17
Ch 2 Traveling Companions
Propriety the word kept sneaking up on Jonathan Archer and kicking him in the head. He could remember learning it in a fourth grade vocabulary lesson from Mrs. Todd. Propriety, 'the standard of what is socially acceptable in conduct or speech.' As he muttered the words to himself he could hear what his dad had told him when he went out on his first date. 'Son, if you've gotta ask yourself if it's the right thing to do, then it usually isn't!'
"Okay, dad, I'm reading you loud and clear." He sighed as he looked down at the sleeping face of his First Officer. It had been over an hour since she had fallen asleep in his arms. At first, he'd told himself that he wanted to make sure she didn't have any nightmares, just hold her for a few minutes, until he knew she was all right. In that short space of time he'd discovered she wasn't all right, she was terrific! He'd never imagined he'd get the chance to be this close, or to watch her completely unguarded. Hell, a few months ago, he wouldn't have wanted too. Now, he couldn't think of anything else he'd rather do.
One last time he ran his hand lightly through her hair. It felt soft and thick against his skin and made him wonder why it'd taken him so long to notice her. Though if Dr. Phlox was correct, he'd been reacting to her as a woman on a sub-conscious level for a while now. Smiling he brushed a wayward lock behind her delicate ear. That's when it hit him. She's Vulcan! What the hell was he doing! Her kind had been a thorn in his side for as long as he could remember. This whole thing stunk of trouble.
There was no doubt in his mind that they had gone beyond what was socially acceptable on Earth, let alone Vulcan! He winced when he thought of what Admiral Forrest, and God forbid, The High Command, would say, if he and T'Pol were caught like this. Though innocent as it was, looks were deceiving. And this was one hell of a deceiving situation.
They were in her quarters, with only the light from her small meditation lamp and the stars, to keep the darkness out. It was the middle of the night, and no one could possibly mistake his sweat pants and long sleeved t-shirt, or her loose fitting silky shirt and pants for a uniform. His usually calm cool Vulcan was sound asleep in his arms, following an outburst that was considered emotional even by human standards. The sweatshirt he'd taken off due to her hot dry quarters was wrapped around her shoulders to keep her from shivering. Their only saving grace was that they were seated on the hard deck, without even a bulkhead to lean against. Oh yeah, Jon, you'd better get yourself going. If she wakes up there'll be hell to pay!
He was the Captain and she the First Officer. But wait a sec, his mind ground to a halt. Was she really in his chain of command? She had told him once that one of the reasons she was placed on Enterprise was to look out for the Vulcan interest. So that made her what? Before he let himself go chasing the whys and wherefores of that question he slammed on the brakes. He was enjoying holding her too much. It would be too easy to let any little distraction keep his mind off what was important. At that rate they'd still be together in her cabin when Alpha shift began. That would NOT be good!
With one last regret for what couldn't ever be, he shifted her gently, then got carefully to his feet, while never taking his eyes off of her sleeping features. Two steps, then three, and they were beside her bed. As he bent to lay her down, he felt her muscles tighten, and the flutter of lashes against his cheek. He froze when he looked down and found himself staring into a pair of deep green eyes.
"T'Pol--." Lack of sleep, mixed with a highly unusual away mission, had worn them both thin. He wanted to say so much, but now wasn't the time.
"What happened?" Her voice sounded husky, and he felt her breath against his face.
"You fell asleep." For the last three plus days they'd lived on catnaps and adrenaline while rounding up Menos, and returning him to The Vulcan High Command. He needed her to know that she was safe, and he hadn't stayed while she slept to take advantage of her. Anything else could wait until later.
"Oh." She shivered as he pulled his arms from around her and stepped back, taking his body heat with him.
"You were exhausted, we'll talk in the morning." Archer pulled the covers over her with one hand, while he reached for her communicator and placed it beside her head, on the pillow, with the other. He knew she'd been having nightmares every since Tolaris, a freethinking Vulcan, had forced her in a mind-meld. The situation with Menos wasn't going to help. "Your communicator is beside you, and I'm right down the hall if you need me."
