==CHAPTER 1====/\=
("Horizon" 1)

Finally giving up trying to get any real work done out on the bridge, he had retreated to his ready room. It was nagging at his mind that this "being aware of this" business was starting to interfere with his duties, and he couldn't have that. Overthinking it wasn't going to get him anywhere, but he couldn't help it, he decided. When someone says, "Don't look now, but there's a guy over there that ", the impulse is to look; it's human nature. But he needed to quell that impulse enough at least to carry out his duties like a professional. He wanted to find a way to manage it without thinking about it, if such a tactic were possible. The problem was, he didn't know if bringing it up with Phlox again would warp his brain any more than it already had.

The doorchime broke through his introspective concentration. For the second time since he walked in a dozen minutes ago, he noticed the status reports on his desk that he'd intended to distract himself with. The thought of them had been well been forgotten by now in truth, since before he had even sat down. However he was dealing with this was not effective. "Come." He rubbed his hands down over his eyelids and then looked up.

Damn.

The object of too many of his stray thoughts lately was standing before him in the flesh, covered from neck to ankle in her two-piece, subtly metallic, taupe duty uniform. "Captain." It was the one person he hadn't realized it'd hurt like hell to miss when the High Command had called for her reassignment, the Vulcan he would never have expected he would care so much for, the woman he wasn't able to stop thinking about now.

Blinking, he couldn't discern why she was there. Sometimes she could be tough to read when not being open for human benefit. But more and more often, and especially since he had "become aware" and paid more attention, he had found that when she laid eyes on him, it wasn't with what he would interpret as a flat look of expressionless evaluation or outright or even subtle judgement, for that matter. What it was, exactly, he wasn't sure. He only knew that she tended to have no qualms about holding his gaze, and he thought he imagined feeling a little tug in his chest every time.

As a prime example, he found it recurrently tormenting to not know quite what she meant when, the other day, she stood in this same room with a hint of a smile, her eyes focused diligently on his, and told him it was good they weren't attracted to one another or else it'd be a problem. They. Was she poking fun at him and that was all there was to it? Or by placing the stress on the "hypothetically" turn it into being about them both, that she intimating she was just as interested but they couldn't act on it because of their positions? Whatever it was, it was hard for him to ignore. But after the fiftieth time reconsidering it, she must've just been playing with him. Right?

Apart from these kinds of sporadic, lingering questions he consciously chalked up to cultural differences, he was pleased that every day that had gone by, they had become able to read each other a little better, understand each other a little more. With no surprise, this progress was helped by him finding an ability to push past his pride one of his biggest failings that she had pointed out to him at the beginning of their mission and actually take a look at her as an individual person rather than as an unmoved face of another species. When that happened, he thought, was when they started to click; it was the turning point of him starting to get the hang of her as much as she was starting to get the hang of him and the rest of them. And, very importantly, over the course of all the different circumstances and dilemmas that had been thrown at them, they had grown to trust one another implicitly. That even by itself made their working relationship so much easier overall. He had proven to her from the beginning he would always have her back, and to his jaw-dropping amazement not all that long ago, she had decided openly in front of her own people to prove she had his in return.

Even with the easy-enough rhythm they'd developed, it didn't mean they still didn't argue and butt heads regularly. They had met each other's match as far as stubbornness was concerned. He hadn't necessarily welcomed that with open arms, but he'd always respected her willingness to keep him in check, to call him out when she thinks he's being arrogant or reckless. It's not something you can buy from someone working under you in almost any other profession. They balanced each other out well in that and so many other respects.

"Subcommander." It was a half greeting, half question. When she said nothing, a crease formed between his eyes, and his mouth shifted. "What can I do for you?"

No, he wasn't sure what she was thinking from her expression, but one thing he knew was certain: She had definitely not been avoiding him herself. 'Was she just curious?', he wondered. 'Simply friendly from letting her guard down around me? Or maybe she's just humoring me.' And then he dipped back in to those previous thoughts he had tried and failed to keep at bay. 'But what if she's interested too?' He inwardly laughed at himself then, admitting the odds of that were probably astronomically low. Vulcans and humans had been around one another for nine decades, and not once had any of them paired off. 'It would be a hell of a thing to be the exception to the rule.', he chastized himself at the impossibility of it. Apparently, allowing himself to think about "it" just a little had sent those kinds of thoughts of his careening off into outer space. He really wanted to figure out how to turn that fantastical idea off like a tap.

