A/N: oh Jeez, sorry for the long wait. This chapter was hell. Note to self: don't ever write conversations between Malcolm and T'Pol ever again. There is a reason why the show didn't give many scenes between these two…But hey, in return for the long wait you get the longest chapter ever. 17 pages. Deal?
Please note: there is some strong language in this chapter!
STRINGS ATTACHED
CHAPTER TEN
Five hours ago, the shuttlepod had left the alien science outpost and headed into the Canis Major Void towards Enterprise. With a maximum of Warp 1.1, progress was slow, yet Malcolm cherished the time because, for once, he was able to give T'Pol a conclusive and unrushed report about the alien technology and Vosk's meddling.
Four hours ago, she had asked her questions about it, he had answered, and they lapsed into silence.
3 hours and 30 minutes ago, with nothing to do but to fly a straight line and stare at black space, Malcolm's thoughts had returned to Trip and their entirely work-unrelated issues… Issues that had been there from the very start, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy of jealousy and distrust. They should have known better. Good-naturedly, Trip had waved all these cautions away, and Malcolm wanted to believe that the solution was so easy… but now he realised how naïve he had been, and how all of that endearing American bluntness had tricked him into underestimating Trip's tendencies to protract uncomfortable issues until they came crashing down all around him.
Lying awake at night after a strenuous 10-hours-shift wasn't normal. Dreaming up horrible nightmares on a regular basis and refusing to talk about them wasn't normal. Trauma, Phlox would call it. Nothin' ta worry about, Trip wrote it off.
About an hour later, Malcolm gloomily realised that he had happily shifted his focus on Trip's shortcomings instead of analysing his own.
Two hours ago, T'Pol had still not said another word while she studied the data he had brought from Enterprise. The first weak gravitational wave hit their shuttlepod, not posing a problem for their warp bubble, and they had exchanged a knowing glance. Malcolm opened his mouth to say something, but then T'Pol had already averted her eyes and he chickened out.
One hour ago, Malcolm had deducted that the Captain must have feelings for T'Pol, which was the only explanation he could find for everything, also confirming his earlier theory that the whole universe must be obsessed with this woman. It was also one hour ago that Malcolm teeth-gnashingly accepted that he had fallen into his old habit of concentrating on another person rather than himself, again. If he kept at this pace, he'd run out of crewmembers to blame before they reached Enterprise.
It was not only ridiculous, but also a waste of time. He wouldn't get an answer that satisfied him that way – if he wanted to find out where to go from here, preferably with Trip at his side, he needed to tackle the issue without psychological detours.
He had always been an introvert. Introspection, he thought, shouldn't be that difficult. Yet, the harder he tried, the more innovative his mind became in trying to shift the blame. Apparently, the device that had controlled the Captain had gotten into the Brit's head as well: as Archer spiralled into paranoia, he had pushed Malcolm's buttons almost artistically well and triggered what had already been there – distrust, jealousy, fear, and an unhealthy fixation on whatever remained between Trip and T'Pol.
Half an hour ago, Malcom had begun to think of ways to engage the woman next to him in a personal, intimate, and productive conversation he was deadly afraid of. So far, the best he had come up with was 'Trip, huh? That dialect!' and resembled a goldfish that kept opening and closing its mouth without sound coming out.
Finally, Goldfish-Malcolm kicked himself and turned towards T'Pol. "Sub-Commander, before we reach Enterprise, I want to talk to you… about a personal matter." It came out slightly rushed, but hey, they only had five more hours to go if T'Pol's calculations were correct. Plenty of time to merrily swim around in the goldfish bowl.
The Vulcan was as calm and collected as ever, but when she turned and tilted her head, Malcolm thought that he saw her flinch the tiniest bit. Yeah, he thought, not that much of an over-sharer either. Sorry.
"It's about Commander Tucker and your …uh, romanceintheExpanse."
Talk about rushed conversation openers.
"I was not aware that you knew about this." Her voice, as always, was calm and free of emotional inflection.
Malcolm swallowed. "Trip confided in me back then."
"I see."
He waited for her to continue, but she didn't do him the favour. Awkwardly, Malcolm's mind blanked (except for 'Trip, huh? That dialect!' of course) – they were really the wrong type of people for this kind of conversation.
"I need to know what happened back then."
T'Pol frowned and he knew he had pried too deep too fast. The Vulcan was naturally a very private person and discussing an intimate situation with a subordinate surely was uncomfortable for her.
It was a bit funny, really, to think that Malcolm was the one trying to engage in a very private heart to heart with a superior officer during a life-or-death mission… even during their near-death experience in Shuttlepod One, Malcolm and Trip hadn't talked about truly intimate issues – that had come later, with the help of a lot of alcohol and trauma. To this day he couldn't even do small talk with the Captain over breakfast. Yet here he was, trying to pry sensible information out of T'Pol, of all people. Without alcohol, though he was doing fine in the trauma department.
He briefly wondered if maybe the Captain had hidden another bottle of that crime Americans called Whiskey somewhere. He'd preferred real Scotch, but this wasn't the moment to be picky.
"Honestly, Lieutenant, I do not see how that information is of importance to you," the Sub-Commander said at last.
Malcolm pressed his lips together. He would have answered the same if he were in her shoes. This was quit-pro-quo: if he wanted information from her, he had to give something in return. "Actually, I think it concerns me very much."
