The Empire's Destiny
By Asso
Chapter Fifty-Five
Two is better than one
Two is better than one.
Absolutely logical and indubitable statement.
Are you not convinced, my friends and kind readers?
Well, try reading then, and then we'll see.
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"But..." T'Pol's eyes snapped to Tucker's good eye. "But ..."
Surprise and incomprehension in them.
And as a sort of a subtle fun in his.
And this increased even more the expression of surprise and incomprehension in T'Pol's gaze. And of confusion, in addition.
Would she ever get used to it? To those sudden behaviour and mood changes from her Adun?
He had always been like that, of course. But if... before... this had created confusion in her - a confusion which, in that time, she, as far as Vulcan, could not help but be sorry about - now... now a sort of... yes, a sort of irritation was added, because she wanted to understand everything about him. And if that hadn't mattered to her before - or maybe she'd wanted herself to believe so - now it mattered. And how!
But maybe... maybe even this ability from him to confuse her was part of his... yes... his charm. The charm - now she understood, she was aware - that he had always exerted on her. And, on the other hand, let's face it all, why just him had she chosen among the many to satisfy her Pon Farr?
And then, at the height of it all, why on earth, speaking as he would, from the mood dreariness of a moment before to that clear evidence of amusement in his gaze?
Just as in his voice?
"Well, well, well. Formidable, this Bond, nothing to say."
And T'Pol's confusion grew even more. Observably.
Which caused Tucker to have an amused and ironic giggle.
"Oh oh, my sweet Vulcan doll. Being able to make you stammer isn't indeed a trivial matter. Eh no, not at all. It must be acknowledged."
The eye shone sardonically.
"A very remarkable change. Unquestionably".
This time it was T'Pol's eyes that shone.
And it was a shimmer that was very reminiscent of the cold shimmer of yore.
But not quite.
Not entirely.
Something... some kind of annoyance...
For Tucker's words, sure. But... for their tone? Or because, in hindsight, they were words of truth?
Oh well, be as it may, T'Pol's reaction was not long in coming.
But was it a reaction from the T'Pol who there was before she surrendered to the inevitability of her love for him - the old T'Pol, another T'Pol - or from the T'Pol who there was now? The new T'Pol? A T'Pol whom she herself was learning to know little by little? And not without wonder - that was the term - and difficulty? Not even she, aware of this - ultimately after all, for Surak's sake, she was still a Vulcan female, with a brain able to act on various levels at the same time! - was capable of finding the right answer.
In any case, effortlessly - Yeah. Without any effort! - she ignored the matter without thinking too much. Which, to tell the truth, very little suited the T'Pol of before.
But she did so.
She simply reacted.
With, however, the raised eyebrow and the glacial voce of the T'Pol that Tucker knew very well. There was still something, if not much, of the old T'Pol in the new one.
"No member of any race, including Vulcans, could refrain from stammering in the face of the illogicality of what you say you did in that tavern."
Then one last jab.
Worthy of the T'Pol of yesteryear.
"My not exactly flawless and inerrant Lord and Master."
Eh, by golly! More in line with the T'Pol who had been, it couldn't be possible!
And yet, somehow, there was something else, different.
Something subtly imbued with the way of being, with the new awareness, of the T'Pol of now.
Yeah. Because that "my Lord and Master", it there was, no doubt, but, if you think about it, decidedly nothing strange if it hadn't been so. And instead there was. T'Pol had thought well to say it. And, by listening attentively, it, net of the adjectives that accompanied it, someway sounded not at all caustic and, indeed, quite convinced. Even pleased, in its tone.
These words were followed by Tucker's counter-reaction, also immediate, just as T'Pol's reaction had been.
But it was not the counter-reaction that T'Pol expected.
Or maybe...
Maybe yes?
Maybe was the new T'Pol expecting it?
Was expecting that loud laugh?
And, mind you, a laugh far from being deriding, indeed frankly cheerful.
Then the eye - that one not scarred and the only one usable of his – sparkled. Merry. Just as his laugh had sounded to the ears.
"Oh well, damn it! I was starting to get worried!"
Confusion. Again. Again! One more time evident in T'Pol's eyes and voice. And a distinct note of exasperated impatience.
"Worried? But what ..."
"What do I mean, my sweetheart?"
"Yes! Yes, damnit!"
Just so. Damnit! This T'Pol said.
But Tucker's good eye didn't shine with irony at hearing it.
It became sweet.
Yes. It became sweet.
Caressing.
Like the voice that spoke.
