Disclaimer: Paramount owns all, I own my imagination.

Notes: This is what I came up with in response to the Linguistics Database Challenge In A Can: Tucker-Tear-Blood.

KISS ME GOODBYE

She should have refused to go when T'Pol informed them that the caves would block all communication. The away team had gone anyway, four of them in a shuttlepod to explore the unique caves on this uninhabited planet. She and Commander Tucker had gone into one set of caves, and T'Pol had gone into another with Captain Archer. They were supposed to rendevous at the shuttlepod in an hour and five minutes, but Hoshi knew that she and Trip wouldn't make it.

How it happened, she wasn't exactly sure. He had been looking at one side of the tunnel, and she at the other, so her back had been turned. Suddenly a tremendous roar filled her ears, and when she turned, he was pinned under rocks. She had been able to clear most of them away, but it was too late; the damage had already been done.

Trip was stilled pinned down by a gigantic rock on his knees that all Hoshi's efforts hadn't been able to budge. She was trying to push it off from the side when he regained consciousness.

"Ow," he had murmerred weakly.

"Trip! I'm so sorry if I hurt you trying to get this off your legs…"

"I meant my head hurts. Hoshi, I can't feel my legs."

"I have to get this off so we can get back to the shuttlepod and get you to Sickbay," she said, not knowing how to respond to what Trip had said. So far she'd been working on that last rock for ten minutes and all she'd managed was a tear in his uniform.

"I don't think I'm gonna make it back to the shuttle." His head throbbed, he couldn't feel anything below his waist, and when he turned his head, with excruciating effort, he saw blood all around him.

"You can't give up, Trip."

"Hoshi…I think I'm dyin'."

"Trip, no. Don't say that."

He grimaced as a wave of pain came over him. "Tell Jon it's been an honor serving under him, and to let Porthos have some cheese once in a while."

Tears started running down Hoshi's face. "It isn't your fault, Hoshi."

He was slipping away now, and she knew it as well as he did. His voice grew fainter, and the blood around him seemed to be all the blood from every vein in his body.

"Trip, I…"

"Aren't you gonna kiss me goodbye?"

That shocked her, but she did. Leaning in, she gave him a slow, loving kiss. Then he was gone, and she was all alone, deep inside alien caves.