He hadn't gotten his brain to formulate the next words when she spoke: "Are you referring to your and Commander Tucker's relationship?"
"Yes," Malcolm answered, relieved to have it out in the open, and only a second later processed what had just happened. "Wait, what?"
T'Pol clearly didn't share his surprise. "I asked whether or not you're referring to – "
"No, I understood," he interrupted quickly, voice a bit airy as his heart had decided to not beat anymore. "How do you know?"
No muscle in T'Pol's perfect face twitched. "Your scents started to mix irregularly. It was very confusing at the beginning."
"Oh…" Malcolm had never thought of that. Vulcans had a heightened sense of smell. He felt his face heating up – how long had T'Pol known something was going on? "You didn't inform the Captain."
It was against fraternisation rules, after all, and in the first year of their journey T'Pol had used every chance she could get to point out Trip's alleged unprofessionalism, especially when he wasn't being 'the perfect gentleman'.
"There was no need to," she cocked an eyebrow meaningfully, "as I noticed over the time that both of your performance rates improved during phases of intimacy."
Shoot me, please. Malcolm buried his face in his hands and waited for the floor to open up and suck him into the vacuum of space. "I didn't think we were that obvious."
"You weren't. Ensign Sato was very surprised when I… Lieutenant?"
He had just looked up again, but at Hoshi's name, he dug his heels of hand back into his eyes. Hard.
"Everything's alright. Ensign Sato?" So much for secrecy and caution. Even Bourbon sounded perfect, now.
"She suspected a rather… casual involvement when I described the irregular pattern of your scents. When it became permanent, I deducted that you had engaged in a steady romantic relationship."
"We did," he said at last, confirming her theory and thus admitting to the relationship for the very first time openly. It felt strangely good.
He waited a few seconds for T'Pol to go on, but as she answered his question sufficiently, she obviously didn't see the need to keep on talking. It was up to Malcolm to steer the conversation back to where he wanted it. Great, navigating an utterly embarrassing conversation to the more embarrassing topic was just one of his many talents.
"However, your… past with Trip complicates things, I'm afraid."
The frown on T'Pol's face deepened. "I don't understand."
For Malcolm, intimate conversations had always resembled having your teeth pulled out, and this one seriously felt like a dental root treatment conducted by a Klingon. Finding the right words to express what he meant without completely embarrassing himself in front of his superior was like looking for your teeth on the ground of your Klingon prison cells afterwards. Naked.
"I worry that he still has feelings for you."
"Shouldn't that be a conversation you should have with Commander Tucker?" Finally, there was a little bit of inflection in her voice. She was confused.
"We talked about it," Malcolm sighed. "But when you were gone, things got worse."
She didn't need to reply – what he said didn't make sense. Leaning back, Malcolm began to tell her what had really happened during her absence.
Trip was running towards the storage bay, barely dodging crewmembers, decidedly not dodging Heston who apparently had been freed of the coaglunitator (shame), and tried to do complicated mental calculations at the same time.
Trellium.
It had been right under his nose the whole time.
Explosive, addictive, lovely trellium.
Hidden in their biohazard lockers in Storage Bay A.
How hadn't he thought about it sooner!?
Maybe there was more to sleep than he had wanted to admit. Half an hour ago, Trip had woken up from the deepest of deep sleeps and wasn't sure what year, hell, what century it was. His brain had felt as if someone bathed it in warm milk and honey, and then laid it back into his body made out of freshly washed and ironed sheets. Which was a very strange metaphor to have ready immediately after waking up and kind of worried him a little bit, but it was still very accurate.
Last night, after talking with Jon, Trip had wanted to head back to Engineering to look at the engine's connections to the disk again, but then took an impromptu detour and ended up in sickbay. Sleep, he had needed to sleep, but his empty quarters or Malcolm's room full of regret and anxiety had repelled him. One look had been enough for the Doc to steer him to one of the private rooms of sickbay and shove him onto the bed. A pillbox with two yellow pills suddenly dangled in front of his face, and Trip had immediately recognized those wonderful, tiny treasures Phlox used to give him to battle his insomnia in the past, before he had suggested Vulcan neuro-pressure. The good stuff he didn't want him to get hooked on because apparently it was very addictive.
The Doctor had lectured him about the importance of sleep, a sermon Trip hadn't been able to follow anyway, and then pushed the pillbox into his hands, uttering 'five hours of sleep, Trip. That's an order,' very distinctly before leaving him alone. He took the pills and went out like a light immediately.
Exactly five hours later, Trip was awake, more rested than in ages, and had found that Enterprise was still in one piece, although shaking. After a quick shower and a change in uniforms, he had headed towards the bridge to check with Hoshi, marveling how different everything felt once your brain was rested. Given the state he had been in yesterday, he had thought, it was a small miracle he hadn't sent Malcolm away in the shuttlepod with the trellium alloy, which would have been deadly for T'Pol –
And that was the moment when it suddenly hit him. He must have actually stumbled in his stride.
Trellium.
When he skidded into Storage Bay A, more awake than he had felt in years even though he hadn't even drunk one sip of coffee yet, Anna Hess, Rostov and the two scientists he had talked to yesterday already waited for him as requested.
"Chief?" Anna asked as he waltzed right past them without so much as a greeting.
