Chapter Eleven

Jon woke up, warm, comfortable, and squeezed into the farthest corner of his double bed. Like a cat, Sub-Commander T'Pol took up more space while sleeping that he would have thought physically possible.

Twenty-two hours after she began her analysis, she came back to herself with a sliding thump. After landing, quite firmly, on her shapely rear, Petty Officer Munoz came over and helped her to her feet.

Jon had made it up to the bridge in record time. He took over and wrapped his arm around her slim waist, and wound hers around his shoulder. The fact that she accepted his assistance in full view of the bridge crew indicated to him that she knew she'd extended herself too far.

They made it to the turbo lift before her knees cut out from under her, without a murmur of protest she let him catch her knees and lift her into his arms. She was heavy, much heavier than she looked, heavier than he remembered.

As he came back to his room later that night, he seriously debated crawling in next to her. Not because it he didn't want to, but that he didn't quite know how she'd react if she woke up and he was there, but he didn't have the willpower to resist. 

Now, she was sprawled over top his chest, somewhat constricting his breath but he didn't care. It was the most comfortable he'd ever been with a woman in his bed. He'd never really been much of a cuddler, but he tucked her close and inhaled the sharp cinnamon tang that she carried with her.

Quite unconsciously, both of them were touching a considerable amount of the other's bare skin. For a sleeping couple it was natural, but as the dark shadow of a dream passed into T'Pol's psyche Jon felt a shiver. He didn't immediately connect the chills down his back with T'Pol's cataleptic mind.

When images suddenly started to blink in and out of his mind's eye, he didn't immediately acquaint them with her either. However, as the nightmare took him by the shoulders and dragged him under he cried out sharply in protest.

He rattled against his manacles; the bonds were tight, too tight. His wrists already rubbed raw and bleeding from his attempts to escape. Green blood had puddled at his feet from the old-fashioned IV line sloppily inserted into the vein in his arm. His arm was slim, hairless, and powerful. A collar was around his neck, he could feel the electrodes, imploring his brain to respond truthfully. 

As a dark shape approached, he felt his mind slide to a halt. He knew what they wanted. He could feel the other drugs swimming through his veins. They skewed his perception; his third eyelid had been twitching open and closed for about five minutes now, alternately shading and lighting his vision.

"Where is Archer?"

"I don't know" he was compelled to answer.

"Who are you working with from the future?"

"The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined the time travel is impossible"

The Suliban touched his face, sending skitters of telepathic feelings up his spine, he couldn't block, couldn't resist. The questioner was enjoying this; he was taking a sick pleasure from having a helpless captive. 

"Does Captain Archer believe that opinion?"

"It's not an opinion" It was a fact, a solid, historical, verifiable fact. 

"Does Captain Archer believe in that…determination?"

"Captain Archer believes that crewman Daniels comes from the future."

 Illogical: time travel was impossible; therefore, no crewmember could purport to be from the future. Logic was the foundation. The cornerstone. 

"But Daniels is dead"

"Captain Archer believes he saw Crewman Daniels two days ago"

"Your Captain is gone. Did Daniels take him into the past or the future?"

"The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible"

It is impossible, his mind screamed, impossible.

His skin was on fire, the drugs made his eyes photosensitive. The sounds were unnaturally amplified….

"Kroykah!" T'Pol shouted, using his shirt as leverage to lift him bodily. He flew an indeterminate distance, before crashing into a bulkhead, back first. The breath knocked out of him, he gasped trying to take in oxygen.

"Kroykah…" she whimpered softly, sitting up, quite awake, but seemingly still in the grips of the dream.

"T'Pol" he gasped as the breath returned to him, and her head snapped around, her eyes wide as dinner plates. "Are you … alright?"

"Jon," she looked lost, and not quite focused, as if the memory still held her in its throes, "Wani ra yoko itishta ta?"

"English T'Pol," he got up, making sure all the pieces were still there, realizing now, that it was smart to let a sleeping Vulcan lay.