"Thank you," she blinked once, but lost the battle to keep her eyes open.
As he knelt and blew out her meditation lamp, sending the room into darkness, he swore he heard the breathy whisper of his first name on her lips. It caught him up short for a moment, as warmth radiated from somewhere in the region of his solar plexus. A tender smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he took one last look at her peacefully sleeping, before he slipped quietly out of her quarters to the sound of her deep and even breathing.
…………………
With a sigh Jonathan closed his cabin door and leaned against it. For just a moment he felt like a kid who had snuck in past curfew and not gotten caught. Shaking his head at the odd feeling, he slid into bed, too tired to argue with Porthos, when the dog jumped up on the mattress and curled against him. "Okay, just for tonight, but you're still not getting any cheese!" With a sleepy grin he felt he'd won at least part of that round with his pet.
His earlier restlessness was gone, to be replaced by a sense of well being that relaxed him more with every breath he took. Something personal and intimate had just transpired with T'Pol. As Captain of the Enterprise, he hoped it was the first small bond leading to a better understanding between their two species. As a man, he refused to look at it any closer than that.
He didn't realize he'd left his sweatshirt wrapped securely around her until he was in that twilight time of sleep, where things are often remembered that are best forgotten. For one quick flash he was glad he had left something of his behind, to keep her warm. It was a strange possessive thought that was too complicated to be understood, so he just enjoyed the feeling. Then the idea was gone, as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by amazement that she had been able to sleep at all, considering she was practically wearing a garment that had to smell of human!
………………………
For months T'Pol had been able to keep the dreams at bay, which her unwise experimentation with Tolaris had awakened. Meticulous adherence to her meditation schedule had been her protection, but over the last four days, there had been none, except for the aborted attempt earlier in the evening. When the dream began, it was different enough from the others that her secondary defense mechanism didn't kick in. She had trained herself to wake-up before she could be caught in the throws of the nightmare, but tonight she didn't waken. Tonight she walked the foggy streets of San Francisco again, and tonight it was different.
She could feel the pull in her calves from climbing the steep hills of the city. The Vulcan Consulate was located on a secluded street in the Russian Hill District. She had been walking for hours. Her climb had led her all the way up Union Street until she could see across the Bay toward Sausalito, though the lights of the Compound where she lived were blanketed in fog that was being sucked in through the Golden Gate.
She had heard talk of North Beach, an area of the city that had once been a haven for writers and intellectuals. That was her destination, though why she wasn't sure. According to the map in her pocket, Union would cross Columbus and she would be there.
When the two streets met, they circled a tiny park. Like many others in this odd city, it was nestled in among one of the many crowded neighborhoods. And like each neighborhood, which boasted a different name, it also had a different personality. The large main park made sense to her ordered mind, but she considered these scattered little patches of green and gold a waste of valuable space. Or so she had always thought until she crossed the street and walked under one of the old-fashioned lamps that lined the walkway.
It was standing there under the muted light from the old iron lamp, with the fog muffling the footsteps of others around her that she first heard the music. Walking with sure steps, she entered an old brick building that smelled of coffee, that strangely human drink, and something else that she couldn't place. As she looked around and let the sights and sounds sink in, she became wary. Had she trespassed where she didn't belong? What Earth customs were these, when men and women danced to this strange music? And what was making her feel so odd? It couldn't be the jagged notes wailing from the unusual S-shaped horn that was being played; she was Vulcan and things like that didn't affect her! Maybe it was the foggy wet climate that made her feel light-headed. After all she was born to a desert planet.
Then she saw him. The man dressed in gray, sitting alone at a table on the edge of the crowd. He was tall, with brown hair and craggy features that radiated strength and determination. His intensity of focus was unusual in a human, but it was there in his eyes, much like the gaze of a Priest of the Kolinar. Except where they looked inward, this man looked outward. He appeared as out-of-place in his planet bound surroundings, as a scholar from P'Jem would be traveling among the stars.