Like the hand that rose to lovingly caress T'Pol's cheek.
"T'Pol, my sweet Vulcan doll, I love the new T'Pol, I mean the T'Pol that you are now and that you have become by virtue of your love for me. The T'Pol who exclaims…" A soft giggle. "…damnit! But ..." The voice became low and even more caressing. "... but I don't want to lose the T'Pol of before. The one... the one who made me fall in love. Yes. To fall in love. Now I know. I, my love, want you both. The T'Pol of before and the one of now. And any other T'Pol you can ever be."
T'Pol didn't even have time to try to quell the mad turmoil that those words caused in her heart.
It was something she hadn't experienced before, although she had always been far more emotional than her fellow countrymen, thing that had caused her not a few feelings of guilt and inadequacy, which, with difficulty, she had fought and repressed exactly as the emotions she felt. But now it was now, now there was another T'Pol, a T'Pol in love and happy to be. And a T'Pol in love, the new T'Pol, the one who had totally given over the weapons to the love for him who was now her Adun… how could this T'Pol not feel a tumult in her heart at hearing those words? And without getting at all ashamed to feel it, as the stupid T'Pol she had been would have done, that T'Pol so logical as to be ultimately illogical. Because what logic can there ever be in denying evidence and truth?
It was a beautiful, magnificent feeling, it was joy - yes, pure joy. But so keen, so intense as to be almost hurting, to create a kind of anxiety, to make the heart beat until it bursts.
An emotion so strong that T'Pol suddenly found himself realizing on her own skin how terrible the life of Vulcans must have been before Surak, how much it had been absolutely necessary for them to learn to control their emotions, if these were so fierce as the one she felt now. And that, therefore, as beautiful as it was, could not, should not last.
But T'Pol had no need to quickly search for some means, maybe some Vulcan technique, to stop it.
Tucker gave her no way.
It was him who, unconsciously, solved her trouble.
He had provoked it and he solved it.
He did it by distracting her, by making her attention turn to focus elsewhere, making so that her heart would stop beating so tumultuously.
His words crept over her inner turmoil, led her to pay attention to the new sudden tone change from him, so that, effortlessly, the turmoil itself subsided.
And in that precise moment, in a flash, T'Pol realized that she would never have reason to worry about her emotions again, that she had a formidable weapon to try them without being overwhelmed, a weapon that no Vulcan before her had been able to have available.
Tucker.
Her Ashayam.
He was her refuge, her lifeline.
She...
She was free!
Yes!
Thanks to him she was free!
She could indulge in any emotion, even the strongest, the most destructive.
Because he would be there.
Able, even without knowing, to make so that she could try any emotion without being overcome.
And the most intense of emotions was him!
He was the cause and he was the remedy.
All this passed in an instant through T'Pol's mind, as she concentrated on what her living bastion of freedom and salvation was saying and the tumult of her Katra died down.
His tone had gone mocking again.
And yet, someway, jocular too.
Unconsciously? Even without knowing?
This last thought suddenly struck T'Pol just before Tucker words absorbed her mind, as his hand wasn't stopping caressing her cheek.
Unconsciously? Even without knowing?
This had she thought within herself?
But no! Most likely, not to say certainly, no! Of course. Because he - she was sure of it! - now did not act simply by obeying his fickle behaviour. He used this side of himself to come to her aid, to get her out of the troubles, to offer her a back-up, an anchor or, even better, a solid and reliable oar, a well-manoeuvrable rudder, which allowed her to navigate in that new and perilous sea for her, the sea of emotions.
And why would he ever do it? But because, just as there was now a new T'Pol in her, so it was impossible - illogical ! - that there wasn't a new Tucker in him. Similar, very similar, to the one of before, but different. Just as similar to the previous T'Pol, yet different from her, was the T'Pol that there was now.
And everything in him - his words, his attitude, his behaviour - proved this assertion.
His words.
Sure.
His words.
Undoubtedly resonant as his own. Characteristic, typical of him.
Nevertheless...
Nevertheless so different in the perception deriving from them.
In the feeling they were capable of conveying to T'Pol.
"So you can well understand, my sweet Vulcan doll, my concern at the thought that the primigenial T'Pol was no longer there. But..." And a laugh again. Low and quiet. "... apparently I had no reason to worry. The old T'Pol, the one as cold and biting as a sharp blade, is still there. I feel..." A frank laugh again. "...relieved."
At this point the old T'Pol showed her face again and tried to impose herself. All in all, that too was a means of not drowning in the turmoil of her new emotions, regardless of the help that could come to her from him, from her Ashayam.
