A.N
-collapses and faints- Okay… -breath- okay.
So I thought I would have the clever idea of writing down this chapter whilst I was on holiday, to keep the ball rolling if you will. No one told me it was going to end up 13,000 words long. I had to cut a third of it off, meaning I can't treat you all to the lovely cliff-hanger ending I had planned for chapter eleven. No, that has now become the beginning of chapter thirteen. –pants–
That aside, I wont say much, just that this is one for the T/T'P'ers and the hankies.
I think I may also take a vacation from this story for a few weeks, work on some other long since abandoned stuff.
(I don't know why but in uploading this chapter has missed out all my indents. I'm not happy. Hopefully it wont effect the impact or drama of this chapter... for their sakes.)
. . . . . . .
There was a commotion outside the bedroom, not a racket but a slow movement of body loud enough to stir Jonathan awake. He sat up with a jerk and a snort, and blinked rapidly in slight fright.
The room was cast in a silky black pool of darkness and he could barely sight the hands atop his lap. As he sat perfectly stationary he wondered if the disturbance enough to wake him wasn't just his own dream, or Porthos who was… somewhere on the floor below him, sitting just out of sight in the shadows, probably wanting out for food.
Utterly blind he searched for the switch to the lamp on his bedside table to the right, eventually finding it after successfully spilling an entire glass of lukewarm water and the lamp itself.
Porthos yelped, then growled quietly as water trickled slowly down his crown. At least he had found his dog, and could score him out as the source of the disturbance. The room became aglow with a gentle transparent yellow light as he pulled the lamp back up by the cord.
And then the commotion began again. He froze on the sticky warmth of his room and caught his breath tight in his throat, lapsing into complete silence.
It was a gentle shuffling of feet along the living room floor, creeping soles brushing into the rough woven carpet as they went.
There was silence in the bedroom next to him and so he could only assume T'Pol was still asleep. He checked the clock in at four-fifteen, and so he could only believe she was still asleep.
Then he heard the patio door open. He sat up sharper, almost leaping from his bed in one ungraceful bound. He did eventually get up a few seconds later in a scramble of sheets and boxers and charged fearlessly into the living room. He cast the lights on by clapping briskly but soon regretted the action as he shied away from the far more intense white glare that shrunk his flashing pupils and painfully blinded him.
"Jonathan?"
A chilly breeze danced through the apartment, evidence before he saw it that the tiny patio built out from the back of the living room was indeed opened. And it was T'Pol's voice that rode the breeze, quiet and gentle and tired. Jonathan forcefully peeled opened his lids and laid sight on her from across the room as his vision gradually adjusted.
The moonlight of a clear night flooded in through the open drapes, drowning her lithe outline in an eerie and beautiful enigmatic glow of a ghostly silver. Her hair shone a strange white-grey and her eyes reflected a cold nickel-brown. She was a living ghost, a physical figment of a wondering spirit who had come to find peace under the stars of another's galaxy. And she craved familiar company to join her.
"I apologise if I woke you."
Porthos hadn't dared to waste this rare opportunity of midnight freedom and his keen nose followed the trickle of a clean cold breeze, which led him to the balcony where he brushed passed T'Pol's feet and sat outside contently. She did her best to politely ignore him.
Where he lay out was no more the length of three of four metres, and a couple deep, but it was enough for them to share the night on, the Captain, the Vulcan and the dog.
"No, it's okay, I wasn't sleeping well anyway."
"Oh?"
"Nightmare. How I envy your dreamless sleeps."
He smiled and she quipped a brow, both remembering when she had declared a long time ago now her envy for the human ability to dream peacefully on occasions.
Slowly he approached her at the entrance to the balcony and the two cast their wistful eyes skyward, up into the infinity of space, their second home.
"What keeps you up on this fine night then?"
He smiled again, although it was a weak gesture, and sprung an expression of pain into his eyes, which she saw.
"I was finding it difficult to mediate."
He nodded and understood without prying further.
He had spent a couple of nights with her before in the mess hall because neither could sleep, he suffering from worries that brought on insomnia, and she suffering from a lack of concentration to be able to meditate in peace. Those had been nice nights, peaceful ones where they had learnt surprising much about each other in only the space of a few short hours at a time.
Finally Jonathan set foot out onto the small sandstone jut that oversaw a grey alleyway and the next row of shimmering blue apartments, remembering as he went those few nights.
"I've never been out here before. That's why I never mentioned it, forgot about it behind the drapes."
T'Pol continued to stand on the brass railings at the entrance where the tinted glass slid effortlessly back and forth on. She looked at him curiously and lingered with hesitation.
"I almost fell off a balcony once, when I was ten. I was on holiday with my parents in Spain because my dad loved Europe and insisted we went to a different European country every year. So that year we chose Spain. Anyway, my mum was down at the poolside and I was leaning over our apartment balcony, which was about four or five stories up, asking her if she wanted a towel I think, when suddenly I lost my balance, tipped over too far when I was trying to get her to hear me. My dad caught me, just, but I don't think I've ever been on a balcony since. Well, except for the one on Risa, but that balcony was a room in itself."
He dropped his head and laughed quietly into the night, as if realising only now the absurdity of this anecdote and fear. T'Pol's response, however, utterly surprised him.
"When I was eleven my father took me hiking up one of Vulcan's more notorious set of hills, the Toch'mirs. He had done this before with my two elder brothers, when they were also eleven. It is a… tradition, I suppose you would say, a common practice between fathers and their sons on Vulcan. However he insisted he carried out this practice with his daughter also, something out with the tradition.
We had been hiking for three days when he eventually realised that I, as a female and at my age, did not have the same strength and endurance as my brothers had had when they had hiked together, and this… annoyed him. So when I slipped and lost my footing on a rock face he would not aid me back up, telling me that I was to pull myself up if I were ever to learn how to achieve something difficult on my own. But I fell again and dropped onto a ledge where I broke my ankle.
For a week after he would not speak to me, and only eventually did because my mother ordered him to apologise. I have never trusted him since."
As the moonlight sung a sweet low song into the winds T'Pol stepped slowly onto the balcony with Jonathan and latched her eyes once again out into space, longingly.
"He was at the session yesterday, sitting in the same row as you. He will have been the one who ordered my transfer back to Vulcan, and he is important enough in the High Command that they will have abided by his request with little protest or question over it. Specifically since Soval was too on his side."
Jonathan's stomach churned, but he kept the angering sickness from his expression. Instead he leant across the white painted cement edge of the balcony tentatively and placed his forearms down as support. Porthos sat peacefully at his feet, the underbelly of his tail catching up a fine collection of red dust as he dragged it back and forth across the sandstone at a feverish speed. His leg no longer bothered him.
"Is that why you wont fight this transfer? Because your father ordered it this time?"
T'Pol continued to stand straight, but she crossed her arms over for comfort and warmth.
"He will fight notoriously to keep me on Vulcan, to assure I do not become any more human than he believes I have already. He will have been watching me, with Soval, scrutinising and dismaying at my every move. And now that he has his chance, he will punish me."
Again the moon sang mournfully and Jonathan looked down sadly at the alleyway's ashen ground. Specks of silvery white dust danced around widely with yet another billowing breeze that flew into the empty streets of the nighttime.
"And when you go back to Vulcan, will I be coming with you, like you asked before?"
He knew the situation had changed, drastically, but he held some stubborn hope that this muse was still with her.
She could feel the pain pushed into every word, as he also considered that perhaps she had diminished the idea by now. As she faced up to him slowly, his heart sank.