While the unusual human had taken her mind off the people around her, she had caught the attention of a Vulcan male. Years of training jumped to the forefront, and T'Pol became alert. Though all her life she had followed the teachings of Surak, to control her emotions, instead of letting them control her, she felt a quick shaft of fear when the young man approached her uninvited. There was something about him that spoke of ancient rituals, which she had yet to experience.
"Do you feel the music?" Tolaris asked as he moved closer to her. "What emotions does it make you feel?"
"None, I feel none," she backed away from him. Edging closer to the table, and the human, who was now watched her.
"But you must! You've come so far, let me help you to break free of the locks they have put on your emotions." Tolaris held his hand toward her face but she knew she couldn't let him touch her again.
Back in her cabin on Enterprise, T'Pol tossed and turned. The nightmare was close. Logic told her that if she could wake up, she would be all right. But there was something else there, too, something that held a thread of trust. She knew if she concentrated, she'd find it, and the nightmare would be beaten and never return.
Her head thrashed to the side as if to avoid a strong hand with fingers reaching for pressure points on her cheek and temple. As she moved, her face was buried in a soft cotton sweatshirt that smelled of fresh ground coffee and man. She breathed deeply of the scents that had meant safety to her when she had doubted herself over the last few days. Did the answer lie there? She whimpered in her sleep, and let the dream cover her again.
Looking around the restaurant, Tolaris watched her closely with a very un-Vulcan like smile. He had been drawn to her with the Pon Farr intensity he had taught himself to call up to his will. Now she was almost in his grasp. If he could make her free her emotions, she would be his for the taking.
"T'Pol," V'Lar's soft voice caught the younger woman's attention. It took her a moment to realize that the old Vulcan diplomat was touching her mind, and not in the room with her. "Remember what I told you when we visited. Trust can be the beginning of a bond, but it must be recognized before it can strengthen. The conclusion may not seem logical, now, but in time the logic will reveal itself."
The memory of the other woman was the linkT'Pol had needed. Suddenly things were familiar and the ground seemed firm under her feet once again. With a straight back, she walked up to the man at the table, but this time she knew who he was. "Captain, I need to be with someone I can trust." She knew she had said these words to him before, but the context was incorrect.
Jonathan Archer stood up and looked over her shoulder at the angry Vulcan who was closing in on them. His eyes darted to the troubled ones of the woman in front of him. "Why?"
"If you don't wish to help me, I understand." She shivered as she felt the heat radiating from Tolaris's body. It made her want to take a step closer to Jonathan, but the decision was his.
"This move is an unwise one." Tolaris tried to step between them. He knew his strength was greater than the human's, and once the Pon Farr was fully awakened, it would be an easy victory.
"She is a member of my crew, you'll not hurt her!" Archer stepped between the two Vulcans with a phase pistol in his hand. "Leave and don't ever come back."
"Yours is a puny race. You will never win a Vulcan!" The hate in his eyes was almost a living thing as he turned, and walked away.
"Thank you, Captain. I do not seem to be myself tonight." She shivered as she deflected the emotions that Tolaris threw her way. The three of them had brushed very close to something ancient and forbidden to off-worlders. She deemed it illogical that a human could be part of it; therefore she unwisely dismissed it as unimportant.
"Give me your hand." Archer stepped closer to her. "It's easier to navigate a rough and tricky path when you have help."
"You have helped me before." She acknowledged, though she still tried to pull her cloak of Logic around her.
"We've helped each other." He smiled into her beautiful face and watched the battle that she lost, as her hand reached for his, meeting it halfway.
When her warmer skin touched his cooler skin, the world tilted and she blinked to keep her balance. When she opened her eyes, they were sitting on the floor of her quarters on Enterprise with her meditation lamp burning between them. On her bed a young Vulcan woman slept in peace, with a gray Star Fleet sweatshirt wrapped around her shoulders.