He punched his codes into the biohazard locker's padd, ignoring the worried glance Lieutenant Reena exchanged with … the ginger scientist whose name he had forgotten again, damnit!, before grabbing what was in the locker.
"Trellium-D," he explained quickly, still out breath, and held one of the dark gray rocks up for them to see. "That's our way out."
"Isn't that the mineral you almost blew us all up with?" Anna asked, raising a brow to indicate that she was joking.
"Exactly. And this time, we're really going to blow up everything," Trip said, feeling a grin tug at his lips.
All four of them focused on the mineral in his hands; Enterprise's experiences with it were abysmal and their faces showed it. Maybe Malcolm was already rubbing off at him because Trip really didn't see why mentioning explosions caused so much worry.
"Oookay," Lieutenant Reena broke the silence finally, "can you tell us why?"
Trip nodded and ordered his thoughts. This was important, he needed them to keep an open mind. His plan was crazy and dangerous, and he needed all the help he could get. It was such a simple idea, but nothing about it was easy.
Enterprise had sought out trellium during their time in the Expanse, hoping its immunity to the spatial anomalies that wreaked havoc on the ship could protect them. They had stopped collecting it however, when its effects on T'Pol came to light. What they had gathered wasn't by far enough to cover the ship; only 55 kilograms of solid trellium-D was stored in the biohazard lockers and the alloyed shuttlepod had been mothballed in the furthest corner of storage bay C. When Starfleet didn't show much interest, they threw a heavy bioblanket over it and hadn't needed it since. Its alloy comprised of about another five kilograms of trellium.
"You… want to blow up the trellium to create a barrier between us and the gravitational waves," Anna repeated when he had stopped talking, looking at him wide-eyed.
"Yes." Trip was slightly worried about Anna's lack of enthusiasm, since his Second was usually the first person to trust his instincts. "And then we'll power down the warp drive and get rid of the disk."
Although highly sensible and thus explosive, the trellium was their chance to get out of this mess. Their only one, Trip was sure of it, as time was running out and each gravitational wave got stronger. Trip planned on using exactly these disadvantages: the trellium's explosiveness and the gravitational waves, as well as the fact that their science and explosion officers weren't on board right now.
They needed to free themselves of Vosk's disk to steer away from the cosmic string for good, but the disk was still deeply intertwined with the warp engine and most of the important computer systems. Ripping it out meant losing the warp bubble, which was their only protection from the gravitational waves. Trip wanted to fly out the trellium with the insulated shuttlepod and cause an explosion – as trellium only solidified when it came into contact with oxygen, it would immediately liquify in the vacuum of space. In effect, it would create a nebula between them and the gravitational waves, thus serving as a new protective layer. They could finally make do with the disk, restart the engines and the bubble, and get away as quickly as possible…in theory.
Not exactly bulletproof, no.
Thank God Malcolm wasn't here. The guy'd have a stroke.
"The hull plating's on another power grid than the warp drive," Rostov said slowly, turning towards Anna. "It could withstand the trellium explosion… more or less."
"But it won't protect us against the gravitational waves," the ginger Ensign protested and looked at the boxes full of the mineral unimpressed. "There is no evidence that trellium could protect us from gravitational waves."
That was true, Trip had to admit secretly, even though he thought that was pretty bold coming from a guy whose name he couldn't even remember after three years on board.
"It helped against the spatial anomalies in the Expanse," Anna replied with a tad of annoyance, wonderfully replicating Trip and T'Pol's dynamic. Apparently, scientists and engineers just weren't meant to agree. "That's close enough for me."
"With all due respect, Commander, even if we ignore that risk, we'll have to have impeccable timing," Reena spoke up, in a careful tone she probably used to talk to maniacs. "The trellium won't liquify consistently, and even if only an extension of a wave gets through, it could kill us."
"You're right," he nodded. "And our computers and consoles aren't reliable. If Lieutenant Reed and Sub-Commander T'Pol arrive on time, they'll help us with the calculations. The Lieutenant needs to fire at the trellium to keep the explosions going."
"Maybe we could pump some sort of matter between us and the explosion," Rostov thought aloud. "It would create a pressure wave that could push us further away."
"Yes, great idea!" Trip's mind went overdrive as he tried to calculate the angle the pressure wave needed to hit the ship to turn it upside down in case they hadn't got back control by then. "Everything that creates distance saves time for the drive to power up. Lieutenant, find the right material with Rostov. Use whatever you need."
Lieutenant Reena flinched, but nodded.
"How much longer can we hold out?" This was the real question, after all. The best plan was doomed if they ran out of time. To drive the point home, Enterprise shook slightly. Thanks, love. "I'll need to construct a remote control for the shuttlepod."
The ginger Ensign sighed. "We estimate about a day until the waves overpower us. The disk steals control faster and then keeps it longer and longer with each interval."
Anna nodded, looking frustrated. "We won't have many chances anymore. Maybe two if we're lucky."
"Calculate a time schedule," Trip looked at the scientist, "and find out when Sub-Commander T'Pol and Lieutenant Reed will be here. Hess, I need you to find the quickest way to extract the disk without damaging the whole computer system."
He didn't need to tell them that they were dismissed; Trip didn't like that word anyway. Having their tasks and knowing how time-sensitive the issue was, the scientists and Rostov disappeared quickly, leaving Trip and Anna back.
When they were out of earshot, she turned to him and raised her brows. "That plan's crazy."