"On Vulcan I have nothing. The High Command gave me my home and my standard living requirements, so these things I will have to set up for myself now. Bringing you along would be… awkward."
She could think of no easier way to say it.
At that moment suddenly, as he felt his emotions bomb, he wanted to take her hand in his, reach out and wrap his arms around her… kiss her even. But he feared she would not understand and so he hung his head again instead.
"There are other factors I had not considered before either. The climate for one most humans find is far too hot to be able to adjust to, I think you would also. I could not let you go through that. And I asked you before because I had to see my father, but now he has taken things far further than I first thought he would. The matter has become very… personal."
He looked upon her with despair, and for the briefest second a hot anger even, but only because he knew she was perfectly right in what she tentatively argued.
"Then before you go," he looked back out into the street to their right and watched a man, restless and unable to sleep with the weight of worries he had on his shoulders right now, take his docile golden retriever out for a walk, "let me take you out this evening."
She might have showed scepticism, but this morning she was being particularly wily about showing expression. He raced to think of something to do, save walk down empty, volatile streets together and argue with the High Command.
"Let me… take you to the Club 602. I promised Malcolm and Trip we'd meet up with them at some point there."
Her head fell in a tilt and her brow elevated itself for a brief moment. "And this Club 602… is?"
He hesitated, then smiled meekly, then scratched the back of his cold neck as he thought of how best to decipher what a 'bar' specifically was.
"Eh… it's a bar, near the grounds of Starfleet in a place called Mill Valley, where Trip and I used to go almost every Friday night together after theory classes. You go there to drink and play pool and… fraternise, basically."
For a brief moment his sadness was gone and he smiled again, pleased with the definitive describing word and the idea, and waiting with anticipation for a positive response, the one he wanted to hear.
She brought her eyes up to the black skies once more and gazed to the North East, sighting only just the weak light of Vulcan's powerful sun. For a long while she did not answer, only thought.
In just fifty-three hours she would be boarding the condemning Starship that would take her back to her mother planet. Seven years ago she would have welcomed this flight with open arms after serving and living on Earth's San Francisco for two years previously.
But then she went away seven years ago and did a very un-Vulcan like thing – she made friends, moreover human friends. And although they did not understand her at first, or she them, within time they shared conversations and cultures and understandings, and soon they were no longer afraid or critical of each other.
And on the Starship that she went away on she shared a new kind of bond for a Vulcan with a young and gifted linguist who respected her well after a while, and who in time sought her guidance and maturity, and who she in turn got answers from when she did not understand certain human behaviour. And she had given this young linguist prodigy some of her books explaining the older Vulcan languages, and the young Ensign had been so grateful that she returned the gesture as best she could and gave her a book on her own people's native language. And she had studied the complex new alphabet with as much fascination as the linguist did the dead Vulcan languages.
And she befriended a doctor whose amazement with the culture and race they were both new to was unbelievable, at least to her it was, and who taught her in time to appreciate them and their ways as he did. And when the Pa'nar syndrome brought her dangerously close to an untimely diminish just over a year ago now, he had refused to call it an end on her life when others already had and fought with insistence against her people until they agreed to help treat her and resurrected her from her illnesses' terrifying grip.
And she had met a Helmsman who showed her something else of humanities to boast about, humanity's youth. And his amazing undying smile and alert auburn eyes showed her an enthusiasm that made her hinder a new angle of respect for her colleagues, of their curiosity and faith also that rarely died in a spirited person such as he. And she had shared a dinner with him once, and to break the silence he had told her a joke about 'A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman'. And despite its slight crudeness it was the first ever joke she had appreciated and so she had smiled, which in turn made the Helmsman choke on his steak. And so she had had to perform the Heimlich, and no one believed him later when he told them that was why he had chocked.
And she fought at the side of a Lieutenant who blushed whenever she locked her gaze onto his and who showed her what a true gentleman of the human race could be like. Who showed her a man's utter best manners and respect and who never let his personal standards slip around her. And when they had been cornered by a new enemy a couple of years ago and one took a shot at her that could very nearly have killed her he took the damage for her instead and very nearly died himself. And he never regretted that action. And then a few months later he did it again. And in time she had her turn to pay back her debt to him, and did the very same for him. And it became a 'running joke' on board that whenever they would go down to a planet together the crew would place bets on who would take the next shot.
And she had met a Commander who showed her the full flourish of human emotions. He showed her examples of frustration and anger, hared and lust. And he had also showed her joy and sadness, tenderness, fear and simple bliss. And then eventually one day, love. And when they had rescued the crew of V'tosh ka'tur Vulcans five years after they had last encountered them because their ship had been found crippled, and Tolaris had gotten aboard, the Commander stepped in front of her as he approached and they had fought in the corridor. And when Andorians put forward their cursed words to her he would curse back, and he would do this with any race who turned their nose up at her. And he had stayed at her bedside with heavy remorse for a week as she recovered from the Salan attack, and he had not once got up and left her bedside until she had opened her eyes again to him. And then, when he realised she could not love him as he did her he gave her one last kiss, a smile, and then cried, and showed her the human emotion of loss.
And then she had met a Captain. And his name was Jonathan Archer. And when first they had met he had threatened to 'knock her on her ass' simply for stating a valid point. And then a respect began to seed, and events happened that funded that respect and with it harvested a friendship. He celebrated her first whole year with the Enterprise crew, ordered a special meal to be made by Chef and then insisting that the Commander take a photograph of he and her together after she had told them a part of her family history that she told few about. And when he found out she had Pa'nar he had been deeply worried for her, and when he eventually discovered she was addicted to Trillium he became a metaphoric rock for her to lean on so she could handle herself again. And when he found out the Commander had slept with her he and the Commander had fought in the mess hall and she had had to break it up and explain herself, which made her stomach ache with a form of emotion she would never fully understand the qualities of – guilt. And he had been emotionally sick when the doctor was unsure of whether she would survive through the Salan attack or not. And they had shared countless meals together, three of which were to celebrate his birthday, one to celebrate her own. And he had kissed her on the forehead, and hugged her, laughed for her and cried and fretted and felt angry and frustrate and confused for her and because of her. And she had cried once in the privacy of her quarters when he had gone missing on a planet for a week and she felt as through she had failed him as his acting Captain.
So finally she turned her gaze back from the skies and placed it into Jonathan's starlit hazel orbs and nodded.
"I would be glad to join yourself, Malcolm and Trip this evening."
Jonathan nodded in turn and smiled gently, making no comment on her chosen language of 'glad' and 'Trip'.
Eventually he turned back into the greater warmth of the apartment, resting his feet on the carpet again, and also realising as he did so that he was no longer ashamed that he donned only boxers and socks in front of her.
"Thanks." He paused then added, "No one will stare at you there, I promise."
Porthos' blunt claws clattered against the sandstone as he followed his alpha in, and they left T'Pol standing on the balcony alone. Of tonight nothing more could be said or done.
"Goodnight," he called over his shoulder just before disappeared back into his palely lit bedroom. She nodded again, and then allowed the tips of her lips to flicker up almost unnoticed. She smiled, just.
"Goodnight."
Neither saw till the later morning the two phone messages that were waiting for them.
. . . . . . .
A pack of cards and two tall glasses of rum and coke were all that sat on the small metal table in the middle of the floor of Travis's quarters, and were all that they needed for a night-in of mild celebrations, although night had now become four o'clock in the morning.
