up to forcibly push them all away as his feet began moving seemingly of their own accord.

Having reached an open area he dug deep to find some calm. "Commander Tucker." His comm sounded.

Focus. Focus. "This is Tucker."

"Commander we have a bit of a situation on the station. It seems several of the crew has disappeared since the last scan and we've been unable to reach Mickey."

"Keep trying Mickey he'll be along soon I'm sure. You said crew disappeared. From where?"

"Various locations. Their comm badges are no longer operational and without them we have no way of finding them."

"Contact Mickey. Have him meet me at Kendor's." The Coridan trader would know where to look. Tucker stepped out into the corridor to find the security officer talking rapidly to his crew on his comm but heading his way.

"That was fast." He'd been gone what three quarters of an hour?

"What? It was business not some romantic, long drawn out seduction."

The engineer had never approached sex as business but he supposed it hadn't been about seduction or romance. "Well, your timing is perfect. We're going to need help to find our crew."

Mickey had warned them all to be careful but there was always the possibility of things like this happening. No way to protect his crew when they were relaxing and let their guard down. Security teams had been dispatched to keep an eye out for trouble, but there were private areas they were not allowed in.

Walking down the corridor Tucker listened to the group behind him. 'I told you he wouldn't be interested but you had to encourage them. She's a Vulcan have you ever seen what they can do with their bare hands. He'd be a fool to cheat on her.' Another returned, 'Like you said she's a Vulcan you know how cold and unemotional they are and when I was on Avenger I saw how physical the humans were. He's going to be interested at some point. . .right. . .can't go without for too long or he'll. . .'

Tucker stopped and turned the pressure building inside again. A sheen of sweat had begun to appear on his face and neck. "Is this all you ever talk about or am I just lucky enough to be present every time you develop this concern over my sex life?"

"No, sir. Sorry sir." Several of the crewman stammered out while moving away from Tucker who was now so close he was looming over them.

Mickey saw the teetering emotions of his superior and instinctively went about attempting to diffuse the situation. "Commander you have to forgive them. Even though you have never given them any reason to think it acceptable they continue to speculate about their commanding officers private life."

The security officer had forced his body between Tucker and offending crewmen. Tucker clamped down on his anger berating himself for letting it get way too out of control for the circumstances. "Get them out of my sight." Mickey watched Tucker walk away studying his movements.

Tucker was too far away so he turned his attention back to the crewman. "Well, I don't think we'll have to worry about this happening again because if I ever hear any of you talking like that again you'll all know first hand what a Vulcan can do with her bare hands because I'll inform his mate of the total disrespect and crudeness you've continually exhibited towards both of your fleet commanders and then I'll encourage her to deal with you in any manner she sees fit. And once she's done I'll charge each of you with betraying their oath to this crew and the Resistance." By the time he finished with the crew Tucker was out of sight and Mickey was worried. He'd seen what happened when Tucker became overwhelmed with rage.

The Defiant crew had barely made it through the door before Kendor began trying to smooth things over. "I'm sorry Commander Tucker. We designated your crew off limits to our less savory residents but there are always those that believe they are not subject to our rules."

"Well, you did a bang up job." Tucker thundered across to a chair.

"Kendor, the ship left with full cargo bays." A being Tucker didn't recognize poked in to say.

"Was a tracking beacon attached to their hull upon entry?" Mickey questioned.

"Yes."

Another of Kendor's men handed Mickey a device. "The signal will transmit for several light-years. Adjust your sensors to the same frequency and you will have no problem following them."

Negotiations had been finalized of so tucker had thought. "Before we can do business here you need to do something to ensure the safety of our personnel on this station. If these slavers had gone through normal procedures when they departed your tracker would have been removed and then where would we be?" They'd be chasing warp signatures and ghosts trying to recover their kidnapped crew.

Mickey watched as Tucker left without saying another word, walking down the corridor opening and closing the fingers on one hand. "We'll be in touch as soon as we've laid this all out to the leadership", he informed Kendor. "Once you start to hear from our ships you will have to show that you've increased security and are doing all you can to prevent this type of activity in the future. If you require our assistance contact Tucker. I'd wait for a week or so before you do that just to give us time to find our crew and give him time to cool down."

