In Its Time and Place
Chapter 3
That night, she sat surrounded by the flickering light of candles, trying to meditate her body's reactions back under her conscious control. Each time she believed that she had succeeded, each time that she felt that she could bring herself back to the reality of her cabin and go peacefully into a dreamless sleep, another flicker of emotion licked at her crumbling supports and set off internal displays of emotions and desires that she could only endure, not suppress.
During the course of one of these, her comm buzzed quietly, drawing her attention out of her mind to the reality of Enterprise. Her body was damp with sweat, and every muscle felt sore and unresponsive. It buzzed again, and she rose to answer it, ignoring the complaints of her body.
"T'Pol speaking."
"Sub-commander?" She recognized the voice of the young communications officer from the night staff. "You have a transmission coming in via Starfleet relays from Vulcan."
An uncontrollable worry struck at her. If Vulcan had a ship in the local area, they could have used their own communications channels to communicate with her; they should not have needed to relay a transmission via Starfleet. In fact, the staff of the local ship should have contacted her directly.
"Please put it through."
The face that appeared on her view screen was not one she was expecting. Instead of some anonymous member of high command's staff, her paternal foremother, the current matriarch of her family, stared out at her. T'Pol had never known T'Lar well, and found herself unable to judge anything from the closed expression on the woman's face.
"You do not look well." T'Lar began bluntly.
"I am handling myself to the best of my abilities."
"Those are clearly being tested." The woman shook her head in one quick motion. "Do you know why I am contacting you?"
"My message to high command ..."
"For which you should have expected an answer from high command."
"Yes."
"When high command realized that there were no ships that could reach the Enterprise in time, they decided that the issue was a family problem and passed the message to me. You have put yourself into an unwise situation, granddaughter."
"I have made the choices that my logic directed me to make." T'Pol resisted the urge to feel defensive, to defend the choices that had brought her to the Enterprise in her current condition. She knew that the confrontation with her family over her current assignment and recent choices would occur at some point, but could not allow herself to react as though that confrontation was occurring right now.
"I am not questioning your choices at this time. No matter how much I would like to demand explanations for your decisions to violate traditions which put you in this place, this is neither the appropriate time or circumstance. First, we must decide how to keep you alive and sane. Then we can have that needed discussion, if necessary.
"Your ship's doctor is receiving a transmission with the basic information about pon farr, and treatments that we have created over the years to handle it, with strict orders not to place that information into the Starfleet database. You are aware as any Vulcan about the limitations of that treatment, but we are providing it as an option."
T'Pol suppressed her surprise. She had not expected Vulcan to release any information to Dr. Phlox, much less the highly secret information about the treatments that could provide limited relief from the overwhelming biological urges that drove pon farr.
"Your other option is, of course, to find someone who can help you deal with this in the traditional manner." T'Lar's mouth quirked in a manner that T'Pol registered as being close to smile. Not that T'Lar would ever smile; her state was obviously causing her to perceive emotion where it did not exist. "Is there someone on Enterprise that you believe would be willing to help you?"
A flush colored T'Pol's cheekbones and the tips of her ears at the question that T'Lar had laid before her. The question she had absolutely refused to allow herself to consider. She stammered an "Um ..." then firmly shut her month against the human expression of confusion that had accidentally emerged from it.
T'Lar's mouth quirked again. "I rather suspect that there may be someone whom you would prefer to have help you, rather than giving yourself to the uncertain outcome of treatment."
"What?" The exclamation emerged before she could contain it.
T'Lar gave her the type of look an adult Vulcan gives to a child who is slow in understanding her lesson. "The reasons are logical enough, if you chose to follow the logic rather than denying it.
"You are young for the emergence of pon farr. For a female Vulcans of your age, the onset of pon farr is typically triggered by marriage and the changes which accompany it. Vulcans who do not marry at the traditional age usually have quite a few years before they first experience pon farr and are forced to seek out some situation to handle it. Because you refused your marriage, you should not have experienced onset for at least another decade.
"But pon farr can also be triggered by other outside events. Specifically, some form of attraction that the Vulcan is refusing to acknowledge or deal with. The body forces you to deal with it because the mind denies it. Logically, that seems the conclusion here."
T'Pol sat down heavily in her desk chair, only realizing that she had been standing for the course of the entire interview when her legs suddenly threatened to give out under her. Although she had been taught as much about pon farr as any Vulcan child, the information that T'Lar had just provided her had not been in that teaching. "I have never heard that before."
"Does it sound like information that our culture would embrace? Marriages based on the logical decisions of parents are far stronger than those based on illogical sexual or emotional attractions that should have been dealt with quickly and in an appropriate manner. You have refused to deal with something and forced this situation. The fact that you have let a situation grow out of control in this manner, and apparently formed some sort of attachment to some non-Vulcan--especially a human--both impacts your honor, and our family honor. That damage is already done.
"Now, you must either confront what you have chosen to deny, or take the risk of treating yourself. If you chose treatment, and survive with your sanity and health intact, remember to return to Vulcan seven years from now.
"If you chose to deal with the situation in the traditional manner, know that it will be difficult as well. I suspect you would not want to return to Vulcan in the near future. With the current political situation, the suspicion that you have engaged in a relationship with a human, even solely under the influence of pon farr, will affect your position and career within high command and possibly within society.
"Farewell, T'Pol. Live long and prosper, no matter what your choice."
The connection closed and T'Lar vanished, but T'Pol continued to stare at the screen for a long time afterwards.