Hoshi had been accepted by the Horizon, and Starfleet, although rather heat-broken at losing the best linguist they had ever seen cross through their doors, were willing to let her go still with her old position wide open if ever she chose to come back. (With such gifted employees contracts would often become stretched and lenient).
So poker was played and through the hours the glasses of rum and coke were betted away until both began to hiccup and jump with laughter, and they realise for all the giddiness they felt now, the hangover would loom down far worse in only a few hours.
"You know who I'm gonna miss the most?"
Hoshi sat back on the carpet with her palms pressed down as shaky support behind her. Travis simply listened to her with a constant agreeing bob of his head.
"The dog. Yeah, him. What was his name, what was it now…?"
She raised her right hand to click her fingers as she thought long and hard and almost instantly in a flash lost her balance.
For all his sweet nature and good intent Travis could not straighten himself for laughing to help her and so she was left to sprawl ungainly on her side, scowling a dark shadow across her silky brown eyes before she too caved into the temptation of laughter.
"Porthos Hoshi, his name's Porthos."
It took a great deal of effort and loss of calories for Hoshi to end up on her bum again, but she managed it and then stared distastefully at the forgotten card game in front of them on the table. They had given up on poker a while back now.
"Why don't you phone him then, if you love him that much?"
A snort of laughter shot from Hoshi's nose and she rolled her eyes in exaggeration.
"Why don't you phone him if you love him so much?"
There was silence. From across the table they blinked hazily at each other, and then after holding their breaths for a few seconds they doubled over with fresh dices of laughter.
"You got any pets on the Horizon?"
For a moment Travis had to sit and think about this query, a warm fuzz coming over his mind and numbing his memory slightly. Finally he recalled.
"Eh, yeah actually. Well we used to anyway. Paul – that's my brother – he used to be allowed to breed rats on the ship, and he gave me one once, a little white one with brown splodges. I called her Sunny. But they all died when a trader came abroad and brought in a virus in his cargo that killed them off. So no, we don't have pets on the Horizon."
She looked almost upset by this, and so he sat back and mused over something more for a brief moment before he finally brightened to the idea rolling around back and forth in his thoughts. It was a simple idea, but in his fuzzy state of mind to him it was ingenious, and there was little doubt she would feel the same.
"You want a pet?"
She raised her gaze from her empty glass – looking almost upset at that too – and offered to Travis her undivided and hazy attention.
"Can't, mum has allergies."
Travis blinked silently at her for a few moments. "Hoshi, your mum's not here…"
Suddenly her lips smiled and she sat perkier. "Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah I'd love a pet."
He nodded decisively. "Then why don't I ask my mum if we can bring a dog on board with us?"
Hoshi frowned, unaware that she had actually heard Travis right, but as he nodded eagerly, waiting for an answer, it dawned on her that she had and she began to trust her senses more.
"Really, seriously?"
He laughed in good nature and nodded once again. "Yes!"
Then she frowned deeply again. "Where would we get it?"
And Travis laughed again. "Don't tell me you've never been to the Sunshine Pound down here before, you of all people? It's only half an hour West of here. They have tonnes of dogs and cats, mostly strays and unwanted gifts."
Meekly she had to answer a quiet and confused 'no'. So Travis laughed through habit now and got up, or at least spent the next five minutes trying to whilst he was watched with fascination by a perplexed Hoshi.
"Okay," he finally balanced upright on shaky knees and panting lungs, "phone mum."
He stumbled over to the basic voice-only phone on the wall above the bed's solid oak headboard, but Hoshi made a great leap of faith across the carpet and grabbed his ankle before he could stumble forward any further.
"Wait, Travis, it's only," she squinted with great effort to read the green digit numbers on the alarm clock on the bedside table, "four-fourteen. She's not gonna be awake now is she?"
Travis had to pause and think about this one, Hoshi still clinging clumsily to his ankle as he stood and did so. Then he jutted out his bottom lip and shrugged.
"No, I guess not."
Suddenly his ankle was gone from her grasp as he let gravity seize him and throw him onto the bed. Thereafter there was a calm silence.
After a few minutes Hoshi sat up tentatively. "Travis?"
For a moment there was nothing, so she began to claw her way over to the bed where Travis's legs still hung over the edge.
"Travis?" She touched on his knee carefully and then finally got an answer, a grunted and sleepy, "Wha'?"
"Travis, are you going to bed now?"
He lay quietly, peering up at the peacefully still shadows on his ceiling, and Hoshi's restless one beside his. "Yes."
She fell back against the bed and stared at the shadows on the carpet. "Oh."
Then suddenly, just as the disappointment had begun to creep in, his gentle hands came sweeping under her arms and he lifted her onto the bed with him in one surprisingly strong sweep, her legs still crossed and his grin still in place, only more sentimentally.
He lay down on the bed sheets, still fully clothed but barely caring. Hoshi twisted her neck to peer down at him curiously. He patted the free space in front of him.
"Care to come to bed with me?"
She shook her head as if he were crazy, but still smiled as he continued to softy pat the generous amount of space left atop the mattress in front of him. Seeing he was serious, but only with innocent intent she then tentatively placed herself down beside him so they both faced outward to the door. In barely a moment she felt a great swell of warmth and comfort overcome her and she smiled contently.
"Goodnight Travis."
He was quiet for a minute, his eyes not gazing at the door but at the thicket of her glossy black hair which was extremely silky for someone of Asian origin, rather than coarse. Each shimmering strand smelt faintly of pineapple and he savoured the subtle flavour in his nostrils before smiling and closing over his deep auburn eyes to the thoughts of the events that were to perceive in only a couple of days time.
He was happy now, so with a content sigh he said "'Night Hoshi," and quickly fell to sleep with her wrapped loosely in his arms.
. . . . . . .
- 17 Hours Later -
Although the smell that drifted casually out from the two large swing doors was a musky one, it felt warm and homely as it seeped through into your nostrils, designed as such to bring you into an atmosphere that provoked nothing but a feeling of belonging and welcoming.
There were accents of pine and sweet cold beer, and fresh meat and salted chips and crisps. There were the flickering odours of one hundred different bodily scents, of one hundred pairs of feet that had treaded through one hundred other different smells, and a hundred different droplets of sweat and sprays of perfume and splashes of aftershave that all became a hybrid of this homely air. It was a busy smell for a busy place.
T'Pol blinked rapidly for a moment, her sensitive eyes slowly adjusting to the stinging smoky air and her ears almost caving to the sea of sounds that accompanied the sights and smells.
Jonathan looked at her quickly as she brought her gaze up and around the modern silvery blue complex. He could not tell what her first impression of it was but he smiled and waved her forward with him.
"Come on, I told Trip and Malcolm we'd meet them at the bar."
She turned to him slowly, finding it hard to tear her darting gaze away from a collection of holographic images on the walls of the entrance hall that were composed of abstract shape and clashing colours. She found them confusing and senseless though, so eventually moved on quickly to save herself from an early headache.
They rounded the corner on the right at the end of the azure soaked hallway and as they turned into the bar and the sounds of brawling and bantering and old country music, and drunken slurry words and snooker cues and dancing fell upon their ears, T'Pol drew back suddenly and Jonathan went a couple of steps forward without realising he had lost the following of his companion at the corner.
Her eyes narrowed in the thickening smoke and stung feverishly. Her throat tingled angrily at the back and the noise began to confuse her again. Although she would not admit it or dare show it, she fell back in fright.
Jonathan spotted Malcolm and Trip who appeared to be in the climax of an argument, and he made to approach them with a wide smile when he realised he was standing alone.
"T'Pol?"
