In Its Time and Place
Chapter 9
Phlox greeted both of them cheerfully. "Feeling better?"
They glanced at one another and Jonathan shrugged, responding "I think I'm as well as can be expected."
"As am I."
"Well, Sub-commander, you put yourself up on that bed, and captain, you go over there, and we'll get this examination out of the way." Phlox pulled out his collection of equipment, and started scanning T'Pol.
She sat patiently, waiting for the examination to be over. His scanner beeped in several different tones as it processed her state, and he clucked at it. "Hormone levels have mainly returned to normal. You've got some muscle strains and aches that are to be expected ..." He winked at her. "And some eyestrain that indicates you've been staring at a computer screen recently." Phlox turned towards Jonathan, saying over his shoulder "Nothing serious, although I order you to get a full night's sleep tonight. Alone."
T'Pol kept her own emotions under control, although Jonathan turned bright red. "Yes, Doctor. Anything else?"
"Go get dinner, then go to bed." His scanner was currently beeping insistently at Jonathan. "Captain, I'm going to keep you here for a while longer. You seem to be experiencing some abnormal brain activity."
"In the area of the brain associated with telepathy?" She asked, although she already knew the answer.
"Humans barely have any area associated with telepathy," he answered, raising his eyebrows. "But yes. I think that I am just going to run a couple of additional scans to make sure that there are no unusual physical effects from this activity?"
Jonathan nodded. "That would probably be wise."
"You'll be here for another half an hour or so."
T'Pol could sense Jonathan's impatience at the news. "Do you want me to wait?"
He glanced at her, then at the Doctor, who was already busily arranging a new collection of equipment. "For some reason I suspect that his half hour might turn out to be slightly longer. Why don't you go get dinner, and I'll see you tomorrow?"
"May I use the captain's mess for dinner?" Even with her hormone levels back to normal, and her emotions seemingly back under her control, she did not want to face an entire mess hall full of Enterprise crew. Not yet.
"Go right ahead. Maybe I'll make it there sometime this evening."
She bowed her head, and left quickly.
Jonathan did not arrive during the time she spent eating dinner, although Commander Tucker showed up and made polite conversation about how she was feeling, and what had occurred while she and the captain had been incapacitated. A little annoyed by his concern, she excused herself by pleading exhaustion, and returned to her quarters.
Once there, with the knowledge that Phlox was still poking and prodding Jonathan, apparently impressed by the idea of a human exhibiting this particular sort of brain activity without detrimental effect, she settled into her nightly routine. Vulcan had not responded to her data request, either to provide her with the requested information or to demand an explanation, so she saved her research and shut off her computer screen.
She lit the candles scattered around her quarters, and tried to mediate. She was more successful than she had been the other night, succeeding in clearing her mind of most issues that had come up during the past few days, but the most important one still danced across her mind, disrupting her concentration. Once her mind had been cleared, the ebb and flow of his emotions over their bond were even more apparent, and both comforting and troubling.
After picking up a book, she settled into her bed, into sheets which his scent still clung to. She knew that she could change the sheets, replace them with ones that barely smelled of the soap that the laundry on Enterprise used, but could not gather up the energy or desire to do so. Instead she lay, half suspended between waking and sleep, her eyes barely focused on the characters in front of her.
Later, she knew when Jonathan paused by the door to her quarters, his emotions warring between a desire to come in, and a desire to follow the doctor's orders for the night. She suppressed her own desire for him to enter, to come to her so that she could fall asleep curled against his chest. After a moment, he moved on, returning to his own quarters. But he gave her a silent promise, and that was what she took into sleep with her.
That night she dreamed, but in a strange and vague fashion that she had not experienced before. Scenes flashed through her mind, images of a world not her own, and experiences she had never undergone. But there was a distance between her and the dreams, and the images themselves were not disturbing or upsetting.
The next morning, she first encountered Jonathan when they ended up in the same lift on the way to the bridge. He looked exhausted, probably because he had barely enough time to get a full night's sleep after Phlox was finished with him. Neither of them spoke to one another, but he lightly touched his hand to hers, and she caught a flicker of distinct thought from him ... for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss ... She didn't recognize the reference, and was vaguely mystified by the odd emotions which accompanied it.