{}

Commander T'Pol entered the holodeck. "Lt. Nimbus you failed the test again. Perhaps we need to add some incentive." She watched for any reaction but only saw a sly look pass through his eyes. "Computer engage training program Alpha 1, weapons set to the lowest stun and incrementally increased after each round until the safety level is reached for a Ferengi subject." The safety level up till now had been set to the lowest possible stun setting through the whole exercise but now it had been set to prevent the program from rendering the subject unconscious and to prevent stuns that would cause have any long term effects. T'Pol had honored her word thus far and not injured the supply officer but having spent hours, recalibrating the program and rewriting the code, on this training, she was done. Her patience was at an end.

The Ferengi stood up straighter at that. "From this point forward the computer will simulate actual weapons fire and will increase the stun setting each time you fail. Computer, upon my exit, lock down this holodeck until the Lieutenant has completed the training with an acceptable score."

"You can't do this." Nimbus shouted to her back as he watched her fingers entering the authorization code.

"Watch me." She retorted as the door closed behind her.

The compromise was reached with Tucker and Mickey concerning the Ferengi after she went after him the second time for shooting her mate. She promised not to do any permanent damage or alienate him so that he requested a transfer to another ship or left the fleet altogether. His skills were too valuable so her duty as a fleet officer and Tucker had prevailed in the end. Walking away she felt at peace. There would be no permanent damage, but the Ferengi would be fully trained and no longer a danger to her mate.

{}

Now she must locate Tucker who had effectively shut her out and been avoiding discussing anything of a personal nature since she'd been injured.

Physical exertion is all that came through to her as her mate had figured out a short-term method of selectively blocking their internal communication. Until she passed thorough the entrance of the rec room and the pain, from both his mind and body hit her. Watching his gloved fists make contact with the bag said he would plead exercise and conditioning but even from here the rawness of his hands was apparent. He had not chosen to forego the gloves for this session but T'Pol could tell it hadn't mattered. He'd told her he could deal with physical pain but the emotional and mental anguish often overwhelmed him.

If the physical pain became intense enough it almost numbed the rest. Not really numbing it but flooding his senses with so much sensation that the effect was the same. She didn't speak she simply reached out and touched the first visible bare skin she could see with her two fingers. She felt his startled reaction to her touching him in public. That was her objective. His motion stopped, his arms dropping down as he fell into the bag using his biceps to hold himself upright.

Physical release in the form of pain had always served him in the past so that was what he knew and sought here. Finding his balance between the extremes of anger, hate, guilt and then there's this undefined mental cry of anguish and a frozen kind of numbness to his extremities like his blood has stopped coursing through his veins. She could almost taste the tangy bitterness in his throat when he tried to push it and the revulsion back down.

T'Pol was in unfamiliar territory but knew she must handle him carefully. Her promise to not suppress his memories must be upheld but she had to alleviate some of this repulsion he was experiencing since his senses had settled and his mind tried to wrap itself around the idea of actually taking another life, another human life. She now must work to keep her own emotions regarding events from their connection and eyes to avoid adding to his turmoil.

Conditioning had been lacking for Tucker. He'd been trained on Xindus to fight and he'd learned how to stay alive. What they hadn't been able to prepare him for was the eventuality of killing anyone and more importantly of facing humans in battle, one on one. Combat training on Xindus had all been with aliens and while taking any life was difficult, Tucker had confirmed for her that for some when that life was one of your own species and not accomplished blindly it could be haunting. The Vulcan was aware of his keeping her from experiencing exactly this and that he thought himself strong enough to shoulder this reality for himself. And he may have been more prepared if not for her meddling with his emotions after their encounter with the Vulcans, effectively making this the first kill of real impact on his psyche. Added to this were his efforts to keep her protected from the crew finding out about their bond and her attempts to kill Nim. She felt what she thought was guilt but wasn't sure and had no idea what to do about it.