He turned right then left then twisted his gaze over his left shoulder and saw her standing with dismay. Her slim fingertips moved fast as she brought her hands up to her temples and assured that the lengthening bowl cut of hair was still covering fully her torn and ragged ear tips.
However, nothing could be done about her distinctive olive complexion, her dull brown eyes and her sombre expression, and she appeared as Vulcan a she would with her hair cut and her ears ablaze in sight.
"T'Pol, are you alright?"
She blinked and in an instant her sharp and trained attention was back on Jonathan who stood just in front of her, and away from the couple in an ebony corner who were publicly and shamelessly courting, and who her darting eyes had been unwillingly drawn to.
"Yes."
It was not the first time she had ever lied to her Captain about her state of mind. She was not a selfish character, not liking to concern others with her own unease or ill well-being if there were other matters of theirs at hand to deal with. Not selfish she was a good liar though, much in thanks to her Vulcan heritage of a straight face and flat voice. Jonathan nodded, assuming only that she was unsure of how to conduct herself in such a place, which in part was true. With that in mind he smiled warmly again.
"They don't tend to bite much here at the 602, but if they do no one will blame you for biting back."
She cocked her brow, taking the metaphor literally, and he knew it.
"Come on. Looks like those two," he jerked his head over to the general Eastward direction of the two distant figures of Malcolm and Trip in the smoke, "are about to commit murder."
It was only then that she too spotted the feuding duo and kept her brow elevated at their violent jerking arms.
"I suspect you're right."
Jonathan's warm smile stayed a constant on his face as he cautiously laughed at what he believed to be one of T'Pol's more blatant attempts at humour. He moved forward once again and this time she with him, now ignoring the taunts her senses in this strange place had to endure.
As the Commander and the Lieutenant sat on barstools only Trip was facing them initially, Malcolm sat at a secure angle to assure firm eye contact with his companion, and to accidentally assure that his back was to them on their approach.
"I'm still not sure I understand your path of reason yet Trip, nor your grudge."
Both were still yet to sight the couple, but T'Pol and Jonathan were now in earshot and Jonathan threw T'Pol a curious look as they listened to the charismatic English accent.
"So if the NX-02 falls under Captaining of Archer again, and when position of First Officer is called, you would 'like to have a proper shot at the post' instead of gracefully giving it to the woman who has the seven years of experience because she 'nabbed it' from you in the first place?"
Malcolm had unwittingly just brought them up to speed. It was T'Pol's turn to flash Jonathan a look, and he could barely keep the quiet laughter from escaping his throat.
Trip's eyes flickered momentarily behind Malcolm's slim shoulders, readying himself to counter-argue that this was not exactly what he had meant, when suddenly he chilled and froze in utter horror. Malcolm downed a mouthful of beer, smiling sceptically as the argument seemed to cool slightly.
"You are a proud one Commander. Not as proud as your Vulcan nemesis, I'll admit, but I could see you chasing her up on that challenge yet."
"I thought it was generally well understood that pride is not something Vulcans indulge themselves with. It is considered a human indulgence, not a Vulcan one, is it not?"
The beer did not make it back to the cool steel of the bar stand. It hung frozen and mortified instead as the familiar, slightly accented voice of T'Pol's slipped over Malcolm's tense shoulder and into his ear. Her breath trickled across his beetroot lobe as she bent down slightly, arms clasped behind her back and composure still held with dignity as she spoke directly into his ear next.
"Although the wearing of umbrella sticks behind one's ear is new to me. A custom in place such as these, is it?"
Malcolm could restrain himself no longer. He grabbed the frilly green contraption from behind his glowing hot ear and turned and stood quickly.
"Sir."
He shot his modest blue eyes to Jonathan, but his greatly amused grin would offer no condolence. He was enjoying too much T'Pol's wicked sense of humour, now blaringly obvious to see and appreciate. He did add however with a twisted smirk, "Oh no Lieutenant, you should keep it in. The green sets off your eyes."
Trip too was on his feet, not daring to enjoy the mad blush across Malcolm's entire face and neck or the smile on Jonathan's face. T'Pol was watching him.
"Charles." She nodded and said nothing more. The churning in his gut grew. He daren't chide her for using his proper title.
"So, what are we all drinking to on this fine night?"
Jonathan sat at Malcolm's side and T'Pol at his. As he had promised a prolonged stare had not yet crossed her way. Not even in his proud fame as Captain of the Enterprise had Jonathan even been disturbed by curious eyes.
"Could we be looking at the new Captain of the NX-02 then?"
As Jonathan spoke in the crimson silence that followed his first question he waved over the barmaid and flashed Trip another teasing grin.
"Sorry, my new First Officer even."
As Jonathan's brow flashed up and down quickly Trip's embarrassment broke and his own paler blush diminished with a grin and a headshake, both men slowly sitting back down again. He moved his gaze to T'Pol as he addressed Jonathan.
"Believe you me Jon, if the place wasn't so damn well held down ah'd be the first to seize it. As it is though, well…"
He shrugged in whole fairness to the loyal and well serving Vulcan and raised his whiskey to her. "That's your spot T'Pol, an' it goes t' the better woman, even if she can't be with us on Wednesday."
Her brow was raised and her eyes became questioning. It was beyond her how he knew of news that she herself had only learnt about yesterday. However he had his reliable sources.
Talk had been circling Starfleet, words whispers and rumours all flying hungrily over the barely hidden truth that seared to be released below the dusty layers of gossip and idle-talk. The NX-02 was to be taken out of space dock on Wednesday and some of the old 01 crew would be aboard – predominantly Commander Charles Tucker and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed; these were truths, ones that the men boasted about.
What was most uncertain in the highway of hearsay however was where was the Captain's name in all this? Surely the already legendry Jonathan Archer would have received and no less than accepted an invitation by the respected Admiral Forrest to board the first flight of the next generation of Starships, Enterprise's daughter Columbia.
Yet he had not yet been confirmed on the rumoured list, and the lips of origin that wove these webs of gossip refused to do so.
What some found more interesting still was that his unlikely Sub Commander, the renegade and just as legendry Vulcan T'Pol, was due to fly out on Wednesday as well, just not on the same shuttle as Tucker and Reed.
She had earned her own gospel of gossip, and its main chapters focused heavily on her supposed expulsion from Earth – a story so painfully true that it had become a believed lie instead. 'Why would she be expelled from Earth?' young aspiring Crewmembers and Ensigns would whisper to each other with dark frowns. 'By her own father' others would note, with faux certainty.
And of course a romance had been inked in the Captain and the Vulcan's adjoining journal. It would have been far more suspicious and unsettling if there had not been.
It was a rumour that turned young girls' eyes misty and men's cheeks red. It was a relationship spouted from a grudging respect that had gradually evolved into an insane mutual loyalty, a most bizarre and beautiful friendship, a guarding of each of the other's precious lives, and finally a linking of unsure but strong spirits.
And now they were tentatively fingering the bright fresh edges of what was that most enigmatic of human desires – love, for each other.
What made this part of the rumour so adored by the tongues eager to discuss it was the crossover of cultures involved. To the diehard romantics they had become the new Romeo and Juliet, or Pocahontas and John Smith, or Langdon and Sophie: all divided either by family, or culture or an important mission in life that had to be dealt with before any uncertain emotions and attractions could be discussed.
The rumours were eager to move on with the relationship, but with one snag they could not. Although the world of Starfleet trainees in San Francisco all knew of this beautiful unity of humanoids well, the very centrepieces of their talks did not.
