Disclaimer: They belong to someone else, but I like to let them play for a while, I promise to return them unharmed.
Rating: PG-13
Synopsis: Sequel to It Won't Seem Like Christmas Without You. T'Pol goes in search of a reminder of the kiss she shared with Jonathan, but finds him instead.
A Kiss Is Just A Kiss, Or Is It?
By
Lattelady
T'Pol had snuck into the mess hall. It was 0200 on New Year's Eve morning. She knew that soon Chef would be in the galley making breakfast for Alpha shirt, and all during the day, the crew planned on taking down the decorations from Christmas. Tonight there was going to be another celebration, this one to commemorate the change from one Earth year to another. If she was going to complete her task, she needed to do it now.
After looking quickly around, to be sure no one else was in the room; the Vulcan examined the ceiling until she found the objects she had been seeking. They were small branches with dried green leaves and white berries, and had been hung in various places around the room. She wanted to be sure she retrieved the one that had triggered her unusual behavior. If memory served correctly, it had been only a few feet away from the front of the tree, but no matter how hard she looked, that area of the ceiling was empty.
Maybe her calculations were incorrect? After all, she had been distracted at the time. Jonathan had been standing very close to her, but he had done that before. Suddenly she had caught his scent, again something that had happened in the past. But that night, in the dark, it had been different. She could remember her nose twitching, and at that moment, it seemed as if her brain had misfired! Her body had been gripped by a deep hunger for the man standing so close to her.
Shaking her head to bring her back to the present, she took a deep breath to throw off the odd sensations the memory of the kiss caused. With renewed concentration, she stepped closer to the Christmas tree and carefully did a visual sweep of the ceiling.
"Lose something, T'Pol?" Jonathan Archer stepped out of the shadows where he'd been watching her for the last few minutes. If she had arrived 30 seconds earlier, she would have caught him at the same task she was now performing. Only the advantage of timing and a greater height had allowed him to beat her to the object that he believed she sought.
"Captain Archer, was there something you needed me for?" She had been avoiding him, except in the most professional of circumstances since she had kissed him under the mistletoe; in the same place they were now standing, late Christmas night. It had been a moment when her logic failed her completely, because she hadn't only kissed him, she had initiated it!
"I didn't come looking for you, if that's what you mean?" If she had been any other woman he would have assumed she was flirting and given her the usual provocative answer. But she wasn't any other woman; she was T'Pol, unique and special. "You very neatly avoided answering my question. I've noticed you do that at times. So I'll repeat it. Did you lose something?" He had an idea what she was looking for, but she wasn't going to find it hanging from the ceiling any longer. It was safely tucked away in the pocket of his uniform.
"Hardly. I'm very careful with my possessions." She squared her shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes.
"T'Pol," he murmured as he lay a hand on her shoulder.
"Please, no." She stepped back from him. For the first time since that night, she carefully dissected what had happened. They had been touching in too many places! She had been in his arms and hers had been wrapped tightly around him. She knew if she closed her eyes, she would feel the imprint of his body against hers. He had been warm and solid and the sensations she had received from his mind still made hers shake. What had surprised her the most had been the kiss itself. Her only other experience in that department had been with Tolarus. What had been distasteful with him had been explosive with Jonathan.
"Don't pull away, I'd never do anything that would hurt you." He was careful to give her space to think and breathe. "But I must have, because you've been avoiding me for the better part of a week." Her quick, though dignified exit on Christmas night had been bad enough, but she hadn't let them be in a situation were they could discuss what had happened until now. He knew she had been careful to keep members of the crew between them, to the point of even avoiding his private dining room.
"You did not, Sir, but you are my commanding officer and I brought dishonor to us both when I, kissed you." She pulled their rank between them like a shield.
"You're side-stepping, again." He smiled at her, knowing there was more to this than met the eye. It was as close as she ever came to lying and he'd learned to see through her evasions of truth sometime in the first year. "That kiss was between T'Pol and Jonathan, not Captain and Sub-Commander. There would have only been dishonor if I had caused you pain in someway."