………………………….
The next morning T'Pol awoke feeling clear headed and refreshed. It took her a moment to remember that it was only yesterday that they had returned from capturing Menos. Her nose twitched as she rose to do her morning stretches. What was that odd smell?
As she straightened her bed, she found a man's large sweatshirt between where her body had been and the bulkhead. She remembered the Captain wearing it when he came to her quarters the night before, and taking it off when he sat with her to meditate. But she remembered little else after that. Jonathan, she had called him that? The rest was a dream wasn't it?
……………………………
"Mornin', Sir." Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III greeted his friend and commanding officer as he walked into the Captain's dining room for breakfast. Archer was drinking coffee and reading from a Padd. "Whacha readin there, Cap'n?"
"Lord Of The Rings, I haven't read it in years!" He smiled at his friend and shoved the Padd across the table. He couldn't shake the image of T'Pol as Arwen. It had caused him to dig through the ships library until he found the book he was looking for and downloaded it to his Padd. "I sure did enjoy it as a kid." He had had a terrible crush on Arwen, until he got his first close look at Vulcans, and then he had let his prejudice ruin his joy of the saga that had so enthralled him.
"Me too," Trip laughed. "I spent the whole summer I was twelve roamin' the land behind my Daddy's house, carrying a bow and arrow, huntin Orcs."
"A bow and arrow?" Jonathan grinned and nodded. "That would've made you Legolas?" He hoped his friend didn't ask who he had identified with from the book.
"You bettcha! I didn't care if he did have pointy ears, ya gotta admire a fella that loyal and brave." Trip ate as he tried to figure out how to work the conversation back to the mission that had taken Archer, Mayweather, and T'Pol away from Enterprise for almost four days. Every time he tried to bring it up his friend refused to discuss it. He had a suspicion that the Captain was using the book as a distracter, why else would he be reading it?
"Good morning, Captain, Commander," T'Pol stood very straight as she walked into the Captain's Mess. "I have brought the information from the scans that were run on the course we will be following over the next three days." She handed it to Archer as she sat down. All the while telling herself that she had gotten the data early to be an efficient Science Officer. Forget the fact that carrying the Padd gave her hands something to keep them busy.
"Thank you T'Pol, but you didn't have to do it before breakfast." He studied the Padd as he tried to separate his First Officer from the person he had spent the last four days with. The woman beside him was as cool and calm as he she had ever been, there was no trace in her eyes of the doubt and guilt that had driven her to ask for his help, or sleep in his arms.
"Anything interesting up ahead?" Trip grinned at the opening that had been left him. "You know, interesting like the last mission you guys were on?"
The sudden quiet that fell over the Mess made the engineer look up, and put down his coffee cup. He was met by two sets of green eyes, one deep and unchanging, and the other deceptive for their ability to move from friendly banter to unyielding authority. Both said loud and clear that the topic was not going to be discussed.
"Ya can't blame a guy for tryin'?" Trip took a quick swig of coffee as he fought the feeling that his friend was siding with the Vulcans.
"Yes I can, and I will." Archer had moved into captain mode, though part of him stood back and watched knowing that it wasn't the Captain who shielded T'Pol from ideal gossip. "There will be no more discussion of this away mission, Commander. That's an order, and I am leaving it up to you to be sure the rest of the crew follows suit."
"Yes Sir." The young engineer had run up against Archer's stubbornness before, and he knew there was no budging him. But what really peaked his curiosity was T'Pol's reaction. Instead of the icy stare she had given him earlier, when Jon began speaking, she suddenly became very interested in her hands, which she'd folded neatly in her lap.
"Good," the Captain nodded, and then smiled as he contemplated the information on the Padd. "On your way to engineering, stop by and tell Hoshi to call a staff meeting for 0900, in The Situation Room."