Jonathan and T'Pol knew nothing of the mutual love they shared for each other. They lived in a blissful naivety of emotions and it drove every misty-eyed girl and pink-cheeked boy crazy. And if truth be told Trip was guilty of this too.
"What can I get you two loves then?"
Jonathan turned to the hostess with a glint in his eyes T'Pol had never seen before – looking like that of a teenage rogue chasing a woman he knew he could never catch, but enjoying the chase nonetheless.
"Ruby. Management still got you tied down to this place then?"
Although the said server Ruby was not the young thing of barely early-twenties that she was seven years ago, maturity and wisdom had done nothing more than give her a fabulous emphasis of character and power, which took without asking deep respect from most, and that harmless glint from Jonathan. Ironic that she was only a petite woman in build and height.
"Captain, I am the management now."
It should not have surprised him, this stretch of authority in one still so young, as she had had the potential in her eyes for it when she was still wiping up lemonade stains off the karaoke floor, but he gave her a pleasantly surprised smile and nod anyway.
"Yes ma'am. Well I'll have a whiskey like my good friend the Sub Commander here,"
Trip raised his now empty glass with a mocking smile,
"And she'll…" He stalled on his words and gave T'Pol the silence to speak for herself.
"Simply water please."
Her ears may have been hidden, but Ruby knew the decisive tone of a Vulcan well.
She nodded and was on her toes again in an instant, her charming smile beaconing through the layers of smoke.
"Not a problem my dears. Just give me a minute."
And with that she was down the other end of the bar, conjuring into glasses what they had just ordered.
Malcolm was finally able to sit himself straight again and, with the blush trickling away slowly, face the Captain and the Vulcan. He even smiled comfortably and took another swallow from what was his second beer.
"I presume we're drinking to the first proper undisturbed run of the NX-02 then?"
Malcolm had idly listened to the rumours next to a more eager eared Trip. He was more set however on digging up what wisps of truth were buried in the words. He intended to do in subtly and respectfully too, intending to learn of T'Pol's departure from the mouth of the Vulcan herself.
As he suggested the toast Jonathan's mind jolted back to last night's early morning that he had been awake for.
There had been two phone messages waiting for him on his answering machine, ones it seemed he had missed when they had returned home to the apartment that late afternoon. He listened to them wearily in his bedroom.
"Jon, I meant to call you earlier. As you know Columbia's launching on Wednesday, taking a trip around Jupiter and back with the President and some of her new crewmembers on board. I should have asked earlier, I know, but if you could be there, well it would mean a lot to Starfleet if you could make it. Call me back or come and see me before then." There was a quick awkward silence, and then the message continued to say, "I'm sorry about T'Pol Jon. I know she was a good First Officer, and we were all ready to beg the High Command to let her stay in Starfleet, but they're not for listening to the matter right now. I'm sorry. See you later, hopefully."
The voice of the Admiral cut away and Jonathan had sat crouched on his bed with a dawning headache. T'Pol was leaving on Wednesday. How could he not say goodbye to her and fly away on Columbia instead?
The second message cut into his dilemma.
"Jonathan Archer, as it is understood by the High Command former Sub Commander T'Pol has taken up residency in apartment 187 on Wisk Street, your current place of residency. It would be appreciated if you could pass on to her the news that her departure time has changed to this coming Tuesday, at 23:00 hours Earth time."
Again the answering machine lapsed into silence. Problem solved.
With deep remorse, and only in the end because T'Pol had insisted fiercely, Jonathan agreed to Forrest's late night invitation.
He turned to Malcolm with a smile that was genuine but undeniably sad.
"Of course Lieutenant," he picked up the freshly delivered whiskey," what else would we toast to at this time?"
Malcolm followed his Captain's example, raising his beer and Trip his newly ordered bourbon. T'Pol wrapped her fingers around her tall cold glass uncertainly, seeing Jonathan toast with his crew many times before, but never understanding the custom in itself. She simply watched.
"To the successful maiden flight of Enterprise's offspring, the great Columbia NX-02. May we have some peaceful first contacts on her yet. Goodnight Enterprise. Good morning Columbia."
The three glasses were raised and brought together in mid-air and T'Pol watched the splashing of whisky, beer and bourbon on the counter. Suddenly she felt an impulse to both smile and cry. The idea confused her however, and she did neither, being left to wonder about the 'why' of the shot-lived emotional urge.
"And to T'Pol,"
She was brought roughly back to the present by Trip's familiar Southern twang.
"Who will be back with us, in time, but who we'll miss until then, honest."
She watched his eyes, the cheeky raise of his brow as he implied the 'honest', waited for him to say something else, but he simply smiled and nodded to confirm his words before the glasses were raised again.
A remorseful sadness had settled once again into Jonathan's eyes, and Malcolm too seemed moved in a sombre sense. Trip continued to smile, but pain flirted with his bright and wistful blue eyes.
"We are sorry to here ye have to leave us T'Pol."
"But we're also assuming you will be coming back to us again eventually?"
It was not something she had discussed even with Jonathan yet, but as she raised her eyes confidently she prepared to express her thoughts of last night concerning that of last afternoon.
"I do not intend to stay on Vulcan long, no. I do intent to continue working with Starfleet however."
Jonathan's eyes flashed with a sudden rush of curiosity and tentative hope.
"Although the High Command can with all right keep me on my home world for now, this can, with the same right, only be a temporary barrier on me. I intent to fight their stance and I intend also to end up back in Starfleet."
For a Vulcan she could not have said a more bizarre and uncharacteristic thing – have full intention of staying and working for and amongst humans on their home planet.
For the words to be from T'Pol however, to Jonathan they were perfect.
She feared for a moment they would raise their glasses again in practice of that most queer custom, but to her quiet relief they never. They simply smiled past their wonderment.
"Well, now that that's been clarified," Malcolm's gaze flickered to a pale lit corner of the bar, "who's up for a game of pool?"
. . . . . . .
-Three Defeats Later-
They had all lost, rather miserably. It was an undeniable act as well, as a crowd of keen eyed witnesses swarmed around them, scrutinising, cheering and laughing at their every failing move. In fact it had become something of a spectator sport by the time T'Pol had potted the last striped ball against Trip. Trip had only managed a great feat of potting two solids, and only because she had allowed him to break.
She licked her lips tentatively after placing down the cue and receiving a thundering round of applauds. Trip, mid-game, had convinced her (somehow with his Southern charm) to experience with one small sip the taste of fresh cold beer. She had not cared for it. Now the bitter taste lingered, even in the height of her victorious win and after half a glass of water.
Trip was shaking her hand and she slowly shook it back, nodding as he smiled and laughed and hung his head and shook it. 'The better woman she's become again', he had stated just as the last ball rolled neatly into the left corner pocket, and Malcolm had forced him to admit it.
That lingering tingle of the sour brown liquid human men so seemed to adore left not only a menacing aftertaste though, but had shot through T'Pol's system with the water far faster that she had been prepared for.
"Where are the restrooms?"
Jonathan's laugh quietened as he listened to the bold and painfully true comments from Ruby on the men's poor performances and ultimate, spectacular downfalls. T'Pol had crippled him first in the game.
"Oh, to the left at the entrance."
She nodded a silent thank you and left to follow his verbal map.
As he leant against the fuzzy felt of the pool table's opulent green surface Trip raised his beer to his lips and watched T'Pol take absence from the bar to the toilets. His blue eyes skimmed over the hearty crowd, noting Jonathan and Malcolm reminiscing with Ruby to his distant left and the gap in the crowd directly ahead of him where T'Pol had just made her quiet exit. He began to follow her wake.
