Author: greatunironic
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nope.
Summary: A story about T'Pol that has absolutely nothing to do with Charles Tucker and everything to do with Malcolm Reed. Sequel to 'The Consequences of a Human Action'
Etc.: Inspired by the song 'Walls (no. 3)' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Sequel to 'The Consequences of a Human Action' because the idea just wouldn't let go. More Reed/T'Pol warped shippiness.
1. i'm comin' back some day
It's a little café in the middle of London with little yellow umbrella covered tables. The chairs have cushions that match the colour of the umbrellas. They serve drinks and sandwiches and little French pastries. It's a nice place to catch up with old friends one hasn't seen for a while.
She sits at one of the tables with the yellow umbrella. She drinks chamomile tea. With a fork and a knife and exact precision, she cuts apart a French pastry. She waits for him as she sits there, cutting the little dessert apart. When he does come, she's sitting there, bent over the table with her brown hair spilling past her ears and their delicate points that are just sticking out from within the cascade of hair. He notes it's grown longer.
He sits and she doesn't even look up. Not at first. She finishes cutting the pastry apart and then she looks up. Humans have a saying that went along the lines of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. She thinks Humans may have been on to something when they coined that one.
So she takes a moment and studies him. Nothing about him has changed. Everything about him has changed. He is the same and yet he is not. He still maintains the same poise and effortless grace that he had when aboard the ship. It was what first attracted her to him. He was unlike so many of his race. At times, he was more Vulcan than Human. All logic and no emotion. She found that appealing and still does.
His hair, she notes, has grown longer. It is no longer the military cut he used to keep in such perfection. On the ship, she could never find a flaw in his hair. It was always parted the same way and even in times of crisis it seemed to stay the same. She thinks that she may like this new hair cut. It seems to fit in with his new life of running.
That is one of the things she thought about when he was gone. Why he had to run. She hated (as much as she could, that is) it at first and then grew to admire it. Those men were chasing him and were prepared to destroy all that he had come in contact with. Using that perfect blend of logic and emotion he so carefully made his own, he chose to leave and run, to protect them from his past.
She never fully understood exactly what he had done to garner the wrath of those people so badly. She knew that he had created something before he had come to the Enterprise that seemed to have some power, a power that could be used to save or destroy entire populous.
When he left, it seemed to everyone that he would be gone for good. Even to her, it seemed as though he would never return. The part of her that cared for him rebelled logic and whispered to her to hate him with as much emotion that she could possess. But she couldn't bring herself to show any emotion other than love for him, and that was still as much has the limitations in her race would allow.
Everyone searched for him, searched for him for so long. But they could never find him. After a year, they gave up hope that he would ever be coming back. That was when she got the letter from him. A short little subspace postcard that told her (just her, too; it was only addressed to her. it warmed her heart that she got the only letter from him, even if he did ask her to tell the others he was alright. he also told her it was alright if she wrote to him, but just not to tell the others where he was. she liked that he trusted her and still does) that he was alright. She was happy, or the Vulcan equivalent of it.
So she wrote to him and sent him letters, as per the address. He would call her through a special line and she got to hear his voice. He would only hear her hello. They wrote and called for the next four years. She remembers a promise he made her, once, and she wonders how he feels for her now.
"You're late," she states seriously, looking up finally. He's sitting and staring at her. He gives her a ghost of his old smile. It's vague and it looks like he hasn't used the smile in a very long time.
"At least I kept my promise."
And she nods. He did come back, though not for long.
2. even walls fall down
It starts to rain and then it thunders and lightnings and he gently takes her hand and they run. He laughs as they run and she knows that it is a sound that his throat releases less and less each year and that she hasn't heard it in a very long time. She likes it. He takes her out for ice cream at some old fashioned ice cream parlor. She asks him as they walk how he knows to get here. He tells her he grew up here and spent four years of his life serving ice cream to the children there.
She doesn't remember ever having ice cream before so when he asks her what she wants, she says she doesn't know. He just looks at her and asks her is she likes chocolate. She nods and he asks if she likes vanilla. She nods again. He does that little ghost smile and asks if she likes pecans. She tells him yes, and he orders her a cone with a scope of chocolate and a scope of vanilla. He gets a cone with three scopes of butter pecan.
They sit at a table by the window. She looks at the floor and sees that they left puddles. They're soaked. He hands her the chocolate-vanilla ice cream and, before she takes it, she looks at it dubiously.
"I forgot that you don't eat with your hands."
For him, she decides that she'll give it a try. They eat ice cream and eventually he asks her if she would like to try his. She nods and he holds it across the table for her. She takes a bite and nearly smiles. She informs him that she finds it pleasing. He smiles and the smile seems to be growing more real and less ghostly. It fits his face.
She knows, as she eats the ice cream with her hands (so un-Vulcan but yet it seems so natural with him) and as he smiles (more real each time he does so), that even walls have the right to fall down sometimes.
3. sometimes you cry
And they sit there, eating ice cream and watching the thunderstorm. Music from an age long gone plays. He apparently knows the songs as he sings along softly, sometimes, while they eat. Occasionally, she'll ask what song is playing. He always tells her. They sit in silence the rest of the time, just watching the storm and eating their ice cream.
She remembers a time, after he called and she heard his voice, she'd cry. It was a little remnant, a little reminder, of her follies, of her curiosity, that came so close to destroying her. It doesn't happen that often anymore, but once in a while she will. She's gotten better, though. She no longer breaks down. Her neural pathways have all but mended and she takes medication from Phlox to help when she needs it.
She wonders how he feels about her and wonders if he finds her appealing. She wonders if he would find her more appealing, if he knew that she cried for him, if he knew she wanted him back, if she had emotions. Then she remembers a time when she was younger when she studied Humans. She liked that they had emotions and that they were illogical. She wondered what it would be like to marry one. Then she grew up and left that all behind.