Trip huffed a laugh as he put the rock of trellium back into the locker. "Don't I know it."
"You didn't tell them that no one ever did a cold start with a warp drive."
He looked up at her wordlessly. She had called his bluff, of course. According to his plan, the whole warp engine had to power down and restart in the matter of minutes, better seconds. There was no telling how stable the trellium nebula was, if it even formed, how long or how well it would withstand the gravitational waves before dissipating, or how it would move. And they didn't even know how to get rid of the disk quickly, while the next gravitational wave was bound to come.
A warp engine cold start had never been done before. Half of his job on a regular day was to make sure that the warp drive and the intermix chamber didn't mess up temperature or pressure factors, both of which would be off the chart with a cold start.
Trip believed he could do it. In theory, it would work out as long as they were the ones in control – if they could slow down to a lower warp speed, the temperature difference wouldn't be that bad. If the disk was in control and kept at maximum warp… well, then they'd probably blow up right next to the trellium.
Maybe there was a reason why Jon usually paired him with Malcolm and T'Pol when it came to finding solutions...
"We can do it," he said. "It's our only chance."
"I guess we'll keep the fire extinguishers ready."
Trip smiled, thinking about all the fire extinguishers the two of them had emptied over the last three years. "There's one other thing, Anna."
"Yes?"
"I need you and Hoshi in charge of evacuation if this doesn't work out."
Malcolm stopped talking after recounting how Trip had ordered him to pick up T'Pol. Respecting the Captain's and also Trip's privacy, he had tried to give her not too much information about suspected ulterior motives but had concentrated on his own deductions and actions instead.
Thankfully, T'Pol had simply stared ahead into the void without interrupting, listening carefully. At first, Malcolm's ingrained privacy had gone on a rampage, but after a while, when she neither interfered nor reacted, he had eased into the situation. Telling someone had been a bit of a relief, in the end, and just listening to himself verbalising some thoughts, without useless and clouding emotions, steered things into perspective. Trip not telling him about Archer's apparent motives for sending T'Pol away, for example, had been a low blow. He himself using this information to justify checking his partner's brain scan had been even lower.
At last, after a few minutes of silence, T'Pol look at him cryptically. "Your attempts of handling this confusing situation with logic are commendable, Lieutenant."
Malcolm nodded, quickly, because there had to be a 'but' in there somewhere…
"Although" – ah, yes, here it was – "you regularly used it to induct, rather than deduct."
"You mean when it comes to Trip."
He had arrived at the same conclusion; as genuinely as Malcolm wanted to solve the mystery of the Captain's oxygen supply and free Trip of the allegations, he had only replaced them with his own. Each new discovery, each new puzzle piece, had fuelled a theory he already had in his mind, and instead of looking at the situation objectively, he had adjusted the evidence, not the theory.
To think that she had seen through his patterns that easily… T'Pol's ability to draw accurate conclusions from little input really was remarkable.
"When it comes to the Commander," she agreed just then, right on time, "and by extension, when it comes to me."
Malcolm flinched involuntarily. "I wasn't implying– "
She turned towards him, tilting her head, and her straight gaze cut him off right away. "Then what are you implying, Lieutenant?"
Malcolm let go of a breath. Good question. As he pondered his next steps, T'Pol watched him closely with more emotions discernible than he had ever seen on her. Ever so slightly, the Vulcan's nasal wings quaked. With a human, he wouldn't have spent another second thinking about it. With T'Pol, it was highly unusual. Confusion flickered across her face, but then it rested on a tad of… anger? T'Pol was angry?
Oh shit.
Of course, his reluctance to talk about his own feelings and the ambiguous assessments he had uttered basically implied that she and Trip were lying, and possibly cheating, behind his back. For T'Pol, who followed each and every argument logically to the end, the accusation had to be crystal clear… And apparently, Vulcans didn't like to be accused of such a personal act of disloyalty more than humans did.
"I didn't mean to insinuate that the two of you are still… involved," Malcolm hurried to say, wondering how he could begin to explain what he didn't even understand himself. "But it's difficult to ignore that there was something between the two of you."
There. Maybe it wasn't the whole truth, but it definitely wasn't a lie.
The wrinkles on T'Pol's forehead didn't smooth, but she squinted her eyes curiously, now more confused than angry. "Isn't it common for most humans to have more than one relationship during their adult life?"
"Well, yes," Malcolm's thoughts longingly wandered back to the Bourbon. He wouldn't drink that American dishwater unless he was facing death, but maybe the bottle was hard enough for him to bash his skull in. "But you usually have more ways to avoid one another after breaking up."
"Ensign Carter and Ensign Shen don't seem to have a problem with working close to Lieutenant Drechsler."
Malcolm stared at her. "Carter and Shen are a thing?"
T'Pol nodded.
"Huh. Who of them dated Drechlser?"
"Both of them."
Malcolm blinked, surprised. That was probably what happened when 83 people shared close quarters for three years.
"Oh. How did you know?"
She raised an eyebrow, and Malcolm sighed. Scents, right. Performance rates. T'Pol, he came to realize, probably knew a lot more about the people he served with more than he did. Shen was on his team, yet he hadn't had a clue about any relationship. Given the fact that he hadn't even noticed how Trip had fallen head over heels for T'Pol, Malcolm started to wonder if maybe he had a little bit of a blind spot for personal relations on board.