"Where…these are yours." She shook her head, as if trying to force out the cobwebs, then she really focused on him, "You are not dressed." 

"No I'm not" he stood, making his way, gingerly, to the bedside, his undershirt was in ribbons and several angry red scratches covered his chest, "I was sleeping with you."

She inhaled sharply though her nose then closed her eyes, "Yes…you were." Her hand strayed to the still warm spot on the mattress where they'd been curled together. "We…were sleeping. Then, then …the dream"

"Yeah" he stood directly in front of her, shedding the tatters of his blue shirt and somehow resisting the temptation to haul her into a tight bear hug. "You pulled me in one way or another, we must have been touching"

She opened her mouth and he knew, intuitively, it was to apologise. With one big movement, he pulled her close up against his chest and ran his fingers through her baby fine hair. She was trembling like a leaf.

"Don't you dare apologise T'Pol. Don't you dare." He used his weight to pull her down, until they curled back up again, him crushing her to his chest, leg thrown over hers. "Let it out… c'mon sweetie, just cry it out, I'll be here. Just let go"

"My shields…" she protested weakly.

"The hell with them" he growled, "You been in my head before"

That little consideration was enough to push her over the edge she started to sob. She railed against her culture, cursed her gods, and blamed her parents. In human terms, she worked herself into a very good cry.

"Better?" he asked, sometime later, when her breath came back to normal and she relaxed. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, but somehow, he knew that whatever veneer of control she had been clinging to with teeth and toenails was gone. 

"I know," he rocked her close, conscious of her loss of discipline, "Just breathe with me T'Pol we can get it back, just breathe."

And she did, slowly and deeply, he could feel through the little tickle on his neck, that she was incrementally relaxing, not nearly enough to put her in the position to re-build, but that was no longer going to throw him around at the next sharp noise.

"Jon…" she began, her voice quavering, "I need…"

"I know," he shushed her, rubbing slow circles on her back, "You need to relax first, just breathe, then we can worry about getting you back together. You're gonna let me in this time, T'Pol, we're going to work on it together."

"You're…"

"Does it really matter I'm human?" he read the thought easily, "You did it that day in the café, pulled from me, you can do it again."

"I need…there is a box, in the bottom drawer of my desk. My candles… and clothing, I need to…" she moved to get up, but he intercepted it easily.

"I'll get them, you stay here" He stepped into a loose set of trousers, she curled into a ball, clutching a pillow close to her chest, he grabbed a t-shirt to cover the angry scratches on his chest.

The box was where she told him it would be, it was long and deep, with a complex locking mechanism. The candles he stacked on top. Then he went to her closet. Thankfully, she organized better than any of the other females in his aquaintance did. He grabbed a top and bottom of a similar earth tone.

He felt the tickle between his shoulder blades as soon as he walked in the door. That was odd, T'Pol told him Vulcans were touch telepaths and she wasn't touching him. She accepted the clothing and supplies gratefully, stepping into the tunic and trousers, and setting the candlesticks on the floor. The meditation candles lit; she knelt before the box, with a certain amount of trepidation.

"You ready?" he asked, sitting on the floor near the area she'd cleared.

"I must be, it must be done," she replied, she placed a finger over the surface of the locking mechanism, the latch popped. She lifted the lid, he couldn't see inside, but she removed a well-worn book, a small incense burner, a very wicked looking dagger, and a long thin box. She lifted and opened the box. 

"Humans are not inherently telepathic," she began, "There are certain….methods that can induce a telepathic state; a mind meld is the most direct."

"I thought…" he began

"I will not put you through the…trauma," she began to set the stage, the burner, the candles, "Even if I had the skill, I would not risk your infection either. There is a way, however,"

"But?" he prompted, familiar enough with her methods of explaining that he realized she was leading up to something.

"It is still highly… intimate," she said, sounding troubled, "We, neither of us, would have any control over what the other can see."

"Isn't that what a mind meld is?"

"Yes," she finished setting up the arrangement.