A little bit of her though, didn't grow up. It always wondered what emotion would feel like.
Now, she knows.
It just hurts more than she thought it would.
Eventually, she gets around to asking him what he has been up to. He just looks at her. He shakes his head and she knows that that was the wrong question to ask. They're quiet for a while. Then they finish the ice cream and he asks her where she's staying. She tells him and he offers to walk her back to the hotel. She says yes.
As they walk, she finally stirs up the courage to ask him why he needs to run. This, obviously, was the right question to ask. He just starts to tell her everything. She thinks that maybe he's been going far too long with this weighing on his mind. He needed an outlet for this. She's a quiet and sympathetic ear. She will judge him logically. She's a good outlet.
He tells her that there were five of them in the beginning. Five brilliant engineers that had been chosen to create this machine. He tells her that he's the only one left alive now. He tells her that they made the weapon. He says it could be used for good and for bad, but they were under the naïve impression that they were making it for good. They were wrong. The people (the same rogue group from Starfleet that spent the last five years chasing him) wanted to use it to destroy a race of aliens. They wouldn't let them. So he and the other engineers destroyed the machine and brunt their notes and made a pact to take the information to the grave with them. The first four honored it and hold it with them six feet under.
And he, he disappeared through the cracks in the system for three years and was eventually protected when he was brought aboard the Enterprise. They didn't know he was aboard. They found him though, five years ago. They threatened him and his family and he knew he had to leave. And so he left.
They get to her hotel and the story's finished. She nods. As much as she dislikes it, he made the right decision in leaving. This doesn't help to ease her mind; it still hurts like hell.
He asks her when she's leaving to go back to San Francisco; she says the day after tomorrow. They'll say their good-byes tomorrow, because they both know it wouldn't be wise for him to come to see her off (or anyone else, but she likes to think he's there just for her). He's turning away.
That's when they kiss.
4. part of me you carry
They make love in her hotel room for the first time. She thinks it will probably be the last time. They say 'I love you' there for the first time, too. She thinks she'll sign her letters to him that way from now on. And now, as she lies in his arms on the bed, she thinks about just how nice it was and how she truly feels sad.
She begins to cry, and he comforts her, and she says that she doesn't want him to go, and he says he can't let anything happen to her. It goes back and forth like that. He says he loves her and she says she loves him too. Then she falls asleep, and for the first time in such a long time, she lets the little girl that used to dream about marrying a Human come through. She dreams about the wedding she's sure will never happen but doesn't give a damn. Because little girls are allowed to dream and right now, she's not an adult.
When she wakes up, he's gone. She panics slightly, drawing the sheets around her. Then she hears the shower and she relaxes. He hadn't left in the middle of the night. If she was perfectly honest with herself, that was what she had been expecting. To wake up and see that he was gone. But she sees that he isn't because one of his shirts is lying over the back of a chair.
She gets up and wraps the sheet around her chest. She hears the shower stop, but she doesn't care. She goes to the chair and lifts up the shirt. She smells the collar. It smells like him.
That's when he burst out of the bathroom, only a towel about his waist, and grabs her wrist urgently. He whispers that they're here, that they've found him. He tells her to pack her things because they need to go. She looks at him wide eyed and his eyes plead with her. They beg her to hurry. She does as she's told. Later, back aboard the Enterprise, she'll unpack her bags and find his shirt. She finishes, puts on clothing, and turns to him.
Then they are running down the hall and out of the hotel. She vaguely wonders when they'll pay. They run for two blocks in the pouring rain and she just keeps running along side him because she's too frightened to look behind her. With sensitive hearing, though, she knows they're there; their footsteps pound behind them.
Irrationally, she thinks of the movie they watched last movie night on the ship and thinks of him as that spy from that old movie and she thinks of herself as the girls always with him. She smiles at this: James Bond and Jinx.
Suddenly they're at a car and he throws her suit case in and pushes her into the passenger seat. He slides across the bonnet of the car and all but throws himself into the driver's seat. Then they're in an old fashioned high speed car chase. They run red lights and she clutches the dash board with white knuckles.
She's not sure how long they drove around and back tracked after that, but she knows they lost them somewhere in Wales. Eventually they stop at an airport and he tells her he's going with her back to San Francisco. She has the illogical desire to grin and then he tells her only to see her off. He says he'll say hello to the others quickly and then he'd disappear again. He's not sure when he'll write again. She sighs. Everything seemed so good there for a little while.
They board a plan and sit in seats next to each other. At one point, he begins to hold her hand. They get off the plane in Denver and they drive to San Francisco. It's a long drive but she gets the chance to talk with him. It's three a.m. when they get to San Francisco. He pulls up to a motel and they stay there until eight a.m.. Then they get breakfast and he drives her to Starfleet headquarters. He tells her he'll meet her later and drives away.
She tells no one of where she's been or what she has done (the child in her giggles; who she's done); though she does tell Hoshi she has a surprise for her. She doesn't see him until they're nearly ready to board the ship to take them to Enterprise. She sees him in the crowd, cutting his way to her. Tucker sees him next and all but tackles him to the ground. There is, as Humans put it, a love fest right then and there. She hangs back.
Eventually, he gets out and comes to her. He squeezes her hand in a small, but significant, gesture. He tells her he'll 'see her around'. Then he disappears.
So she gets on the shuttle and sits there, deftly deflecting their questions, saying she ran into him that morning and that she had business in London. She's not sure whether they'll make the connection. She briefly touches her stomach, because a woman knows these things. Maybe in a few months.
5. heart so big
She writes a letter and signs it 'Love, T'Pol'.
He sends her a subspace postcard and signs it 'Love, Malcolm'.