The toilets were like a sanction, a small silver sanded island paradise that had hardly been touched by the raging smoky tempests which surrounded it.
T'Pol pressed her palms into the rosy marble of a line of sinks, just fresh from bathing her hand with icy cold water, the gurgling of the toilet still quiet in the background. She was sorely tempted to cleanse her face as well, but being not alone and instead in the company of a smiling blonde she refrained.
As the woman left though she peered hard and vainly into the white framed mirror before her.
T'Pol had been told many times before, more in her fresher youth, that she was an' exceptional looking woman' (to quote in this case from Malcolm). That she was 'blessed' with high cheekbones, a flawless complexion and simple, easy eyes. She had been told this though only ever by humans, and once in a whisper by her mother.
'Beautiful you are T'Pol, it cannot be denied without senselessly lying about it.'
However, tonight as she gazed into the bright mirror she felt as though she had been lied to. There was little of this supposed 'beauty' that she could see. What she saw was a tired Vulcan, confused of where her place was, on Vulcan or on Earth, and confused as to where her loyalties lay, with her own people or with the humans. She saw a slowly aging and wearing figure stemmed from years of labelling the terms 'rogue, renegade, wonderer and nuisance'.
For ten years before her time on Enterprise, just as she was leaving her high of youth, this torn specimen had been able to restrain herself and serve well with the High Command as a complete physical definition of what a Vulcan is and should be. She had been a role model for many, and respected by even more.
Then she met the crew of a human Starship – the High Command's fault for placing her in as a 'voice of reason and logic' – and there was where her life had changed, again, forever this time.
The damage that had been done by them was irreversible and although the High Command and her father would try their best to 'fix' her she would always be now a perfect example of what happens when an understanding occurs between Vulcans and humans.
She was still to realise though, beyond her confusion and fatigue, that this was a good thing.
The blue door to the bathroom opened up and T'Pol was with company again. A warm, dark skinned brunette peered curiously at her before realising she was the triumphant snooker player of tonight.
"You're a Vulcan?"
The woman was brutally forward, but not with disgust or fear, only interest. She startled T'Pol who was not hesitant to glance once again into the mirror. An hour of playing had meant an hour of tucking her long fringe of hair back every time she leant forward for a pot. Most of the coarse brown pelt had now ended up behind her tall ears.
"Well they were all saying it."
T'Pol blinked, filing in her lack of a vocal response.
"Sorry. You just don't get a lot of your kind round here, you know?"
T'Pol nodded and the woman left it at that, entering into a cubical to continue her business.
She took one last look in the glisteningly clean mirror. Her ear tips cast eerie shadows over themselves with the numerous scars and carved dents along the fine and damaged edges. Instinctively she lifted her fingertips to the tumbles of hair at the sides. Then she stopped. Suddenly, and looking away from her reflection and towards the door she asked herself the very blatant and very human question, 'Why bother?' and left her Vulcan appearance, for the first time since they had landed, be.
Trip stood, his eyes a casual pool of attractive blue as he gazed at his chipped and stubby nails, but every other stance of his body a decisive sculpture of nerves.
The doors to the two bathrooms were busy, a regular highway for travellers commuting constantly back and forth from the smoky bar to the toilet mirrors to quickly check in their vanity.
He watched countless women and a generous handful of men enter and exit before him as he stood to the left side at the women's entrance. Most would smile as they sauntered by, recognising the Commander either from the well-known group of faces that made up the Enterprise crew, or from tonight after his fresh defeat at the hands of a Vulcan armed with a snooker cue.
He took their daring winks and quick comments with a laugh and a one-liner back, but he still stood nervously, knowing he could not leave this place, or let her leave first, without saying what he had been meaning to say for years now.
A young woman of African skin and fine, fresh features walked out, one who had given Trip a roguish smile on the way in. She passed by with that same smile but said nothing. Trip nodded, wondering what kind of celebrity now he had just newly become.
She had taken her time but finally T'Pol left the domain of the toilet and graced the entrance corridor with her serene presence once again. Trip caught her by surprise.
"Commander?"
Trip settled upon his lips a smile so warm and comfortable that it was hard now all of a sudden to comprehend or even see how nervous he was. His charismatic accent spoken on a flowing tongue made it no easier.
"Ah thought you'd moved onto first name terms now?"
She looked almost apologetic as she gazed upon his lively eyes. "Sorry, Charles."
Trip sighed in good nature. "It's Trip, you know that. You've called me that before."
She continued to gaze silently. She knew well that beyond chiding her for what names she used, he had something else far more important to say. It did not take Vulcan intuition to spot that.
Through his calm façade some of his apprehension began to tauntingly sweat pass.
"Ah'm sorry you have t' be leavin 'us. Not permanent, ah hope?"
Her waiting gaze softened somewhat and she shook her head slightly as she answered.
"As I mentioned earlier, I will try to assure that it does not happen."
Trip nodded, his smile still there but faltering with an emerging sadness, and a slight rush of pink across his nose and ear tips.
"Well, before y go, seein' as none of us know when you'll be back, can ah ask you somethin'?"
She tipped her head to one side slightly, curiously. "Yes."
One nod and he looked her dead in the eye now, ridding himself of his silly apprehension and sweaty nerves, knowing now that he was in an adult conversation with a Vulcan no less, and what had to be said had to be said with certainty and strength, now.
"Y' know ah loved ya, right?"
There was not another question he could have asked which would have better thrown her aback. She felt her mind reel, then jerk, and her Vulcan sense of logic and reason falter as she tried to tell herself that she had indeed heard correctly.
As quick as he asked it she had the answer, but was finding it hard to bring to tongue, and as her gaze toppled to the floor, and she stood unnervingly from foot to foot, Trip began to panic.
"T'Pol?"
Finally and slowly her head dipped in a shallow nod. "Yes, I know."
Relief flooding his pounding heart suddenly he served a nod back.
"Good. But that doesn't matter now," something else was beginning to stab at his ability to speak clearly, and she sensed an unsettling bittersweet pain in his throat, "now that you're with Jon. And… hell ah aint ever seen him so happy an' taken by a lady before."
He smiled a small Southern glint of a smile as she put her head very slightly to the side in the way she was characterised to do, with her brow as high as it would go, but her nerves still slightly rattled.
"I don't understand where your assumption is coming from, but I do believe you're mistaken."
The smile spread slightly in a golden gleam from the dull lights of the corridor overhead.
"Aw come off it T'Pol, ah know ya both better than ya probably realise. He's smitten an' ah'm sure somewhere under that stubborn pride of yours you are too."
The smile, past its bittersweet complexities, seemed triumphant now.
"Smitten?"
The word rolled off foreign and awkward sounding from a tongue not accustomed to saying such 'human-like' terms. It only managed to turn Trip's smile into a tease, even if there was still some degree of hurt and angst in the very corners of it. His voice reflected the more gentle, mature side to his argument.
"Look, if you could ever have felt somethin' for me, then you'll be able t' feel somethin' for Jonathan, whether it's right now an' y' just don't realise it, or it's later when whatever happens with fate makes y' realise maybe he could be more than just yer Cap'in an' yer friend."
T'Pol's brow slowly reclined downward. Her head stayed at its slight angle, but her face muted and her eyes became quiet and restless. They scanned the outline of the Commander's taller, heavier body before landing at his feet as she uttered something of a quiet and barely emotionless statement.
"That is very unlikely Charles."