As the lift arrived at the bridge, and the doors slide open, he moved a discreet step away from her, taking a more formal pose. She went to her post, and he to the captain's chair, both determined to behave as though everything was the same as it had been three days prior.
A few minutes after they arrived, Hoshi looked up from her console. "Sub-commander, there's a transmission coming in from Vulcan via Starfleet relays for you. It's marked private and confidential."
Jonathan looked over at her, acknowledging her desire for privacy. "You can use the ready room to receive it, if you want."
"Thank you."
Once again, T'Lar regarded her from the small screen of the monitor. "T'Pol, you appear healthier than the last time I spoke with you."
"I am."
"Are you curious as to why I am contacting you again?"
"It is unexpected."
"You were never much for on world politics," T'Lar stated, unexpectedly. "Or else you might have made different decisions in your life. Although, that would have lead to your not being in your current position. And no matter how awkward your position is, and will continue to be, it may prove needed in the future.
"I was forwarded an unusual request that you sent to the Vulcan central database."
"I requested information on telepathy, and specifically on telepathy between Vulcans and other species."
"Not exactly a request you should have sent through channels high command might access." T'Pol blinked in surprise. Although she believed that keeping high command in the dark about her personal matters might be a wise decision in the near future, she had never thought about using other channels for her data request. "They are already suspicious of you, T'Pol. There are those who remember your training and suspect that you may eventually go native on them. Your request surprised me, and it would have shocked your keepers among the staff of high command."
"They did not see the request?"
"Unfortunately, the staff member who took your research request has accidentally but permanently misplaced it. That same staff member, a cousin of yours, is currently investigating a similar research request for me."
Confusion brought T'Pol's thinking processes to a halt. Like the times when she had been confronted with the illogical choices and behavior of high command representatives on earth, the situation before her was so outside of her experience and expectations that it took her a moment to interpret and understand it. Like those times, she was also forced to control a desire to shake the person instigating the situation.
"You should receive a data transmission from my personal account sometime in the next few days. I made some guesses as to why you might be requesting this information, and expanded your search parameters to include some areas you might not have considered. That way, you should not need to make any additional requests from the central database. If you need to, please make them through me."
She regarded T'Pol steadily. "What your message implied to me was not a circumstance I was anticipating. Has it occurred?"
"Yes."
"By choice?"
"No."
"That is unfortunate." T'Pol bristled, and T'Lar sighed. "Unfortunate as in it makes the situation far more complicated than it needed to be. Unfortunate in that it should never have occurred and that its occurrence challenges commonly accepted knowledge. Unfortunate because now is not the time for any sort of relationship between Vulcan and human, much less one that challenges our expectations and beliefs. If high command even suspects it, logic will not rule. Prejudice will."
"Even if it creates a scandal, they should accept it as what has occurred."
"They will not. There are many on Vulcan who can see that some in high command are making decisions, especially in regard to humans and Earth, which are violations of logic and cause for question. Actions of particular individuals have been growing increasingly irrational. But they are in control, and challenging the logic and decisions of those who have reached such high status is not to be undertaken lightly, nor done quickly. We may never be able to acknowledge this relationship, at least within the human's lifetime."
Although she knew that her relationship with Jonathan, and particularly their bond, would create problems for them, she had expected eventual acceptance. She had expected that high command would be more reasonable than his superiors, who also had military-type mentalities and fraternization rules to deal with. The idea that she could never be honest with her own people had not entered her mind. The idea that T'Lar would suggest it astonished her.
"What will occur, will occur. It is not necessary to concern ourselves about it." T'Pol fell back onto a statement that lessons throughout childhood had made a integral part of her life.
"But what will occur, and how it will be viewed can be manipulated. Must be, in some cases. Even our culture, no matter how static it appears, evolves over time, T'Pol. It must evolve, or eventually it will die. But due to the slow pace of this evolution, rushing towards acceptance of new ideas only causes harm and deep division. Acknowledging new ideas on an individual level when they first arise, then controlling their introduction to the culture at large supports their eventual integration. That must be done."