"I had assumed there was something you wanted to tell me over the course of the morning.", she spoke, bringing him back to the real world.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Called out, he unwillingly pushed his PADD over to the side of his desk.

"You have been by my station - 'hovered', as you would call it - multiple times today. I can only assume you were considering speaking to me about a matter you decided you were not comfortable addressing on the bridge."

His lips parted, but he couldn't seem to move them; it took awhile before a reply came to mind. "No, nothing I wanted to tell you. I'm sorry; you must've gotten the wrong impression." Her expression remained impassive, and not for the first time, Archer noted that her ability to notice every detail could be annoying. Useful most of the time, yes, but in this case, downright annoying. He repeated to himself not to make any Freudian slips or whatever Phlox had called them so as to raise her suspicions. "There's just been a lot going on lately. A lot on my mind."

Her commanding, appraising stare never subsided, he thought. "Perhaps I could suggest meditation."

He stifled a laugh of incredulity. "I'm not sure I would know how. I was actually thinking more along the lines of joining the others for the movie tomorrow night."

"I take it that was Commander Tucker's suggestion."

Amused, he leaned back in his chair. "It was. Did he try to get you to go too?"

She hesitated, but only for a second. "I believe you would find meditation of great benefit.", she dodged. After another pause to consider the wiseness of the offer, she added, "If you would make time in your schedule this evening, I can begin to teach you."

He was surprised, to say the least. It wasn't exactly every day that a Vulcan asked an outsider to join in on a private activity with them. "Are you sure? You have time?"

The tilt of her head and lift of her eyebrow were just on the perceptible side, as if she were having her own internal dialogue and why-not shrugging at her own suggestion.

Okay. And without thinking, he stood and paced to the far end of his ready room, mere feet away, to contemplate the merits of the offer as personally detached as he could. Admittedly, he'd realized that he had spent most of his life avoiding giving a damn about Vulcan traditions and what they did on their own time or what they thought or why. But he was now commanding a starship with a clear mission: to search out and understand other cultures. Light-years away from the Vulcan homeworld, with the distance between them not seeming so overbearing to him, and with one he trusted, it wouldn't be a bad time to purposefully try to understand them better. 'Them' is what he told himself. It wouldn't be in the spirit of interspecies cooperation to turn this kind of offer down, he decided. "Alright. Sounds like a good idea." He added, "Thank you for the invitation."

She dipped her head slightly.

Before she could fully turn to leave, he made a counter offer. "Why not a full cultural exchange, and you come to the movie? A little fraternizing couldn't hurt."

"I don't understand how sitting silently in a darkened room constitutes fraternizing."

"It's, um," he grasped at an explanation, "a communal experience."

"I hadn't planned to attend."

He didn't figure so. He kept in a sigh and put his hand on a ceiling beam to leaned on it. But then, there was something about the way she said it that suggested she might be leaving the possibility open. "Meditation Monday, Theater Tuesday?" He tried not to make it sound as silly as it did. "I tell you what, let's make a night of it: dinner in the captain's mess, 1830, movie at 1900, you'll be my date." Aaah, well, he hadn't quite meant to say that. But he did, and that was that. He plowed past the thought that this might go against his better judgement, that his ability to not think much about her while spending time with her two nights in a row, at least one of which would be in a small, enclosed space, was probably not his brightest move.

"I beg your pardon?" She hadn't expected it, that much was obvious, but he was relieved she didn't look appalled, either.

That gave him the courage to pretend it was nothing. "I'll be a perfect gentleman. And," he added, "if you don't like the movie, I'll never ask you to sit through another one."

"If you insist.", she lilted, "although I will be meditating on Tuesday as well, afterward."

There it was in her voice again, but he hadn't insisted. So why did she make it 'easy'? She turned and left without giving him a chance to respond. He shook his head and put it out of his mind as best he could so he could concentrate on writing the day's report.

As it happened, what they had gotten one another to agree to in that conversation on that day would turn out to be the biggest gamechanger of their lives.

NOTES:

Laura - It is indeed. :) I hadn't seen many A/TP stories out there, and of the few I read, none made any reference to that line. I thought it was too good to be a throwaway. And as for the rest, I agree with you! I decided to reference "A Night in Sickbay" as one of his pushes, but yeah, I thought the ep was over the top on that. Thanks for writing.

brankell - Thanks!