"You didn't hurt me, you over powered me." She whispered, unable to do anything but tell the total truth.
Jonathan felt as if someone had gripped him by the heart. His breath caught, and he was filled with a shaft of desire so strong, that he could hardly stand up. "I think you had better explain." His voice was husky as he fought for control.
"Vulcans do not kiss, even those who are bonded, share their thoughts with only the lightest of touching between them, except during mating." She kept feeling all over again what she had felt as she drowned in his arms a few days ago.
"You've never been kissed before?" There was something deeper than just the difference in custom and Jonathan felt it was essential to find out what it was. She was sidestepping the issue again, but he didn't think she was doing it on purpose this time.
"Once, but I did not trust him, so I terminated it almost immediately." Her stomach clenched as she remembered the wash of chaotic, demanding feelings that had rushed her way when Tolarus had touched her. She knew that if given a chance, the renegade Vulcan would have taken and taken, without a thought to anything but his own pleasures.
"Tolarus?" Archer frowned, obviously more had happened between the two Vulcans than he realized. He knew about the forced intrusion on her mind, and had thrown him off Enterprise because of it. "I am truly sorry. I wouldn't do anything that would remind you of what that man did to you!" He turned to walk away. The damage had been done and he didn't know how to reverse it.
"Jonathan," T'Pol whispered. "It wasn't like that at all." She couldn't let him leave thinking what had happened between them had been anything like what she had experienced with Tolarus, but they were out of time. She could hear Chef in the galley. "It was--." She was cut short by a particularly loud crash of pans.
"Do you trust me enough to continue this discussion in either my quarters or yours?" Jonathan knew he was asking a lot, but any second now, Chef would come out of the galley to ready the mess hall for breakfast and find them staring at each other under the Christmas tree.
"Of course, Captain. Your quarters would be fine." She stood straight with her hands folded behind her back, the picture of Vulcan calm and efficiency.
"After you Sub-Commander," he grinned at her. She could use titles and posturing all she wanted, it didn't change a thing, and he was sure she knew it, too. He had seen a flash of something in her eyes that had given her away, but then she'd blinked slowly and erased it.
……………………….
A few minutes later Archer opened his door and indicated for her to precede him into the room. So much for rank, he thought. "Would you like some iced tea." He reached for the carafe that Chef always left in his quarters.
"Yes, thank you." She looked around and something was missing. "Where is Porthos?" She had deliberately chosen his quarters over her because the small quadruped was usually present. Though he would hardly be considered a proper chaperone, at least they wouldn't be completely alone.
"Phlox has him for the night, just a check-up, to be sure there are no signs of rejection of the transplant." He handed her the glass of iced tea, and jumped right in where they left off. If he waited for her to reopen the subject, he'd be an old man with a gray beard. "Now you were saying, when I kissed you it was 'not the same?'"
"That is correct, but it was I who kissed you." It was a moment of truth, so she felt honor bound to be completely truthful.
"Only at first, but you're splitting hairs." He shrugged at her, in that odd human way she had come to find endearing.
"I do not know what a split hair has to do with this conversation, but I shall grant you that you are correct in order to get this over with." She took a step closer and left her tea untouched on his desk. "It was because you are you, and he was an aberration of what should have been. To attempt a comparison would dishonor you." Her voice was breathy and low as she tried to make him understand what she didn't understand herself.
"Honor be damned! What that man did to you was tantamount to rape. I need to know your personal boundaries, so no one steps over them again, and that includes me." He wanted to touch her, to feel her against him, but he knew that she needed space.
"On Vulcan, when a man and a woman want to touch in a special way, they carefully join the tips of their first two fingers. It allows for a gentle meeting of minds, that either one can break off at a moment's notice, with none of the messy physical clash that is experienced with the meeting of the lips and bodies that you humans call a kissed."
"Show me." He stepped closer and held out his right hand with his first two fingers poised.