Tucker's eyes were averted to some imaginary spot on the floor a few feet away while one side of his brain tried to convince the other that he'd done Archer a favor but those piercing eyes and last words refused to cease flashing through his mind's eye. 'They've made you a murderer.' Hour upon hour he'd spent deep inside himself contemplating this dilemma. Knowing he was guilty of killing but morally, if it was unavoidable and in the defense of others he shouldn't consider it as wrong but then Archer would appear again and again and the arguments were on an endless loop. He was lost inside his own mind fighting to find something anything to hold onto. His face lifted and his fists began to hit the bag again and again trying to obliterate those cold, blank eyes that were staring back at him.

T'Pol stood in front of him letting the bag hit her in the chest as he continued to strike it, showing no sign of seeing her there. As it came forward she pushed it to the side and placed her body between him and the bag, grabbing his bloodied hands. The contact startled her and he reacted violently pushing her backwards until she made contact with the wall, pinning her there with his forearms. She could feel his mind trying to connect, trying to make sense out of something but the blackness had enveloped him so thoroughly that he was lost. His eyes looked past her. His body showed no familiar signs of passion and desire other than an erection that he was pressing almost painfully into her hip.

He pulled at her uniform so forcefully it ripped even though his hands should have been useless from the beating they had taken. Was this like before when he'd told her to stop him? She didn't think it was. Then he'd been angry with her, now his emotions were all directed at himself. Self hatred and loathing along with anger and repulsion. He was adrift in his own mind searching for an anchor, something to bring him back from the abyss.

T'Pol didn't understand what she felt he needed but she had to try to give him the skin to skin contact his mind was screaming out for. She ripped at his uniform making short work of the zipper from the neck to his waist. He pushed his mouth against hers hard forcing her head against the bulkhead. She returned the force backing him up slightly so she could remove her uniform only to be slammed back again as his hands pulled at her and he slammed into her with his bare chest. Warm moist breaths came rapidly against her neck inducing none of the sensations their passion created.

Without looking she knew his eyes were glazed over, unseeing. She felt his hands roughly and without purpose raking up and down her body, never stopping. 'I am his mate' kept running through her mind as she searched through his mind to find memories that she herself did not possess of her Pon Farr. Wishing to know if this was what that time had been like for him.

Pain - all she could feel was pain seeping through her skin wherever his came into contact. For a brief second her heart stopped as her body temperature increased. Her first instinct was to suppress it all but that would only protect her and do nothing to assist her mate, who was so deep inside his own mind she could barely find him.

The force of their joining was beyond anything they had experienced before.

He immediately slumped against her spent. She felt some part of him let go and held him until, she could lay him gently on the floor. She joined him wrapping her arms around him holding him tightly against her. His body had given in to exhaustion but the swirl of emotions and thoughts in his mind had not abated at all.

Waiting until he came around enough to realize where they were and what had happened was the only option so she gently entered his mind soothing him where she could and trying to sense his awareness so she could prevent guilt from overtaking him again. She had to hope this connection was strong enough and he had weakened himself enough that she could keep him with her. Keep him from seeking refuge inside his mind again. She needed to make him hear her when he came to.

Fully awake the intense pain forced a reaction as he kept trying to push away from her. His vision was cloudy but his eyes first took in the condition of his hands and then immediately returned to several bloody smears trailing down her body. "I didn't. Please tell me I didn't," came out in an anguished whisper.

The answer had been processed before the question was formed. Her hands reached out to him. "You didn't hurt me. You didn't force me. You were lost and needed me and I willingly gave you what you needed."

The bruised lip and discoloration on her sides told him something different along with the throbbing he felt at the back of her head. He'd been adamant with her about being careful not to reinjure herself having barely healed from what Archer had done to her. "I'm supposed to protect you. How do I protect you from myself?" Tears rolled down his cheeks.

"This was no worse than our first encounters during my Pon Farr. You needed to feel alive, connected, and acted on instinct. There is nothing wrong with that. I wish you had sought me out before you were so distraught. You would never hurt me and I would not allow you to if you were to try."