"So you're saying that you feel threatened by my proximity, Lieutenant?"
Malcolm flinched and huffed at the same time, caught off-guard by her sudden return to the topic and her bland assessment, which resulted in a very embarrassing coughing fit. "What? No, I don't feel… It's just that I worry how it affects Trip."
"I see." Suddenly her voice had taken a colder tone. "You just doubt his commitment."
The emphasis was a cruel jab and hit him right in the guts. Malcolm swallowed audibly, feeling the ground beneath him tremble. With only a few words, T'Pol had managed to turn the tables and steer the conversation. Now he was the one having to justify his feelings and give explanations, not the other way around. Unfortunately, his explanations only led him in circles.
Until last week he hadn't actually believed that there was still something going on between Trip and T'Pol – the thought had crossed his mind a few times, of course, but he had always managed to render it absurd. His uneasiness about T'Pol's proximity had been more of a guarded, hyperaware nagging in the back of his mind. The doubts were subtle. With T'Pol always close, always this perfect woman Trip had loved so much, Malcolm just didn't understand how Trip could forget about her.
"I never understood why the two of you didn't stay together," he said finally. "He really wanted to be with you."
T'Pol looked at him intensely. Malcolm felt as if he were in front of a tribunal when she finally spoke. "What did Trip tell you about our time together?"
His heart leapt into a faster rhythm – the subtle use of Trip's nickname was the only hint about her willingness to talk about a private affair he was going to get. "I know that you broke it up."
"The hunt for the Xindi had been very difficult for the two of us," T'Pol started, and Malcolm leaned back in his chair to listen. "In the Expanse, the whole crew had to face hardship without the usual structures of comfort."
Malcolm nodded; she didn't have to explain further. She was about to argue that the Expanse had faced them with enormous challenges, and he knew where this led to. Without T'Pol and Trip, Enterprise wouldn't have come far. While Captain Archer had carried the burden of responsibility, the two of them had shared the impossible task of carrying out his orders. Both had worked incredibly hard to keep them alive, flying, as their personal lives took heavy blows. While the whole crew emerged traumatised by the experience, Trip and T'Pol had had the hardest part to play.
"Trip and I…" T'Pol started, but then stopped in the middle of the sentence. Talking about his feelings was difficult enough for the Vulcan; talking about her own feelings had to be excruciating. Malcolm wanted her to go on but knew he couldn't push. "We had been hurting. Both of us."
"You helped him cope," he offered, encouraging her.
Trip had told him later how they had managed to shut out the outside world during that one hour per week, which had probably saved the mourning Engineer's sanity. Without T'Pol, chances had been high that Trip would have accidentally blown himself up in Engineering – Phlox had been worried and even ordered the Commander to step down a couple of times. Until now, it had never occurred to Malcolm that he should be thankful for T'Pol's intervention.
She nodded, slowly. "And he helped me. Trip allowed his emotions to display so openly. They helped me to understand the confusing effects of the trellium."
Quickly, Malcolm averted his eyes. The two of them had never talked about her addiction, their relationship had never been as private as that. Back then, he had noticed the subtle changes in her behaviour, but hadn't suspected a deeper issue underneath. In fact, T'Pol hadn't missed one day on the bridge, hadn't been late once, which only spoke of her discipline in powering through even when the withdrawal had to be hell.
The damage, though, was irreversible as far as Malcolm knew. The icy walls of distance the Vulcan had used all her life had melted dangerously, allowing feelings and longing to shine through. Which meant that the display of emotions she was offering him now had to be the result of that neuronal damage she suffered. It was a strangely intimate thought and made him immensely uncomfortable.
"When we both got better, we were different people. We had both mastered the emotions that we couldn't deal with before."
Malcolm's brow furrowed. Yes, there was a certain logic in what she said, but things hadn't been that clinically in reality. "I don't think Trip would sign off on that."
T'Pol shook her head slightly. "I admit that the… intensity of his response surprised me."
"That's a very diplomatic way to put it." Malcolm couldn't help but huff.
That was a mistake.
He felt T'Pol's icy gaze on him and froze before he locked eyes with her.
"How would you have put it, Malcolm?" T'Pol had never used his first name before, and from the way she pronounced the two syllables, it might've very well been a Vulcan slur. Talking about emotional responses… Trip had definitely taught her how to not keep back anger.
Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive gesture, noticed what he was doing and uncrossed them again. As that felt wrong, he quickly crossed his arms again, just the other way around. "Well, he was heartbroken. He'd have done anything for you."
"Is that why you think he wouldn't do the same for you?"
Had she slapped him, the effects would have very much been the same. Goldfish-Malcolm was back, trying to think of something to say while his brain unwrapped what she had just asked.
Ouch.
"I'm not surprised. Humans rarely use logic when negotiating relationships." With this, T'Pol turned towards him and ended that game of back and forth between them, signifying very obviously that she included him in that statement. "Had he used it, he would have agreed that we were not compatible a lot sooner. And if you used it, you'd see that there are no objectively observable facts substantiating your distrust."
Malcolm's first impulse was to shoot back that this was a lot of judgement coming from someone who injected herself with a deadly neurotoxin, but thankfully he managed to gain back control of his emotions. Snapping at T'Pol (again) wouldn't help his case – he had asked for this. He had wanted to hear from her what had happened, and now he had to deal with her answers.