"Like this." She pressed her fingers against his and carefully dropped her mental shields one at a time. "Do you feel anything?"
"Yes," he smiled as his mind was filled with a warm comfortable feeling. "It feels peaceful." She was there everywhere, and he could smell the spicy citrus scent of the oil he'd given her at Christmas.
"With your human kiss, there was a wall of emotion that surged forth and surrounded me." As she spoke heat began to lick at their joined fingers and work its way up her arm. Jonathan's scent was strong and delicious. She could feel him wanting her as much as she wanted him. She had practiced mental discipline all her life, but in this man's presents, it was lost. Suddenly she was in his mind and he was in hers. How could this be, he wasn't Vulcan? This slight touching of fingers shouldn't be enough to cause this.
"T'Pol," he groaned as he pulled his fingers away from hers. She was sweet and prefect and he wanted her more than ever, but he wouldn't let himself get carried away, she could be hurt too easily.
"That was not supposed to happen!" She gasped, as her mind was suddenly alone again. She felt a cold emptiness deep in her being that wasn't just physical. It had been that way after the kiss, as well.
"What just happened?" He shook his head. There for a moment intense emotions had rolled over him and they mirrored his own.
"Our minds touched, though I'm not sure why." She watched him carefully, what she was experiencing was totally new and unheard of with a human. "We seem to be very in tune to one another."
"So it's true what they say about Vulcans being telepathic?" He wasn't sure he like the idea, but better to find out now.
"No, it is not like that." She turned away from him and walked to the large view port on the other side of the room. "We can feel strong emotion in others, but not read exact thought, except when there is a linking of minds. With Tolarus, I felt a cold shaft of manipulation as he pushed me toward his own ends. With you it was different." She turned and faced him from across the room. "I was surrounded by warmth and need that was easy to respond to because buried under all the raw emotion was a deep abiding strength and trust that I knew would always be there."
"You humble me, T'Pol." His voice was rough with emotion. "I wanted you that night as I've wanted you for a long time. If you hadn't pulled back when you did, I can't guarantee I would have been much better than Tolarus."
"Jonathan Archer you are wrong." She stepped around the bed and moved close to him. "If you had been like Tolarus, you wouldn't have let me pull back that night, nor would you have pulled back tonight. I know that when we finally give into this thing that is between us, I will have no reason to fear you."
"I thought you didn't believe in fraternization between a Captain and a Sub-Commander?" He grinned at her, as relief washed over him.
"I do not. The Sub-Commander is too Vulcan to ever become involved with a human and I am sure that the Captain is too involved in the running of his ship. But I believe that T'Pol and Jonathan are a different matter all together."
"In that case, would T'Pol be willing to accompany Jonathan to the New Year's Eve party tonight?" He reached for her hand and this time she didn't pull away.
"I would find that most enjoyable." She didn't want to leave him, but couldn't think of an excuse to stay.
"Stay the night?" The words popped out, and he didn't know where they came from. "I promise, nothing will happen, I've wanted to hold you in my arms as I slept for a long time."
"It could be a dangerous thing." She warned, but wanted it as well. "When I sleep, my mental shields drop and there is nothing to protect your thoughts from my invasion, especially if we are touching. You need to be comfortable having someone else in your mind before this progresses any further. It is why I have kept my distance since I realized what was happening."
"Look at it as my fist lesson." The doubt on her face made him grip her other hand as well. "Can you read my thoughts now?" Suddenly she was there filling his mind, looking and seeing freely all that he wanted her to know, but had been afraid to tell her earlier and it was exactly what she wanted as well.
They spent the night, fully clothed, wrapped in each other's arms. As they slept, the thoughts that flowed between them belonged to them both, they spoke of passion and love and a lifetime together long into the future. Sometime very soon, both knew, that their bodies would come together as their minds were learning to do. It was a thing they both desired.
On the bedside stand sat a small sprig of mistletoe. It had brought them together twice now. Once a week ago in a kiss, and a few hours ago, both had been seeking it and had found each other along the way.
The End
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