"I don't understand"

"I'm not surprised." She opened the oblong box, revealing a sinister looking selection of vials and a hypospray. "You must trust me, even knowing that my shields are gone and my control is… less than ideal."

He still felt the tickle in his neck, he knew, without quite knowing how he knew, that she was uneasy, she had never done this before, she was frightened about opening herself up to another being, yet again, and being irreparably hurt.

"Alright" the thought of her not trusting herself, because of what Tolaris did to her was enough to push his decision.

She mixed a small, measured bit of one of the powders with water and put it in the hypo with the skill of a practiced chemist. "This ought to help stimulate the mid-brain; it encourages the telepathic receptors."

"Are there any side effects?"

"Headache," she said absently, attending the mixture carefully, "A sense of confusion, perhaps vertigo, until the effects wear off."

"Nothing extreme?"

"No"

"Ok" he accepted the injection, then the tickle turned into a flood, bombarded with images, he could sense T'Pol clearly, her mind a pillar of stone being brutally worn away by screaming winds of emotion.

Her eyes snapped open, clearly surprised, and then her brows frowned, he could see a bit of her concentration diverted from her effort to hold the pillar together, and then he 'heard' the voice between his ears.

Can you sense this?

She was 'speaking' Vulcan, he 'heard' Vulcan, but he understood it as easily as if she had spoken English.

"Yeah" he replied hoarsely, not realising that he didn't need to respond verbally.

Fascinating

The ritual forgotten, she reached for his hand, meeting his palm halfway. The contact intensified the bond; he could almost imagine standing there on the Womb of Fire, the hot winds chafing his skin, and the air satisfyingly dry and thin.

He opened his eyes and he was there. T'Pol, who looked different somehow, was standing directly in front of the pillar, wearing nothing but a linen kilt and a wrap that provided the most basic modesty.

"You should not be able to come here" she observed, he could feel the terrible weight of her intellect shifting to focus on him. "This is my kah-hir, my centre, the core of my katra. You should not be here."

"I can leave" he offered, then amended, "Well I think I can"

"No" she ran a hand up through her hair, "It doesn't disturb me"

He heard the 'as it should' she left unspoken, she knew he heard it, but she left it unspoken. In a flash, he was not wearing his uniform anymore; he could feel the hot air around his legs and chest. He looked down, and he had on sandals and a slightly shorter version of the linen kilt that she was wearing.

He looked up, saw her expression, and nearly stopped breathing. She was smiling, it was austere and subtle, but the corners of her mouth defiantly twitched up. A great roll of amusement passed through her, and he could hear the mental colour of laughter. Another twitch and he was back in his uniform. 

"I apologise," she said sternly, but was more amused than contrite, "That was unethical."

"It's your mind" he knelt at the base of the pillar and traced one of the engravings, which crumbled a bit under the pressure of his finger, he drew his hand back sharply. "This is it isn't it?"

"The essence of my being? Yes," She placed a fond hand on the pillar, "It's not really, just the medium by which I comprehend it. There are other teachings, but this is what I have learned as the meaning of what it is to be Vulcan."

"Standing alone in the middle of a desert?"

"Holding firm in the face of the storm," She motioned to the roiling clouds above their heads. "I am using your strength to hold back the clouds, but I cannot continue to do that forever. " 

"So how do we make this" he watched as another flake of stone chipped and crumbled, "More sturdy"

"It is an act of will"

"Will?"

She put a hand on the pillar and he felt a slight tremor, and her mind turned all of its attention, every bit of concentration, onto the stone in front of her. She removed it and the consistency changed from crumbling sandstone to dark, thickly packed granite.

"Yes," as she pulled away, the granite softened, but held. More than what it was, but not what it needed to be.

"That's it?"

"It's deceptively simple" T'Pol looked disapprovingly at the crumbling stone, "There was a time, Jonathan, when this pillar stretched taller than my ancestral home and as wide at the base as your stateroom. It packed like glass, smooth and durable."

"It will be like that again T'Pol," he placed his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them lightly, "I'll do whatever I can"