"I guess human relationships don't follow logic," he gritted out, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible.
"That's not what I said," she contradicted immediately. "Human relationships, I find, follow logic. As the humans that are involved, however, get distracted by individual affairs, that logic does not necessarily lead to success."
Malcolm pressed his lips together and looked back at her, letting the words sink in. He had caught the drift about the missing 'objective facts' already, but she hadn't let the chance slide to bring the message home. "You're saying it's me."
"I've noticed that humans tend to externalise personal issues."
He must have looked quite miserable, because her expression eased and she turned her laser-sharp eyes away from him, allowing him to breathe again.
"I try not to judge human behaviour or emotions, Lieutenant," she said, softer, "therefore I observe. Despite his best efforts to hide it, the Commander has proven very capable of making sensible and rational decisions and tends to follow them through. Stubbornly."
Malcolm smiled a little bit at her hidden reassurance. They had obviously reached a point where he had to figure things out for himself, thus her return to ranks and professionalism, but she had still given him a last personal assessment.
…And somehow managed to wrap it in the most eloquent dig against Trip, which made him think that maybe they could somehow become friends, after all.
If the cosmic string they were flying towards stretched to the other end of the galaxy, the string of creative swear words Trip hurled at it in front of the gutted shuttlepod was still longer. Travis, well-versed in Trip's creative use of language, wasn't bothered, but Lieutenant Reena looked at him in open shock and a little bit of fear. T'Pol probably didn't swear that much in the science lab.
"Commander…" Travis started, but Trip shot him a deadly look to shut him up.
Don't start again.
For four hours, Trip and Travis had been working on a remote control for the shuttlepod, which they had to start from scratch; the disk had wreaked havoc on any piece of technology that was loosely tied to navigation or external sensor readings. Time had been sparse anyway, but now, when Lieutenant Reena came by to tell them that it was running out even faster, the task became impossible.
While they had desperately sought ways to test the remote control prototype without linking it up to the main computer, Trip had told Travis about his plans. He lost track of the number of times the pilot had offered to fly the shuttlepod. Each and every time they had discarded another scrap, another idea, or stumbled across another way the disk had turned software and hardware into garbage, the young Ensign had coughed and reminded Trip that he was definitely capable of navigating the shuttlepod through the warp bubble to position the trellium.
Each and every time Trip had told him that he needed him on Enterprise's helm and that flying this shuttlepod was a suicide mission. They needed the shuttle to explode as well and there was no way to get out of it quickly enough. Trip wasn't going to send anyone, least of all one of his youngest crewmembers, to their certain deaths.
Brave Travis had tried to argue, but alas, the universe was apparently set on taking that decision off their minds, since there was no way they would now be able to build a reliable remote control system in time.
The gravitational waves were about to overpower them in only seven hours. Hoshi had caught a new message from T'Pol and Malcolm, packed with data and coordinates, which helped the scientists to refine their orientation models. Unfortunately, these models didn't spell out good news – the disk had steered them closer to a curvature of the cosmic string, which meant the waves were getting stronger a lot faster than they had expected.
Seven freaking hours.
"It's still only a sophisticated guess," Reena sighed, stoically ignoring his curses. "As the string moves, anything is possible."
"When will the shuttlepod catch up?"
Skeptically, she shrugged her shoulders. "We're guessing in about five hours."
Just enough time to say good-bye. "Work with Anna on a plan," he ordered, keeping what was on his mind to himself, "we need to get away as far as possible and stay in control as long as possible. Maybe we'll save a few lightyears if we burn the drive next time we're in control. Travis, update Hoshi for me, will you?"
"You said the engine needs to slow down otherwise it overheats." Travis looked at him perplexedly.
Damn this attentive staff. Trip glared at him wordlessly again, and Travis and the Lieutenant caught the message and shuffled out of sight quickly.
Trip turned back to the prototype, rubbing his tired eyes and allowed the panic to rise.
Five hours until Malcolm and T'Pol arrived. Even if T'Pol had some idea about the cosmic string or the disk, they wouldn't have time to implement it. Not in two meagre hours.
They might have enough time to synthesize the trellium and cover the evacuation pods. He had already asked Anna to have a look at evacuating protocols. With a bit of luck, they'd be able to liquify the mineral and cover the pods to spew them out the next time they were in control. The insulated shuttlepod could keep them save and wait for T'Pol and Malcolm to get help.
All the while Enterprise would fly towards her destruction.
Trip's chest constricted at that thought. She would be ripped to pieces. The survivors would have a story to tell – no one had ever seen a ship crash into a cosmic string or a warp drive bend into a gravitational wave before.
That was still better than dying. Right?
Right?
It was going to be a close call, but if they started now… Oh God, evacuating a ship was a horror. The organization alone –
"Trip?"
Trip flinched badly at the voice and almost lost his balance as he whirled around to find the Captain right behind him.
Shit.
"Jon," he huffed and protectively crossed his arms over his chest. He hadn't had time to think about Jonathan, on top of all things. Of course, yesterday's words and explanations had flitted through his mind a few times today, but he had pushed them away to concentrate on the task at hand: surviving. They could have another heart to heart tomorrow, but only if there was a tomorrow.
Jon, standing a respectful couple of steps away, looked at him carefully, and Trip averted his eyes when he realized that he didn't have the energy to deal with him now. Five hours of sleep only brought you so far, and indeed he already felt the tiredness crawling through the back of his mind.