He could see that for her to deny it hurt something very much like it hurt for him to admit what he was seeing between the two. She didn't give him time to delve any deeper into the conversation though.
"I believe your 'commiseration drink' is waiting for you with Jonathan and Malcolm at the bar, and I understand that beer, as a tradition, is not to be drank warm."
He smiled once again with a small splash of warmth and a small painting of sorrow.
"You're gettin' good with these human customs, ah'll give ye that T'Pol."
She nodded and he offered her the path to the bar first with his arm extended as a gentleman.
"Just… give it some time T'Pol. It's a difficult emotion to realise sometimes."
Her brow rose and fell in quick succession before she once again, with no better vocal response for him, nodded.
He was not as dense with the details of delicate emotions as many may have thoughts, and with the couple of Captain and Sub Commander he was almost confidence enough to bet with Malcolm on his instincts that they, as the rumours boasted, had a strong, genuine mutual attraction. With the Englishman tonight he considered that he might even dare to put down a wager. His smile, draining slowly of any lingering sorrow, became a secrete tease to himself once again.
. . . . . . .
The sky was tinged with a bitter grey, which hung over and spoilt the backdrop of a rolling misty navy night. The moon, if indeed one even existed tonight, sulked away in the background of ebony clouds and not even a shy silvery glow could be seen that night.
Jonathan looked up miserably at the stony Compound they were now just entering. Few were present and around at this hour, and no longer were there the sounds of brushing robes and scraping sandals. The place, like its occupants emotions, was dead.
Reception was closed and the sickly yellow lights of the daytime had been dulled to a meagre foggy glow. T'Pol's keen sight saw no problems in this, but Jonathan was forced to squint painfully and follow the route by ear with T'Pol's footsteps just ahead of him.
They remained on the ground floor this time and headed for the back, the South Wing.
Of the four wings that owed their names to the four points of an Earth's compass the South was both the most impressive in size and the most used. It was the Vulcan's own mini space dock, holding shuttlepods and Starships small enough to be grounded.
Part of the wing was inside, set in marble and onyx, but the gist of it sat forever outside.
T'Pol and Jonathan made their way through the indoor marble and onyx backdrop, but not yet out into the moody night air.
They were being waited upon.
"Captain Archer. Again you arrive when your presence is not required. It is a late hour for a human, I would have expected you to be in bed instead."
Jonathan took a quick glance at his digital watch, initially ignoring Soval. It flashed on and off in a dull yellow glow the new time of 22:44. He then clamped his gaze onto Soval, without the smile this time.
"If you insist on this petty revenge then at least don't deny me the privilege of saying goodbye to her first."
At his side T'Pol was silent. Soval's eyes remained dull and unmoved.
"This way T'Pol. A shuttlepod up to the Phae is waiting."
Immediately she stiffened, and her eyes became dangerously sceptic.
"I am no criminal Soval, why am I being boarded on the Phae?"
Soval had already turned towards the exit, double doors on the far wall in front of them. Now Jonathan was silent, but tense.
"You heard the verdict T'Pol, third degree mutiny and disregard of your superiors. In the eyes of that session and our laws you are a criminal."
Jonathan received a cold look from the Ambassador, but one tainted with a thick air of smug triumph.
"Besides, the NX-02 Columbia launches tomorrow, and so we had to cancel all transport in the afternoon, including the shuttle you were originally meant to board."
He turned again and began to walk, not extending another invitation for them to follow this time.
If ever there was a time T'Pol had tasted hatred on her own tongue, it was now.
A cold breeze swept over the grounds of the Compound outside. Although she did not flinch in it T'Pol felt the unsettling in her stomach grow as it sliced over the patches of her skin that were bare and vulnerable. Jonathan, walking closely beside her, felt a wavering sickness emit from her and so he turned to her in silence. She said nothing, looked only forward and kept herself composed. He turned front again. He too felt sick.
As they continued to tread over the grounds of what appeared to be nothing more than acres of concrete and hangers, always a generous distance behind Soval, the sulky black clouds began to shift restlessly on a bitter breeze and finally the moon showed itself.
Although its light was weak and failing, finally Jonathan was given a better firsthand sight of what else was around them. A gnawing shiver raced down his spine. The South Wing was not deserted, as the empty chilled air had had him believed not seconds before. Soval, T'Pol and himself were hardly the only ones on the field, but instead lines of orderly Vulcans crossed over and through the meadows of concrete with them.
They too were silent as before in the afternoon, but this silence stirred something troubling inside Jonathan. This silence seemed to leak into the air, hush the very scatterings of grass and trees that were around them, mute the wildlife that flew across the air, and buried under the ground. It was as if they were inside, and being hoaxed upon by a giant optical illusion.
"Perhaps I should explain to you Captain, what is going on here."
They could not see his face but it was evidently laced with satisfaction.
Jonathan took yet a better look around as he tried best not to harvest a brood of anger with Soval's voice. To their right passed a line of Vulcans, following one by one in strict, orderly single file. To the front and the back of the line of around ten also stood couples of paired off Vulcans, marching side by side.
He had to frown in the dark for a moment as the light of the moon continued to fade and shimmer with the rolling clouds. He thought perhaps the silvery glow was simply toying with his sight even as he watched the bodies pass. But no, what he saw was indeed there. The two sets of coupled Vulcans were all heavily armed and heavily shielded. Each carried their own basic stun-and-kill phase pistol and donned tightly plasma proof vests.
"I will apologise and confess," Soval's voice cut though his chilled bemusement, "that the Compound does become something of a military operation at night. We work with your army and your government to help control such international issues as illegal outer world immigrants, and supposed alien threats, as well as the few of our own race who manage to step out of line, namely the V'tosh ka'tur."
For a third painful time Jonathan took a better still look at the passing line. They were not all Vulcan. In fact only one was, who walked at the front; a weakly built female who to Jonathan looked no older than seventeen.
"The Phae is a transporter for such criminals, but others who have passed the boundaries of the law in other degrees and fashions are entitled to board on it as well."
Soval seemed to enjoy himself to every quiet extreme. He never once turned to glance upon T'Pol but it was all too easy to imagine the spark of victory trumpeting in his eyes now. In less than fifteen minutes she would no longer be the ultimate sore of his life, the bulging pain in his career, the sole individual who, aided by a Starship of humans, had demanded his constant watch like an infant for three years short of a decade now. Soon she would be back in the capable and stern hands of her father, and she would be controlled and disciplined once again.
Soval stopped their moonlight stroll in front of two armed Vulcan guards whose eyes could be seen glinting dully in the murky darkness.
"Ambassador," they chirmed together, their free hands rising to perform the traditional Vulcan greet. Soval briefly concurred. Then he nodded to T'Pol. Understanding they advanced.
Jonathan's eyes briefly widened as he realised that in a rush this was to be the moment when T'Pol would leave him. The last he may see of her for a long, long time…
He swiftly stood in front of her, entirely shadowing her from the approaching armed couple. Whether his sharp human tongue or blunt white fists had to be drawn to do it, before another pair of hands dared to touch her he would say his goodbye.
"T'Pol…"
The guards stopped short of Jonathan, eager to follow out their orders but unsure of how to handle the human. One ill-placed move on a man as important as this would mean a bombardment of greedy human paparazzi, and it was hardly what the Vulcans needed right now.
Soval sharply raised a hand to silence their problem solving thoughts. They were to do nothing until he uttered the word for it. He was aware that goodbyes for humans were often painful and difficult. He had no disgruntlement for allowing Jonathan this harrowing moment.