"I am glad you feel relieved for finding in me yet the cutting T'Pol of yore, my Lord and Master, although, in all honesty, it seems to me downright illogical and even rather masochistic."
So the first T'Pol began.
But it went badly for her.
The new T'Pol had the upper hand and concluded for both two, as her eyes half-closed and her cheek pressed itself warmly on Tucker's hand.
"But, be that as it may, please bear in mind, my Adun, that whatever T'Pol I may have been or be now or in the future, I am and always will be, if you will allow me to be so, your sweet Vulcan doll."
Tucker stood stunned.
And what else could he do?
Then he tried to recover.
His forcibly ironic voice. But decidedly uncertain.
"Well, maybe… sweet, surely, I don't deny it, I myself have said it over and over again. But a little... a little peppery, too, right? Let's say... sweetly peppery."
The corners of T'Pol's lips curved upwards in a hint of a smile, while her cheek didn't allow Tucker's hand to leave from.
"If you say so, my Lord."
Tucker didn't reply. His gaze did, the amused and playful glint of his eye.
Then, without notice, his hand left T'Pol's cheek and he stood up.
He looked at her from standing up.
His expression serious, now, even if anything but grim and, indeed, we could say benevolent.
But, in spite of this expression, it was the Tucker ever, the one who spoke. It was his mocking voice ever.
"Okay, my sweetie, or rather, my sweetly peppery Vulcan doll. We have made clear some things of... some importance. Now let's try to clarify a few others, they too of no secondary importance, if I may say."
His gaze became shrewd.
"Why on earth do you say that I have shown enormous illogic in acting as I did in that tavern?
But he knew the answer perfectly well. His look spoke for him.
He wanted, however, that it was T'Pol to give him the opportunity to explain.
And she did. Fully aware of his game.
She got up in turn and stood in front of him.
She stared at him.
And spoke clearly and firmly.
"Revealing yourself for whom you really were. Cain. A magnificent coup de théâtre, nothing to say."
Tucker widened his only good eye. For crying out loud! Damn, how T'Pol was able to use his own language! Even in idioms stolen from other tongues!
"Your intention, my Lord, is perfectly clear to me. Who could ever doubt Cain's ability to implement what he offered? But..."
Tucker was listening really fascinated, now. T'Pol, his sweetly peppery Vulcan doll, was terrific! Nothing could escape her!
A hushed "But?" on his part and nothing more.
"But why on earth, to speak your way, would your interlocutor have had to believe you? What evidence could you provide him to prove the truth of your assertion?"
There it was, the question.
And T'Pol had caught it instantly.
Tucker knew very well. He had known that before he even asked his rhetorical query, of course. But that she put in such a clear evidence what he already knew she had noticed and that had transpired from her initial babble, not at all consonant with her...well! It was something able to really hit, anyway!
She had it all figured out!
All!
His need to impress his interlocutor by telling him he was Cain and his need, even more, to prove him he was whom he had said he was.
Whether she was the old T'Pol, rough and icy, even in her sexy hotness, or the new… stammering… and... and decidedly hot T'Pol, she was still T'Pol!
But, at that point, the urgency of the question put by her, the need to answer her clearly and exhaustively, called Tucker to order.
His face darkened.
Too bad.
It had been a sweet and fun interlude.
He had wanted it, because the recapitulation ... - yes, because this was, after all - ... the recapitulation of his life had become too leaden.
And, whether T'Pol was aware of his intentions or not (and it wouldn't be surprising she was), Tucker was sure she had liked it.
But now he had to resume the narrative.
And there was no sweetness or fun in it.
With a sigh, he placed his hands on T'Pol's shoulders and gently pushed her down, to sit back on the boulder. Then he sat down in his turn. On the grass, next to the boulder, getting squatted in front of her.
Her beautiful and tapered legs came out free and naked, leaning on the boulder, from the leather jacket he had covered her with.
Tucker placed his hands on her shapely thighs, looking at her from below, from his crouching position as she returned his gaze from above, with those bright eyes of her that looked like sparkling gems.
And that were waiting.
Another sigh, then...
"There are things that cannot be foreseen, T'Pol, and you know it well."
And there was a kind of sweet amazement and, at the same time, of satisfaction, of contentment, in those words.
T'Pol felt something inside her, at hearing them. Something like an astonished contentment.
An amazed happiness.
Now she realized what that word - happiness - meant. What it was.
Yes, Her Adun was right. She knew it well.
