Chapter Fifty-Five

The Logic of Amelioration

Commodore Charles Tucker III

Sometimes I wonder if trying to change myself as well as a whole lot of other things was really the best idea I ever had.

Today is one of those days.

I've been so busy for most of it that I haven't even noticed time passing. It was really late by the time I signed off and grabbed something to eat – Chef made loud disapproving noises about how difficult it is to keep pasta warm without it setting like concrete – and then dashed to my quarters for a shower and change.

T'Pol doesn't exactly make loud disapproving noises, but I get the Eyebrow Lift as I walk in the door, and lately that's more effective than any amount of loud disapproving noises.

"You are overworking," she says as I strip off to get into the cubicle, chucking my dirty uniform towards the laundry chute. "You will endanger your health."

"Ah, I'll manage." I duck my head under the shower and groan with pleasure as the spray starts to run down my back. I've been in some fairly mucky parts of the station today and in those confined spaces it gets hot. Being the head honcho I don't feel that comfortable anymore stripping off to my waist like I let the guys who work there all day do, and as a result I have to put up with feeling the sweat start to run down my spine. "I'll catch an early night. Got to get away to the Bunker first thing."

"You were there only two days ago," she remarks. "Is everything going smoothly?"

"Well. Considerin'. I won't say I'm particularly lookin' forward to tomorrow."

The silence is clearly interrogative, so I fill her in on the details. "Reed's havin' his surgery tomorrow. He refuses point-blank to have a general anesthetic, an' Miguel wants the op done as soon as possible, so he's goin' to have it under a spinal block."

The silence asks why this is anything to do with me.

I pause in rubbing shampoo into my hair, and sigh. I know exactly how this is going to sound. "He refused to have it done unless I was there."

A pair of brown eyes looks disapprovingly in at me through the Plexiglas. "General Reed is basically your prisoner."

Well, yeah. I suppose she has a point. Trouble is, I don't want him to feel like a prisoner, however much he effectively is one – apart from the necessary steps I've had to take to make damn sure that if he ever gets loose, the danger he presents will be limited and, if necessary, ended.

"Of course he is, effectively," I tell her patiently, starting on with the shampoo again. "But if I keep rubbin' his face in that fact, that's what he'll stay for good an' all, physically an' mentally. What I'm tryin' to do is give him as many choices as I can, to give him a bit of his dignity back."

Vulcans, if anyone, should understand the value of a person's dignity. Probably if we weren't talking about General Chaos she'd stop frowning at me.

"So you are allowing him to subject you to an experience you will find stressful and extremely unpleasant in order to bolster his dignity."

"Well, that's some of it." The shower gel is running low, and when I push the dispenser button again and nothing comes out she opens the door and passes me in some more. "Truth is, at least some of it's revenge."

This was never going to go down well. If voices had temperatures, when she speaks again hers could practically give me frostbite.

"Revenge against you – after you saved him from certain death?"

"After I took him down in the first place, T'Pol. I handed him over to them. I think I owe him for that."

"You had no possible choice to do anything else!"

She's right, of course, though the vehemence with which she practically shouts this at me is pretty startling and most definitely un-Vulcan. I didn't. But I had the choice not to kick him when he was lying paralyzed and helpless on the floor; I had the choice not to laugh down at him when he was being carried away to be raped and impregnated. I might not have known exactly what was going to happen to him but I knew it wasn't going to be good, and I still laughed.

So yeah. I owe him. And maybe an hour or so of swallowing my gorge – or not managing to, as long as I have a barf bag and manage to turn aside in time to use it – may go some way towards making my peace with him over some of that.

Trouble is, I'm not sure how to go about explaining that to T'Pol in terms she can understand. I know that after what Reed did to her aboard Enterprise she sure as hell doesn't have any reason to think kindly of him, but I want her on board with what I'm doing here.

And isn't that just a sign of the changing times? I actually do care what she thinks.

I finish showering, aware that she's stalked out of the bathroom. I wish she hadn't, but I can't let her disapproval deflect me from what I've decided to do. I have too much riding on this to let myself pull out because T'Pol doesn't 'get' why I'm letting my prisoner dictate terms to me out of spite.

When I'm through I come out and find – not surprisingly – that she's settled down on her meditation cushion. What does surprise me is that instead of lighting the candle I gave her and putting it on the small table she usually uses, she's placed a second cushion on the floor in front of her, presumably for me.

"With your permission, I believe that in the circumstances a mind-meld will be greatly beneficial," she says, seeing me stop short. "I may be able to help you not only to prepare for what will undoubtedly be an unpleasant experience, but to find it less traumatic when it is actually happening."

Well, that's a nice idea on her part, and I say so. But it kind of neutralizes some of the whole concept. I'm guessing – and if I'm right, I can understand why he feels that way – that Malcolm feels I owe him some kind of debt of suffering, to make up for the abomination against him. Ok, I didn't perform it personally, but I facilitated it. So he feels, well, I have to go through something I find traumatic, if you're genuinely sorry you'll step up to the plate and endure something too.

I try to explain this to T'Pol. Turns out that either the concept doesn't translate too well into Vulcan thinking or she just doesn't see why the general can't accept his surgery and all its associated trauma as payback for the evil he's already perpetrated against others.

"This is personal, T'Pol." I sit on the cushion opposite her and try to clarify the situation. "Fact is, I think the only chance I have at all to get through to him is to make it personal between the two of us. If it's my rank versus his rank I've already lost – General Reed's way past bein' talked to.