"You promised to stop me."

"This was not the same and I will go against my word to remove the memory if you dwell on this and let your guilt poison what we have between us. Stop it now or I will do it." She buried all her doubts about following through wanting to make sure he took her words seriously.

"Would you really take away my memory?"

"I will do what I have to to keep you safe and sane. So yes."

"I don't deserve your understanding about what I did."

"You suffered through much worse for several months and you forgave me. And what happened here was nothing like that. I was fully aware and participated of my own free will."

"I can't let you take the memory but if I can't get past this I will go to Restak, tell him what I did and see if he can do something that doesn't involve totally absolving me for what I did." Removing the memory would make it okay and he couldn't, wouldn't let that happen.

She let him work it out for some time before she began speaking again. "You are not a monster. You are not a murderer. You are a soldier. There is a difference. You fight and kill for a just cause. And you are my mate."

His mind was foggy and his thoughts were jumbled but the rational part of his brain was beginning to function again. Yes he was a soldier and he fought for a future free of the tyranny of a corrupt empire but each time Archer's final moments replayed his duty as a soldier, fleet commander felt foreign in the scenario. "It's not like that and you know it. If it came down to me or him that's just self-preservation, instinct. That's just the way it way it is."

Morality wasn't something he'd ever given much consideration but he'd never killed another human being before. Hadn't known it would affect him this way. And if they were to finish what they'd set out to do, it meant finding a way to get past it. Added to this was the knowledge that he hadn't acted as a soldier. "But it wasn't about me dying. It never got that far it was about..." His eyes drilled into hers. "All I saw was you. Not Commander T'Pol, not T'Pol of Vulcan, but T'Pol my mate." His mission was to protect her above all else. It overrode every other oath he had or ever would take. And to do that he must keep himself alive or ensure she died with him because death was not the worst of the possible outcomes if he were killed. Insanity was. And he could not risk leaving her alone with no control of her mind and her future.

"You acted as my bondmate and protected me. You had no choice it is a biological imperative for bonded mates."

Anger infused him. "It wasn't the bond. It was all me and I'd do it again right this minute if it meant keeping you safe. I don't know why I can't..." All he knew was he had to get this out of his head before they ran into the Vulcans again. Some part of him had always understood what the affect killing another Vulcan would have on T'Pol, but seeing what it had done to him made him even more concerned with what the impact would be on one who had been indoctrinated with the belief that killing, in general was wrong. "I can't let you go through this ever." He reached out and held onto his self-doubt, that fear that he wouldn't be able to protect her, tightly preventing any sliver of these emotions from slipping past his barriers.

She removed the form fitting gloves slowly. Peeling them away from his damaged flesh trying to ease them away from where the blood and tissue had dried. He hissed in pain as they came off. "You will do what must be done to protect me and I will do the same for you. Now, we must first go to our quarters and clean up, then you must see the doctor."

He put his arms around her and pulled her in close, allowing her to feel everything inside that he had been hiding. But mostly he wanted her to know how truly sorry he was. "Can he come to our quarters? I'm not really in the mood for. . .it still gives me . . .I really can't go in there tonight." Doctor Kamseth was nothing like Phlox and had gone out of his way to make him more comfortable but it would take time to recondition himself so entering a medical facility didn't make his insides freeze up.

She would agree to anything to keep him here.

A/N: This chapter is a bit shorter than normal and my updates may be delayed somewhat more than they have been of late. My father passed away from heart failure so the next few days/week will be tense. It hasn't really sunk it yet. Probably won't until I get back home and away from the rest of the family. It doesn't help that my dad lived in Flint, MI the most depressing pit ever. Can't believe I missed that fact when I lived here as a kid. The neighborhood where I grew up is one big crack house. Anyway I have several chapters in the editing phase but right now I don't feel much like writing. I will be reading others work it just gives me something else to think about and a respite from my totally dysfunctional family and who knows I might find writing cathartic after the funeral but for right now I need to concentrate on other things. Hope everyone is having a great summer.