To fall in love!
And to fall in love with him!
Who could ever have foreseen it?
Yet it had happened.
And to him too, it had happened.
He too had fallen in love!
With her!
There really are things that cannot be predicted!
"Beautiful things, T'Pol..." Tucker's voice seemed to smile. "... but ..." Suddenly the smile in his voice disappeared. "... but also terrible things."
The voice went sour.
"Like the appearance of that damned spaceship from that other dimension of space-time and the consequent unexpected and deleterious take-over by the so-called Empress Oshi Sato."
It was as Tucker's voice became made of shadow. To T'Pol it even seemed to hear how a gnashing of teeth from him.
"This was something that no one could foresee and I was certainly no exception, T'Pol. Something that forced me to make unexpected decisions, in turn, and improvised."
A sardonic short laugh followed these bitter words.
But it was a matter of a moment.
Tucker's tone softened again and an expression - T'Pol was sure - as of loving reproach spread on his face.
"But as far my narrative, as far what I said to the man sitting in front of me in that tavern, do you really think I had not envisaged to have to show the truthfulness of what I was asserting, T'Pol?"
T'Pol's hands rested strongly on his.
A quick and sudden gesture.
"NO!"
And there was almost something of guilt in that nearly shouted "NO" from T'Pol.
"NO!", she repeated with strength.
And "NO!", again.
Really! How could she have doubted he hadn't been ready? Absolutely prepared? For any necessity?
Was it not enough all he had told her about himself up to that moment, the very fact that he was there, in front of her, alive and well and... as her Adun... when he should have been dead and had instead risen to save her... not to mention everything else and, not last, what he was, there in that place… wasn't all this enough to make her understand that nothing and no one could catch him unprepared?
That, if anything, it was the universe that could be caught unprepared by him? Just as it had been for her?
That always - ALWAYS! - he had... yes! That human way of saying was truly fitting! ... he had an ace hidden up his sleeve?
Her hands squeezed his. She leaned toward him, her long hair floating around her face.
"Forgive me, my Lord!"
It almost sounded as if there was a note of weeping in T'Pol's now hushed voice.
"Forgive me if I doubted you!"
A straight smile crossed Tucker' scarred face.
"I would have been sorry if you did not grasp the problem that I had to face, T'Pol, and that you did not underline it the way you did."
Like a sweet irony, now on that face of him, as his hands gently gripped the fresh and soft flesh of her thighs.
"I told you. I want, very strongly, my sweetly peppery Vulcan doll, but just as very strongly I want the lashing T'Pol who caught me in the trap."
And at those words what did T'Pol do? Whether she were the one of the past or the one of now?
She completely leaned all over Tucker, threw her arms around his neck, squeezed him tight, smashed literally her face against his, her silky hair swaying around their joined heads.
And she kissed him.
With burning passion.
With voluptuousness.
With love.
And anything but fleetingly.
Indeed decidedly lengthily.
Then, finally, she pulled her lips away from his.
Her face an inch from his.
Her eyes fixed on his one.
Her hoarse voice breathing panting on his mouth.
"From both the two T'Pols, my Ashayam. And from any other T'Pol there may ever be."
For some moments Tucker stood motionless, breathing softly, not moving a muscle or showing the slightest flick of his face, savouring the fragrance of her, of her skin, of her hair, the burning taste of her lips still on his.
Then, gently, he pulled her away from him, just a little, by delicately pushing her back with his hands on either side of her torso and then raised them to rest them on her arms, now stretched out, with the forearms leaning on his shoulders, hands clasped behind his neck.
And finally, something moved on his face.
A half-smile. Crafty. Like the gaze animating his sane eye.
Mh. Perhaps there was a way yet to prolong that pleasant interlude, to have a... a little more fun, the both of them, by postponing a little more the resumption of the heavy narration of his past and not exactly honourable ventures.
After all, what harm was there?
None at all.
And that wonderful kiss she had bestowed him on...
Well, it could be the perfect means to extend that sweet and soothing interlude a little longer.
It had just to be used well.
Yes. It could be very useful, that kiss, other than decidedly pleasurable.
Oh yeah, if wisely employed, it could perfectly sum up the meaning of the saying "combining business with pleasure".
In T'Pol, seeing that look from him, that expression, that cunning half-smile, an alarm bell went off.
She raised an eyebrow, aware that her Adun was about to say something in his style. Aware. And even a little fearful, in truth. But also curious.