"Are you alright?"
"Peachy."
…This ship wasn't even big enough to have a panic attack without someone walking in on you. Seriously.
"That didn't sound peachy," Jon tried again, an awkward smile on his lips as he vaguely gestured towards the door through which Travis and the lieutenant had disappeared.
Trip wanted to strangle him. "How long have you been in here?"
"A while, actually. You didn't notice when I came in." Jon held up his hands. "I heard most of what you and Travis talked about."
Trip decided not to comment. Archer wasn't exactly known for his willingness to be sidelined, and of course he still felt responsible for the ship. Too bad that there wasn't going to be a ship soon.
"Things aren't looking good, are they?"
"What did you want from me, Jon?" He looked back to the shuttlepod, hoping that Jon got the drift. More apologies and drama about T'Pol were the last things he needed right now. He'd rather deal with Vosk and multi-dimensional math, and that meant something.
"Let me fly the shuttle."
Trip's head swung back so quickly that his neck creaked. "What?"
"Let me fly the shuttle," Jon repeated and gestured towards the remote control. "It's not working, right?"
"That's suicide," Trip stared at him, perplexedly. "No."
"You can't send Travis. I get that." Jon looked at him intensely. "I'm a good pilot."
Slowly, the shock ebbed away, allowing Trip to think again. "No one flies this shuttle."
"I'm volunteering. Please."
Jon's calm façade was crumbling, his hands balled to fists. Trip realized that he hadn't seen the Captain this agitated since... well, since he attacked him. Abruptly, Trip turned away and started to heave the coils and cables of the shuttlepod's exposed innards back into the hull.
"No."
"It's my fault we're in this situation. Let me help."
Jon was, of course, driven by the horror of guilt, which had to be crushing. If he only could, Trip would gladly take that load off his shoulders with some brilliant flash of genius. Unfortunately, their genius was still a few lightyears away.
"No one dies today. We have an evacuation plan and we'll get everyone out. We can even self-destruct to make sure we stopped Vosk."
There, he had said it out loud. For clarification, he nodded at the trellium-covered shuttlepod a few meters next to them and decidedly ignored Jon's grunt of disapproval.
Then a hand grabbed his shoulder, and Trip violently batted it away, without conscious thought. Jon drew his hand away, eyes widening in surprise and understanding.
"You don't trust me."
Trip felt his face heat up. "I'm not letting you sacrifice yourself," he said, rubbing his hand across his eyes to ignore the irritation bubbling up. Maybe he was already dead, and this was purgatory. Or hell. Shit, this was all taking away precious time…
"You'd at least consider it if you trusted me," Jon looked at him, disappointment on his face. "Before abandoning Enterprise, you would."
That made Trip pause. Between the two of them, it was hard to decide who cared more about the ship. Didn't he trust Jon? Well… honestly, with what had been going on, and the possibilities of Vosk's technologies still unknown…
Jon loved Enterprise, loved the crew, and there had been a time when the two of them had been in sync in such matters. When he'd known that if Jon offered to fly a suicide mission, it meant everything to him. But now? Trip wasn't even sure who that man in front of him was anymore. There was still the alien technology's influence on his hormonal levels, yes, but what weighted more on Trip's mind was the fact that just yesterday, Jon had confessed that they were now basically strangers to each other.
Trip hadn't realized the immensity of that betrayal, and what it meant to him, until now.
"You're right. I don't trust you."
And he wouldn't put the lives of 81 people in his hands.
For what it was worth, Jon looked as if someone had murdered his dog right beneath the Christmas tree. He looked away quickly, his hands balling into fists and straightening again and again. His jaw tensed up. "You can't just abandon the flagship because you're mad at me. You'll regret this for the rest of your life."
Anger, good old, reliable anger, flared up from the bottom of Trip's stomach straight to his head. That nerve…! "Are you seriously trying to put this on me? Again?"
Jon's left eye started to twitch. He had wisely tried to stay calm around Trip since his operation, but slowly and steadily, his old stubbornness came back. "I'm trying to save you from consequences. Again."
That bastard. "Fuck off, Jon."
This time, at last, Jon listened.
In a few angry strides, the Captain left the hangar. Trip watched him leave, barely refraining from shouting something vulgar. When he was gone, Trip let his head fall back into his neck and he sighed. Oh God, when had things become so complicated?
The truth of the situation started to sink in, leaving Trip light-headed.
He was seriously planning to abandon this ship. The only Warp 5 vessel in operation, as Columbia was still months away from launch. The only human ship to ever fly so deeply into space, to see what they had seen, to experience what they had experienced. All because he couldn't power down one single disk. All because this damn temporal agent liked to drop in on them out of thin air and hurl them into disaster.
Trip blinked and tilted his head, turning towards the prototypical remote control.
Daniels liked to drop in out of thin air.
Trip's gaze wandered to the exposed innards of the shuttlepod, an idea forming in the back of his head.
Huh.
He had concentrated on the wrong transportation device.
One hour later, T'Pol had lapsed into silence again when Malcolm didn't pry for more information. Sensibly, she hadn't said anything, asked anything, but let him dwell on his thoughts alone. He had wanted her to shed some light on what was plaguing him, and instead she had thrown a spotlight on his own insecurities. Now he needed some time to think about what it had exposed.
