Two Spirit
He thought of them often, even when he felt shouldn't, even when the thought was not permissible, for it wasn't as if there was a lack of work to do, it wasn't that he was somehow lacking in distraction, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had not been at fault, that he had done the right thing—that he had tried to save a life.
At night, it was worse. At night, on those occasions when he was not needed in engineering—at night, with the endless stars beyond the cabin windows, and he could remember the sense of awe, the sense of wonder on their face, and he knew they had failed them, he knew that they had all failed them. He lowered his head, tightened his fists before him, tried to make sense of it all. It wasn't right, and they had just let it happen.
"Commander Tucker," a voice said, cold, carefully modulated.
He looked up sharply, struggling to push down his feelings, to erase them from his face, and, all the while, knowing the absurdity of such an action.
He nodded, quickly looking away.
"Sub-Commander."
T'Pol remained before him, rigid, inflexible, her expression stern, and, if he hadn't known better, he might have mistaken her expression as curious. Ah, but wasn't the way with Vulcans, he thought bitterly; they made a big noise about not getting involved, and yet not one of them could stand the idea of not knowing.
"You were absent during the screening," she remarked, not a question, a statement. She waited a moment for a response, and assured that there would be none, added, "I came to ensure that you were not unwell."
He swallowed hard, nodded.
"Fine, T'Pol," he said, his voice tired, his eyes refusing to meet her gaze, "just fine."
He did not look at her, but he could sense the raising of a single eyebrow, and it rankled. He hated it when she did that, and he knew it should have been nothing, knew it should have meant nothing, and yet the gesture got to him nonetheless. For someone who claimed to have mastery of her emotions, T'Pol sure knew how to get an emotional response out of others.
"You do not seem," she paused as if the word that followed was distasteful, "fine."
"I said I'm fine, T'Pol," he repeated, a little more frustration in his voice.
She said nothing, and yet she remained. If she had been human, Tucker thought darkly, she would have known how to read a room, would have known when she was not wanted.
"It has been too weeks since we parted company with the Vissian vessel," she remarked, again, a statement.
He turned sharply to look at her.
"I said I'm fine, T'Pol," he repeated.
"Your expression would say otherwise, Commander," she continued, and, if he had not known better, he would have thought she was goading him into a response.
"My expression is none of your business."
She took a deep breath, a gesture that he found both patronising and reminiscent of the way his teachers in high school had treated him. 'If there is a hard way of doing things,' one of them had said of him, 'then Charles will find it.'
"You remain displeased over the captain's decision regarding the Vissian cogenitor?" T'Pol continued.
"Their name was Charles," he said, determined to remember them as they had been.
Again, T'Pol arched an eyebrow.
"Indeed."
He looked sharply away. It wasn't like there had been anything between them, he thought—but what if there had been, what if one day there might have been? He felt his cheeks flush red, and he thought of high school again, despite himself. Charming, they called him, and he had done his best to play on that, using it to full effect in the company of both boys and girls. He had lost his virginity aged 16 to an older man in his 30s in the back of a car stationed in the parking lot outside a bar he should not have been allowed into. It had been uncomfortable, but not unexciting, hot breath on his neck and warmth between his legs. They had never met again, but he had not forgotten, even when he had been made to feel ashamed of his behaviour once his mother found out.
And yet even then it hadn't been the act that had upset her, rather his impatience, his eagerness to reach adulthood. It had taken him a while to understood that, had taken him a long time to even begin to understand how mothers thought.
He remembered the excitement and colour of Pride that year, remembered the taste of vodka shots on his lips and the feel of glitter on his skin, and then, apparently, he remembered his mother again, impatient and exasperated, not because of his sexuality, but because of the risks he was taking. He thought then of Charles also, whose mother would never hold them again in her arms, and he felt a bitter pang of sorrow and anger.
"We could have helped, T'Pol," he said, his voice softening. "We should have helped. But because we didn't, a life was lost."
"Two lives, if you include the child that the engineer and his wife failed to conceive," T'Pol remarked.
Anger flashed across Tucker's face.
"Damn you, T'Pol, that's not the same thing and you know it. You can't equate someone committing suicide with a baby not being conceived."
"The Vissian culture is—"
"Bullshit," Tucker responded, raising his voice. "You can't hide behind cultural differences. Someone died. Someone committed suicide because they thought that was better than carrying on the way things were."
"This person," T'Pol said coldly, "would not have known any different if it had not been for your interference."
He threw his arms up angrily.
"So every time we see someone suffering now, we should turn a blind eye? What made Charles so different from those Sulliban prisoners Captain Archer helped free on Tandar Prime?"
"You will recall I was against that particular act of interference, also," T'Pol reminded him.
He kicked away from the table, turning and facing the window, staring out at the stars, the rec room empty around them.
"So what are we out here for?" he asked, his tone softening. "If we can't make a difference, what are out here for?"
"I do not know, Commander Tucker," T'Pol answered sharply, "what are you out here for?"
He listened to the sound of her footfalls as she left, listened to the sound of the door sliding open, and then there was silence save for the soft hum of the ship's continued workings. It could have been different, he thought again, it should have been different. Someone asked them for help, and they let them down.
He thought of them, Charles, in their glory, neither a man nor a woman, the warmth of their closeness, the touch of their hand in his. He thought of them, and he felt a deep sense of sadness, a deep sense of shame.
Someone asked them for help, he thought again, and they let them down.