She had always been incapable not to feeling curious about what he would say, because it was always something wrong-footing you. Oh yeah. Strange, isn't it, for a Vulcan female? Yet it was so.
She had always reproached herself for this, but she had never been able to do anything about it.
And now less than ever.
The new T'Pol couldn't do anything but accept she had always been charmed by this too of him.
And as so many times in the past, this time too she was not wrong in regards to what was about to happen, nor she remained disappointed.
"Well, well, well."
T'Pol stood silent, waiting for something to follow that "Well, well, well".
Tucker's right hand left her forearm and moved to his mouth, up to bring his thumb to lightly rub his lips, as a kind of thoughtful, yet teasing expression appeared on his face.
"Well, well, well."
Again.
And T'Pol felt impatience rise in her.
Then, he stopped rubbing his lips and started tapping lightly with his forefinger on them. Then stopped this too and finally, as gesturing expressively with his hand, he said something more.
"I have really to say that two is better than one."
T'Pol's eyebrow went up a little more while a questioning look leaned out in her eyes.
"What do you mean, my Lord?"
Tucker's finger went to settle delicately on T'Pol's lips.
"That the kiss of two T'Pols together is even better than the kiss of one only T'Pol."
Inexorably, without her being able to do anything about it, a smug expression was painted on T'Pol's face and any attempt on her part to dissemble it was useless, including the humble placidness, by her expressly sought, of her hurried and short reply.
"Did you enjoy it, Master?"
Tucker chuckled merrily.
"Yes, I enjoyed it. Very much, my double sweetly peppery Vulcan doll."
Politely and calmly, as befitted a Vulcan female, T'Pol began to respond.
"I am glad of that, my..."
But she didn't be able to finish what she was saying.
Tucker shifted fast his index to point it toward her, while some sort of a thoughtful yet sly expression widened on his devastated yet so mobile face, and started to speak in a blatant pensive way, but with a mischievous glimmer in his healthy eye.
"I wonder..."
But suddenly he broke off.
And T'Pol fell into the trap again.
But, on the other hand, if the old T'Pol never had managed to avoid falling into the snares of his speech, how could the new one ever succeed?
Her eyebrow rose again, she found herself asking, in a somewhat uncertain voice, "What are you wondering, my Lord?"
Tucker's finger had now gone to rest on his forehead, as if to underline the question crossing his mind.
His voice sounded even more thoughtful.
And the malicious glimmer in sane eye had disappeared.
Which didn't pleased T'Pol at all.
"I wonder..."
"What, Ashayam? What are you wondering?"
Was there, by chance, a note of apprehension in T'Pol's voice? Why had she lowered her eyebrow, looking fixedly at her Adun?
"Well... if the kiss of two T'Pol together is worth double, as I have had the opportunity to try..."
A glimmer of understanding appeared in T'Pol's eyes, who raised her eyebrow again, while whispering, relieved, a chirpy "So, my Lord?"
Chirpy?
T'Pol realized this. All of a sudden.
But that was it.
But she didn't care too much.
It was much more important to listen to her Adun's explanation to her question of a second ago, especially considering that she was convinced that she already understood the meaning of his words. And it was a meaning she didn't mind at all.
The sly expression appeared again on Tucker's face, who suddenly moved his hand to cheerfully ruffle T'Pol's hair.
His voice seemed to laugh as he spoke.
"I wonder how much the kiss could be worth that could be given me if all the possible T'Pols you may become could get added to the two T'Pols now coexisting for all intents and purposes in you as one only person, my double sweetheart."
A smile, a true inner smile, lit up T'Pol's soul.
And so she had not deceived herself and had had every reason to feel relieved and to indulge in making her voice sound so un-Vulcanly… chirpy.
He, her Adun, was playing again. Whether it was a game made for the sole pleasure of playing or a game conducted to further loosen the heaviness of his story, whose narration must have weighed on him at least as much as its listening weighed on her, it didn't matter. In any case, he was playing again.
And it was a beautiful game.
To which T'Pol did not hesitate to participate.
Whether it is possible to find a more dismayed and contrite expression than the one that got drawn on T'Pol's face is thing no one will ever know.
Certainly any Vulcan would have dropped his jaw if he could have observed it.
And the force she grabbed his hand with so as to mean her consternation!
And the regret and displeasure of her voice, then!
"Oh my Lord! How sorry I am! I wish with all my Katra that you, and me too, could experience the sweet puissance of such a kiss, but I am afraid that for now you will have to settle for the kiss of the only two T'Pols present at the moment!"
How did Tucker respond?
As he only was able to do.