"Yes, Sir!" Trip stood, taking his coffee with him. He could tell a dismissal when he heard one, besides he wanted time to think about T'Pol's odd reaction. In the past she never let a chance go by to take a pot shot at him. Something very strange was going on. For one fleeting second he wondered if he could get Mayweather to spill the beans, but decided that he had no wish to bring the Captain's wrath down on the young officer. With a little care, he could figure it out himself, or he wasn't Charles Tucker, III!
"Captain, that was unnecessary." T'Pol reached for her cup, and stared into the light color of warm chamomile tea. The pot had been waiting for her when she arrived, she wondered for a moment if Chef had remembered her preference, or if someone else had ordered it for her.
"I thought we'd agreed you'd call me Jonathan when not on duty?" He smiled at her, as she slipped unknowingly back into the less formal person he had becoming acquainted with recently. "And it was very necessary. The Vulcan High Command had asked that the mission remain top secret."
"When did you begin taking orders from the High Command?" In her mind she added Jonathan, but found it hard to say aloud.
"When their interests and mine are the same." He watched her as she looked everywhere but at him, he must have offended her, and that was the last thing he'd wanted to do. "Look T'Pol, about last night. I meant no disrespect to you or your people. I was only trying to help you."
"If there was any disrespect, it was on my part….." She took a deep breath and added, "Jonathan."
"How do you arrive at that conclusion?" He leaned on the table and turned toward her, so he could look her full in the face.
"I had offered to help you meditate, but instead of acting as guide, I took advantage in a way that was inexcusable. You trusted me enough to let our minds brush superficially, but instead of holding back and being a support for yours, I took what I needed in order to free myself from the last of the memory lock that had been placed at P'Jem seventeen years ago." Her face remained ridged and her shoulders stiff, but her unease was clear in her halting speech, as she searched for words to explain what had happened.
"Did you do it on purpose?" Archer sat back and contemplated this new information.
"I do not understand the question." Doubt shadowed her eyes. He was missing the important point. She had tried to help him, and had ended up needing help instead. There was a question of honor at stake.
"When I came to your quarters last night, did you decide it would be a good time to go rummaging around to see if there was anything in my head you could use." Part of him was uneasy; especially when he remembered the thoughts he'd been having about her lately. His words came out much stronger than he had planned.
"No!" Could he really believe she would have so little honor? "Going any deeper than a person's public mind, is reserved for healers, or the sacrament of bonding, Captain."
There was no doubt in his mind that she had added his title in a small act of defiance. Vulcan women where purported to suppress their emotions like the men did, but the look on her face reminding him of the one she had given him when he had questioned her loyalty at P'Jem. He remembered thinking then, that there must be something tied to the female humanoid gene, which allowed women of such varying species to be able to convey to a any male, with one look, the same insulted disgust!
"T'Pol, I know very little of Vulcan mediation rituals. I was only asking."
"I would never trespass, --Jonathan," she whispered his name almost as an afterthought. "I had been searching for the remnants of the lock before you arrived. When I asked you to join me I had surmised that it was gone, since I was unable to find it."
Now Archer felt he was the trespasser. He knew T'Pol was an intensely private person and he could see how difficult it was, for her, to tell him what had happened, but he felt that it was something that she needed to discuss.
"The mental discipline that is required in the Falara Ritual is painful, and the process long and exacting. After what had transpired the last few days I didn't have the ability to approach the block that had been left behind on my own. My hypothesis is that we had formed a bond of trust, and that is what I reached for in my meditation. Somehow, it allowed me to go much deeper than I could have on my own." She frowned slightly as if she was trying to figure out a difficult puzzle. "You must understand that what I've told you are things that are never spoken of outside of a-a-a, the group in which it takes place." She looked down at her hands, unable to find the words to tell him that these things are only shared in the closest of family ties.
"Your secret is safe with me." Jonathan wondered what she was leaving out, and who would have helped her if he hadn't been present. It was evident she wasn't comfortable talking about it. "The important thing is that you're all right." He slide his hand close to hers, but didn't dare touch her without permission. They were on a fragile bridge between the formality of their past and something…but what it was he didn't know. The explorer in him said it would be a bridge worth crossing.