Maybe this was the kick he had needed. Some of the truths she wrung out of him, he had known deep down. Others, he still didn't really dare to look too closely, always believing he had everything under control. But when the Captain, fuelled by his own hurt feelings and a futuristic brain parasite, had begun to spin his crazy theories, Malcolm's vague fears had suddenly fallen on fertile ground and grew into an absurd, pulsating mess with a life on its own that grew ranks over his rationality and into his heart – that was a problem. He needed to free himself of that influence, otherwise, it could happen again.
T'Pol was right in her assessment; it wasn't per se Trip he distrusted as it was their relationship. There was a difference, and it was rooted in the past. If he wanted this to work, he had to get over the fact that Trip had chosen someone else over him first. No, he had to get over thinking about it that way first, because it was unfair to blame the people around him for what they did in moments of crises.
Two hours later, that thought had taken Malcolm back to the Expanse and to one of these exceptional situations, where his focus had shifted to someone new: to the late Major Hayes. So often had he contemplated the Commanding staff's level of stress and the desperate acts that came from it, but hadn't he himself acted just the same? For a long time, he had been under the impression that he handled things pretty well – until suddenly he found himself in a rooster fight with the Major.
Was Archer's flirt with torture, Trip's dive into a relationship destined to fail, and T'Pol's addiction so much different than Malcolm picking fights with fellow officers? It wasn't. The fear of being replaced by Hayes had made him snap, which was as ridiculous as it was destructive. The Expanse had found the chink in his armour, and mercilessly latched on to that. Just as it had found the chink in Trip's, Archer's and T'Pol's armours, laid bare their weaknesses and exploited them mercilessly.
Which was, now that he reconsidered T'Pol's words, exactly what had pushed T'Pol and Trip together. Trip, tired and hurting, had needed support he couldn't find anywhere else on the ship but with her: calmness of the mind. Inner peace. And as much as it hurt to admit, he hadn't been of much help in that department. He had been talking about weapons and destruction nonstop, disregarding the fact that the last thing Trip had needed back then was a constant repetition of the word 'weapon'. He had been caught up in a senseless, violent feud with the MACOs that had mixed perfectly with Trip's harmless flirt with Amanda Cole… yeah, now that he thought about it this way, T'Pol's emotional distance did have a certain lure. A lure he hadn't provided.
Three hours later, Malcolm wondered why the hell he kept feeding his own insecurities by comparing himself to others when there was no need to. This, he realized, was what T'Pol had urged him on and the gist of the matter.
There was a pattern in his behaviour. A very uncomfortable, messy pattern that circled around a fear of inadequacy. A fear of not living up to ridiculous expectations. Like not being enough to beat the Xindi and protect the ship. Or not enough to compete against a past girlfriend. Or keeping up a family tradition because of a ridiculous phobia.
Three hours and forty-five minutes later, Malcolm wanted to break the glass separating him from space rather than think that thought through to the end.
Three hours and forty-six minutes later, he had hadn't broken any glass but balled his fists until his knuckles turned white, ignored the monster of jealousy that tried to steer his attention away, and followed that line of thought for the first time consciously.
He was looking for challenges when there were none. It was easier to pick a fight, feel provoked, than admitting that this feeling of inadequacy, that fear of being replaced, came from within. Hayes had only done what he had been ordered to – he hadn't tried to outwit Malcolm until Malcolm had openly challenged him. Maybe he hadn't started a fist fight with T'Pol yet (because he was bound to lose very quickly), but he wasn't handling the situation much better. Only this time, he was taking it out on his relationship to the point where he thought it more plausible that his partner was brainwashed than that he actually chose to be with him.
Bloody hell.
"We're in radio distance with Enterprise," T'Pol spoke up suddenly and pulled him out of his musings. "They are headed towards us."
Malcolm drew in a sharp breath, eyes searching for the ship automatically, even though it wasn't visible yet and wouldn't be for a while. If they were flying away from the cosmic string, it meant they were in control for now. It meant they were okay. "Great."
T'Pol pushed a button, and they waited for a few seconds.
'Enterprise to shuttlepod.'
Hoshi's voice felt like balm to the soul.
"Shuttlepod here. Go ahead, Ensign."
'It's good to have you back, Lieutenant, Sub-Commander.'
"Permission to dock as soon as possible?" Malcolm asked, smiling relieved.
There was a bit of static, then he heard Hoshi's voice again. 'Permission denied.'
Malcolm blinked at the console. "Er…Excuse me?"
'Hold on, shuttlepod.'
Furrowing his brow, Malcolm looked at T'Pol, who slowly shook her head. She didn't know what was up either. She typed a few orders into the console, and the screen tried to zoom in on Enterprise. It only resulted in a small, bright dot on the screen blinking a tiny bit bigger than before. They were still too far away, though their readings indicated that the ship was fine, going Warp 4.1, no discernible damage.
'Malcolm?' Trip's voice broke through the static, and Malcolm felt the tension around his chest ease.
"Trip," he answered. "What's going on?"
'Is TPol with you?'
"I'm listening, Commander."
'Great. Mal, I have good news for you. You'll get to blow something up.'
That sounded ominous. "What am I blowing up?"
'Just our only chance of getting out of here.'
-tbc-
A/N: we're nearing the end! If you have any open questions, let me know soon!