T'Lar raised her hand, and gave the Vulcan sign of both greeting and departure. "Live long and prosper." The screen blanked.
T'Pol turned away from the view screen, her thoughts in a muddle. She had understood the power that T'Lar held as head of her extended family, and the power that all family heads on Vulcan welded. She had never considered the ways in which that power might be used to control all of those underneath them. T'Lar had placed her into a position outside the rest of their family, by exposing her to the types of political maneuvering T'Lar had engaged in to keep T'Pol safe. Perhaps she had done so because she had acknowledged that T'Pol was now a self-aware exile, forced outside the culture and the family by a series of choices she had not fully understood as she made them. Forced into a position that she never predicted.
The door slide open for her, and she was not surprised to find Jonathan leaning against the wall in the small corridor that connected the ready room to the bridge. The door leading to the bridge was shut, giving them a little bit of privacy. He quickly stepped into his ready room, and she moved back.
"Not a good conversation, I take it?"
"It did not go the way I anticipated."
"Want to talk about it?"
"I do not know how to talk about it." She didn't even know where to start. The things that she had learned about Vulcans in the past few days, the idea of information suppression in a culture that relied on logical and fact; all of it disturbed her and disrupted her view of her home world and her people.
"When you figure out where to start ..."
"I know." Everything was so raw, but she was not alone in dealing with it. Although his support and his thoughts would probably cause further disruption to her world views. He thought about Vulcan culture from a far different perspective, and talking with him about what she had learned and realized would be interesting.
He reached over and brushed her arm with his fingertips, opening himself to her completely. Feelings of acceptance rolled over her, and she closed her eyes to receive them. Not to process them, but to allow herself to feel them and to begin to understand the complex relationships and emotions that lay behind them. To begin to understand how she and her various positions on this ship related to human culture and Vulcan culture. It might not be something that anyone would ever figure out completely, but acceptance was the first step.
He removed his fingertips from her arm, and she opened her eyes to find him smiling at her. "Perhaps I should show you the way that Vulcan couples show their connection to one another." She said. He looked at her inquisitively, and she hastily reviewed the various ways that she had seen human couples expressing affection and connection. "We touch fingertip to fingertip. A little like holding hands."
"I don't think that we're going to be having too many public displays of affection." He said seriously.
"No, we should not."
"But privately ..." He looked at her hopefully.
"There is much to explore, privately." And for the second time in several days, like a Vulcan child who had been caught thinking or doing something naughty, the tips of her ears and her cheeks flushed.
He graciously ignored her embarrassment. "I think it's time to return to the bridge. Before anyone has any reason to comment on our behavior."
She brought her blood pressure and skin temperature back under control, and responded "Certainly, Captain."
"After you, Sub-commander."
She proceeded him out the door of the ready room, returning herself to the role of Sub-commander and Vulcan observer that she wore on the bridge in the public areas of Enterprise. Until now, she had also worn that role in private, refusing to allow herself to develop other roles outside of it. Sometimes she had lapsed, allowing personal matters and developing friendships to weaken it, but it had been the defining part of her existence for the past few years.
Humans wore roles, too, she knew. She could see and feel Jonathan returning to the role of Captain, the person whose responsibility was to his ship first, himself second. Perhaps the roles felt so distinct at the moment, because neither of them were sure how their new relationship and new connection would fit into life on the Enterprise. Because they knew that it had to be kept discrete from their professional roles and relationship, if they were to keep even their shipmates unaware. Which, no matter how dishonest it felt, was currently the right idea.
As for the future ... who could predict the future? Even her people, with their much-lauded logic and scientifically-defined methods couldn't do a damn about the future. They were almost as helpless as the humans in controlling their destiny, even if they didn't want to admit to themselves. Who knew what the next few years held for anybody?
The End.
Author's note: This story is complete as stands. I have two sequels outlined, but both are more focused upon the conflict between human and Vulcan culture, rather than specifically on the Archer/T'Pol relationship (obviously, the relationship will be one driving force behind exploring the conflicts, but the stories will not be as single-mindedly focused on the relationship.)
01/09/2002: Story copy on fanfiction.net revised to correct some typos and incorporate some editing changes done after original posting.