He laughed.
A little bit ironically and a little bit with sincere cheer.
He returned the squeeze of T'Pol's hands as a sly smile lit his ravaged visage, echoed by the sly tone of his voice.
"Oh, of course I settle with that, my sweet T'Pol one and two!"
Then, which T'Pol would never have believed possible, he managed to wink, which was far from easy for him.
"And who am I, poor human vagrant, without country or home," - and here an abrupt and fleeting note of sorrow, which did not escape T'Pol, peered out unwelcome – "to be able to doubt the rightness of that old human way of saying 'He who is satisfied with, enjoys ?' "
"The wisdom of my Lord and Master honours him and makes me, humble slave girl of him, proud."
T'Pol's absolutely serious expression, perfectly Vulcan-like, her dignified air in saying those words, would deceive anyone.
But not Tucker.
Well no!
Not now!
Just as serious as her, he replied.
"Mh. I thought I understood that you were my sweetly peppery Vulcan doll."
T'Pol was no less.
"Your humble slave-girl and, at the same time, your sweetly peppery Vulcan doll, my Lord and Master."
"Ah, I got it. Another double T'Pol, right?"
"As it was to be expected, my Lord, you are once again right."
"Well said, my humble slave-girl and sweetly peppery Vulcan doll. But, then, if I am always right, as I understand that you want to mean, and…"
His index finger moved again, as he spoke.
It snapped over T'Pol's nose.
It settled on its tip, impertinent and light.
Which caused in T'Pol an indefinable sensation of pleasure.
If in her childhood, she had been a human child, and a lucky human child, she would have known which that feeling was.
Feeling cuddled.
This, it was.
She couldn't define it.
But she could define how it was.
And it was wonderful.
"…staying on the subject of double things, I think, my double sweetheart, that we must go all the way, for the sake of justice, and make double what is not doubled yet and which, quite frankly, deserves to be. Because, thing you show you agree with me about, two is better than one.
A sweet shiver ran down T'Pol's back.
She knew, foreboded, where her Adun wanted to get up to.
She wasn't certain, considering his unpredictability, but his play on the "double" was not without reason.
And what had been not double, up to now, in their... love game ?
Very few things.
But one in particular.
One that was the focus of his ironical yet also patently loving observations.
The one their last love game had started from.
T'Pol played along.
Her expression was an authentically Vulcan expression.
An expression that couldn't be blanker.
Not to mention her voice.
"Your words sound cryptic to me, my Lord. Would you like to be so magnanimous as to explain to your humble slave-girl and sweetly peppery Vulcan doll what you mean?"
"You forget to say also witch, sweetheart."
T'Pol was taken aback.
She couldn't hide her confusion.
"Witch? Me? But what..."
Tucker's laughter interrupted her.
"Let's postpone this explanation to another moment, my baby doll. The one you asked me for as first is more impelling."
T'Pol was about to reply, but she was not granted.
Slier than ever - and more cheerful than ever - Tucker hastened to provide the explanation - which T'Pol expected - in no uncertain terms.
"Just one kiss, T'Pol? Even if it's worth double? But just one? Haven't we established that two is better than one?"
And his good eye winked again. Yes. It was able to do it one more time.
"Don't you think, my double sweetness, that, as a consequence of what has been ascertained, a missed doubling of the kiss would be completely out of logic?
And so the game was done.
The trap had sprung and T'Pol fell headlong into it.
But, think about it, how could it be possible for her not to do it?
Of the two battling T'Pols in her, how could the old one not judge such a statement from Tucker absolutely logical? And how could she resist complying with the logic of such a request?
Certainly she couldn't, but the new T'Pol couldn't do it either.
Although decidedly more emotional and condescending to being so, she was still imbued with logic and if we add to this that in her there was something, powerfully acting, which transcended logic, which went beyond this and which was stronger than this, one can perfectly understand how she couldn't but absolutely agree with the old T'Pol.
Consequently, there was an abrupt and swift powerful reaction from both T'Pol, which they accomplished in unison.
As if they were - guess what - one only person.
One only woman.
In love.
The one who threw herself again to hug Tucker strongly and who kissed him again for long with intense passion.
And twice.
Because two is better than one.
End of Chapter Fifty-Five
TBC
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Are you convinced now, my friends?
However, it is impossible to double indefinitely.
And both T'Pol and Tucker know it.
And you too, my friends and kind readers, know, don't you?
And you know very well that there is still a lot to tell about the Empire's Destiny.
So, please be patient.
And wait.