The former glorious and proud Captain put up his hands to rest on her slim shoulders. Ever unsure of physical contact, this time the once notoriously stubborn and loyal Sub Commander only glanced at his palms' positions and then into his shimmering eyes.
"You were good to me T'Pol, as a Sub Commander who always told me what I didn't want to hear," he smiled weakly, "and as the last friend I ever thought I'd make. I might still want to knock you on your ass sometimes," she raised a brow but understood the humour implied, "but I wouldn't have swapped you on that bridge for anyone. Not then, and not now. I'll miss you, but I sure as hell know I'll see you again on Columbia, if you're still willing to come back as my First Officer. Okay?"
She nodded silently and he smiled with heart-breaking grace.
"Here."
He suddenly dropped his arms and began to dig about his worn brown jean pocket. His hand resurfaced bearing two pieces of paper and a small metallic object.
"I don't know how well you understand sentimentality in objects, but I want you to have these."
She had become curious and confused. Firstly he handed her the paper, which turned out to be photographs. She held them in front of her carefully, her fingers holding tentatively onto the edges so as not to smudge the images.
She remembered well the times when both pictures had been taken, and looked upon them almost fondly.
The first was of herself, Jonathan and Trip on one of Trip's birthdays. For any human to gaze at it, it would be a most hilarious of scenarios to imagine. Malcolm had dashed into the Captain's dining room that day when he had heard the commotions erupting from on the bridge. The men had spoilt themselves with bourbon, leaving T'Pol to watch their drunken antics with utter confusion, unsure of whether to be secretly horrified or amused. When they had lost his birthday cake to her lap she had been neither, instead opting to leave with traces of anger sparking in her eyes. When Jonathan had realised however that Malcolm had come and gone and then come again armed with a camera he had done perhaps the boldest and stupidest thing in his career yet and grabbed her around the waist, holding her back with Trip at their feet to allow one of the most fantastic photographs in history to be taken.
She could hear Jonathan laughing as she gazed upon the picture with the memories stirring in both their minds.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist."
She placed that picture behind the other, and gazed upon the second shot. Its story was much less hectic. Hoshi had been composing a 'photo album', as she had explained the idea to T'Pol once, to send back to Starfleet. She had managed to gather shots of all the eighty-three crewmembers individually, including also Porthos and some of Phlox's more appealing looking creatures. Then she had gone asking for group shots, her best yet being a picture taken unknown to Trip and Malcolm of the duo arguing down in Engineering. What she had requested to finish off her album was a picture of the Captain and his First Officer in the centre of the bridge, just before the chair. And so that is what she had gotten and that was what T'Pol was gazing at now.
"She's quite the camerawoman, Hoshi."
T'Pol nodded slightly, before she carefully tucked the pictures into the belt of her dull sandy-brown jumpsuit. "Thank you."
He smiled before extending his hand out to offer her the object she had sighted with the photos before. "Here, take this too."
He took her hand for her and pressed what it was into her palm, wrapping her fingers tightly around it for her. As he let go her fingers fanned out again and she looked upon what she had been given with swelling emotion.
"I got it after I'd been to the vets with Porthos."
To the best of her knowledge this was what was called a 'ring'. For its size it was heavy and she guessed correctly that it was composed of solid, flawless silver. It had human lettering engraved into its inner ring. She read it with a knot in her stomach.
'Columbia and I will be waiting for you.'
He didn't give her time to question his gift though before he stepped forward again and very carefully bent down to kiss her tentatively on the forehead. His breath shuddered then and suddenly he wrapped his arms around her, threatening never to let go.
How likely it was that she would be coming back in his lifetime now seemed weaker and weaker a possibility against the odds. With this, as a cruel twist of irony, he was finally beginning to realise the true immensity of his feelings for her, and saying 'friend' earlier could have been the biggest understatement he had ever announced. He felt himself breaking, and held himself together only enough to finish saying his goodbye.
T'Pol for a moment was unsure of how to reply. She remembered well him embracing her as such back in Starfleet medical what seemed like a decade ago now. Back then the appropriate response had been lost on her, and she had been forced to prompt him to let her go.
Now it was the very last thing she dared to do. Now she moved her own arms around his back and as he felt her do so, he held on tighter.
His shuddering breath was echoed in her hair, his nose and mouth buried there as he slowly smiled the saddest smile that could ever be painted upon such a noble face as his.
One side of her own face was cradled in his warm chest and she felt she could have stayed there for the night and day to follow. In fact it was all she wanted to do now. She felt in a moment she was about to lose something more precious than any teaching or High Command position could ever be. She could barely comprehend the notion, but it was about to happen.
Soval waved to the anticipating guards, finding now as good a time as any to intercept. They obeyed without a sound.
Suddenly there was a hand upon Jonathan's shoulder and it began to tear him away just as another seized T'Pol's forearm. Like pulled away a plaster the two were ripped apart, Jonathan shoved to one side as T'Pol's arms were forced behind her back and held there.
"Wait! No please, wait!"
Jonathan lunged forward but it was a highly anticipated move and so he was intercepted by the guard who was not holding T'Pol's arms painfully behind her back, where she still clung onto the ring desperately. A gun was held up as a barrier and the unmoved Vulcan guard held down his ground before Jonathan.
T'Pol twisted, the pain in her shoulders awful from how sharply she was being restrained. Although the guard was stern with her she jerked herself enough that she was able to turn and face Jonathan for one last time.
Her heart tore. She felt almost winded as she watched his hopeless face disappear into the thick darkness. Emotions came crashing down upon her like a guillotine to severe her detached soul and set it alight with that most awful of human expressions – angst.
No longer did she feel confident enough to believe even slightly that she would see Jonathan again, unless she fought now to.
The guard frowned finding T'Pol's squirming resistance more difficult to handle than he had first suspected. Holding her skinny wrists with one large hand he reached for cuffs, and that was when she made her desperate move.
Her arms broke free as she thrust them down hard, breaking his hold with pain, fending him off long enough she hoped so that she could begin to run. As she took off on a quick-footed sprint she unwittingly threw the ring onto her left forefinger.
Jonathan watched a commotion of shadows in the darkness, his heart thundering as he heard shouts of protest, pain and saw jerky movements.
Soval could see before him what was happening and his eyes widened then scolded as he watched T'Pol suddenly burst from the sightless dark. It was Jonathan's turn to widen his eyes, but in soaring hope that they would at least be able to finish the goodbye.
They never did.
T'Pol's guard had composed himself once again. Shaking the throbbing heat from his wrists he reached for the side of his belt and pulled free the gun he had holstered. He was a wielder skilful enough to make Malcolm jealous. His aim, many had commented, was deadly.
A lashing of green light sliced through the darkness with vengeful accuracy, hitting its target straight and true, dead between T'Pol's shoulder blades. She fell without a sound.
"No!"
Soval's face dropped to utter unshakable calmness. He looked down at T'Pol before back up to Jonathan, who was only just being restrained by the other guard.
"She will be fine Captain, she was only stunned."
Jonathan wanted to kill him. There was now no mute in his raging tempest of hatred and anger. He just wanted the smug Vulcan dead.
For a second time he had to suffer the torment of watching T'Pol disappear into the night, this time over the guards shoulder.
"I hope you are able to understand Captain," Soval took a few strides forward, ending up before Jonathan's devastated face, "that it is highly unlikely you will ever see her again."
On that one last hike of triumph Soval left, and the guard finally dropped his hold on Jonathan.
He had just become a man who had loved and lost, but who had not known that he had loved until he had lost.