"So if it ever gets to the point when you're in the room with the two of us, you won't hear me call him by his title, however far he outranks me. I call him Malcolm. Actually, usually I call him 'Mal'. Not sure he likes that too much, but he just has to put up with it." I grin at the memory of the glare. "He hasn't called me 'Trip' yet, but I'm workin' on it."

The puzzled frown is still sunk between her brows. "So you feel that your willingness to witness his surgery may induce him to regard your debt to him as paid?"

"Paid? No way. Maybe a down-payment on the interest." I chuckle, but then look at her soberly. "I may be kiddin' myself, T'Pol, but I'll tell you somethin' honestly.

"Yeah. I think a whole lot of him wants me to be there because he knows I'm squeamish. He's a vindictive little son of a bitch an' he wants me to suffer because I made him suffer. If he wasn't so powerless right now he'd probably make me suffer a hell of a lot more, but right now this is the end of his chain an' he's goin' to it.

"But the truth is, I think right deep down there's somethin' else goin' on. I think he wants to have someone there he knows, someone he can put some tiny bit of trust in if he can find any. Maybe just someone to keep him company while he's helpless and scared shitless."

"Lieutenant Cutler will be present, surely."

"I'm sure she will. But she'll be assistin' with the procedure, an' that means her attention will be on what's goin' on with the surgery. I'm sure that a part of her will very much be aware of every breath he's drawin', but she can't let that distract her for a second from her professional duties. So that's goin' to feel kind of an impersonal kindness."

"In short–" she draws the inevitable conclusion – "General Reed wants someone to hold his hand."

The image is so hilarious I shout with laughter, loving the way her eyes are twinkling. "I don't think that's exactly what he wants, sweetheart. An' if he by any chance did, I doubt it'd be my hand he'd want to hold!"

"But you intend to proceed with this regardless."

I take her hand. "I have to, T'Pol. It may not make any sense to you, but just take it that – I owe him. An' for my sake as much as his, I have to do this."

She looks hard at me, and for a minute I think she's going to argue again. But then she sighs; I suppose she's had more than enough experience of my stubbornness when I've gotten my heels dug in.

"Then if you persist in this, I recommend that I perform a meld to prepare you for it."

"What?"

"You are squeamish," she says calmly. "You have neither the training nor the temperament to look on unmoved while a surgeon cuts open a living body and removes an organ from it."

I'd like to argue, but I've already admitted as much and quite frankly just the description makes my gorge rise. I swallow, with difficulty. "I'm not denyin' that, but you're still missin' the point. If it was easy it wouldn't be worth anythin'."

"And the point you are missing is how disruptive it is likely to be to the team performing the surgery if you either vomit all over the patient – which seems likely – or lose consciousness and fall to the floor, possibly injuring yourself and adding to their workload."

I open my mouth to say I wouldn't do either of those things, and shut it again, imagining what Miguel's reaction would likely be if his open surgery site was suddenly drenched in puke. And whatever he'd be likely to come out with is zip, zilch and totally nada compared to what Mal would; that guy can bitch for England if he's pissed off. "Maybe," I say weakly.

"I may not fully perceive the value of your discomfort," she continues, "but I perceive that you are determined to endure it. Therefore I suggest that you allow me to place a block on your natural urge to regurgitate food in highly stressful conditions, and to insert a command in your hypothalamus to respond to any rise in cortisol levels by stimulating your brain to produce the appropriate volume and type of endorphins."

Miguel's the doc, not me. I give her the blank stare.

"You would have no instinct to vomit, and you would find the stress bearable," she says in a long-suffering voice. "Not pleasant, but bearable."

Well. That wasn't exactly what I signed up for, but then I don't want to be getting the hairy eyeball from Miguel, Liz and Malcolm for the rest of my natural. And I've a nasty feeling that if I want to get through this without it I'd better swallow my pride and take any help I can get.

"Not pleasant," I stipulate.

Do Vulcans stifle a sigh? 'Cause I swear she just did. "Not pleasant."

Okay. Maybe I'm a little bit relieved to be given some help to get through this. Give me a broken engine and I'll wade through it without a second's hesitation, but a broken body … especially when I have to talk to its owner, who'll presumably need me – whether he'll admit it even to himself or not – to be there for him. Because although I suppose he won't see anything and I know he won't feel anything, he'll be absolutely aware that someone has their hands in his guts and there's not a damn thing he can do to defend himself.

I rub my fingers through my hair and try to relax. "Right. I'll go with that. Thanks."

She nods. I guess she's just relieved I actually have some sense, however hard she had to dig to reach it.

Her fingertips on my psi points are gentle, already familiar. I find myself relaxing. "My mind to your mind… My thoughts to your thoughts…."

The white space opens around us.

I don't see her immediately, and I turn around. She's wearing this long, loose white robe thing, and even as our eyes meet it slips from her shoulders.

"Hey, wait a minute….!"

"It will help to create positive feelings regarding the situation," she says evenly. Though considering she's not wearing a damn thing and looks unbelievably beautiful, 'positive feelings' aren't quite the right description for what I'm feeling right now. And damnation if I want to start feeling this when I'm standing by the bio-bed tomorrow; I'd never be able to control my reaction, and one glance to his right and Malcolm Reed would leap off the bed and run for his goddamn life, spinal block or no spinal block.

"My body to your body."

I'm not sure who said that.

And quite frankly, I don't give a damn.

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