"I am, what I believe you humans refer to as 'all right.'" T'Pol carefully cut a small piece of fruit off the larger one on her plate. She was unsure of what Jonathan was asking; the particular Human idiom he used had meanings on a number of different levels and she wasn't comfortable thinking that way. As it was, she had disclosed much more than she had intended.
As they ate in silence, her eyes fell on the Padd between them. "Was there anything of particular interest to you in the scans that I brought in?"
"Funny you should mention that," he smiled, knowing exactly why she had changed the subject so abruptly. "There is a Minshara class planet two days away that I think would be an interesting place to visit."
She looked over her plate to the information between them and carefully swallowed her food. "That would be unwise, Captain."
"Unwise, Sub-Commander?" They were back on duty, and had both slipped easily into their appropriate roles.
"Yes Captain, very unwise. As you can see, it is a pre-warp civilization." She stood her ground, though she knew that if he chose to ignore her advice, she would back him up no matter the consequences.
"Those are rules set by The High Command, not Starfleet."
"Ahh and this is one of those times you do not have the same interests as they do?" Her eyebrow quirked to her hairline.
"Now you're sounding like your old self." He laughed as he looked her over carefully. The four days chasing Menos had taken their toll, and last night hadn't been easy, but her extremely dry sense of humor was back, and it felt good to have her challenge him, again.
"That is reassuring to know. I would hate to think I had gotten lost along the way." She found it challenging and enlightening to turn Earth slang around and toss it back at the speaker.
"T'Pol," this time he did let himself touch her, but only on the sleeve of her uniform. "I'd never let that happen." She didn't know how many times he'd almost lost her but had fought to get her back, and he never intended on telling her. He didn't give a damn who it was, from The High Command down to criminals, he would keep her safe.
She hadn't been prepared for his response, or his touch. She stored his odd remark away for later to study it, and research what he had really been saying. Whatever it was, she had obviously answered incorrectly. Needing to get them back on firmer ground, she quickly took the conversation to where it had started. "If you decide you would like to learn to meditate, Jonathan. I will guide you. All I ask is that we not start for a week or two. You will run into no more memory locks. Vulcans are only allowed one visit to P'Jem."
"But you had two!" He was struck with the thought that she had probably begun to unravel long before Menos came long. "And your experience with Tolaris, didn't help your situation any, did he?"
"Precisely," she nodded. She hadn't expected him to be so perceptive.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, then shook his head at her when she gave him a confused rather doubting look that used to make him want push her out the nearest air lock. For the first time he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she really didn't understand what he was saying. Maybe she wasn't rubbing her superior Vulcan attitude in his face. "I'm sorry that being a member of my crew has caused you pain."
"Oh?"
"Ensign Sato to Captain Archer." The wall communicator filled the silent room with Hoshi's voice.
"Archer here." Damn!
"You've got a message from Admiral Forrest."
"Thanks, Hoshi, I'll be with him in a minute." At the intrusion, Archer shook his head, and T'Pol blinked, as if suddenly realizing where they were.
"Captain, your apology is unnecessary." It was the stock Vulcan answer and they both new it. "But thank you, Jonathan." She whispered as she stood and walked calmly out of the Mess, her carriage slim and supple, with the fluid easy grace that had been missing over the last few days.
"Put it through Hoshi." Though he spoke into the wall communicator, he couldn't take his eyes off the space T'Pol has been occupying. All that she had left behind her was an empty teacup and a whiff of lemon mixed with an exotic spice that he couldn't place, though he doubted he'd forget it.
After his brief conversation with Star Fleet, Archer sat and finished his coffee. The last few days had given him a lot to think about, most of it regarding his Science Officer. She was a strange mix of strength, stubbornness and tender beauty. He knew that he would never be able to look at her the same, again. He just wasn't sure what he was going to do about it.